Asus 13.3" UL30A CULV Notebook Review
We've already determined that the performance of Asus' UL30 is great for its price, but what about the battery life? One of the big selling factors of CULV-based thin-and-light/ultraportable notebooks is stellar battery life. Indeed, Asus packs a larger-than-usual 8-cell battery into this machine, and it claims to offer up to 12 full hours of usage. We've questioned the legitimacy of these claims from PC makers before, as there's no indication of how exactly Asus settled on this admittedly huge number.
Asus UL30 With Battery; Click To Enlarge
As you can see in the graph above, the UL30 mustered "just" 4 hours and 53 minutes before calling it a day. That's exceptional when you consider that display brightness was nearly maxed and Wi-Fi was on, but it's not even close to the 12 hours Asus claims that you'll see. Even if you dimmed the screen as far as you could and disabled Wi-Fi, we can't imagine this machine ever lasting the full 12 hours. Still, 293 minutes of runtime isn't anything to scoff at, as only a few netbooks managed to best that figure.
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Asus UL30 With Battery; Click To Enlarge
