This pre-production notebook was shipped to us in a professional looking silver lockable briefcase. We were expecting to see top secret government papers rather than a slimline ultra low voltage (ULV) notebook. Undoubtedly one of the most attractive notebooks to grace our office to date, the white housing is stylish and compliments the 12in screen and thin form factor very well.

Unfortunately the unit does have some fundamental design issues, most noticeably the lack of any optical drive, although not uncommon for a single spindle notebook, it’s definitely a drawback for anyone wanting to run or install software or hardware drivers on the go.

Benchmarking presented several problems, this unit rejected successful testing of several of our staple benchmarks. Luckily, we were able to return results for our newly appointed PCmark04, which offers both component level and overall hardware configuration testing. An overall 1,817 PCmarks reflected the focus on portability, at the cost of power, LG’s higher clocked 1.6GHz Centrino managing 1,300 more marks overall - a noticeable performance gain.

Running it through its paces in the 3D portion of our testing, we met another snag, the S5N managed just over 2,000 marks in the default 1,024x768 resolution, making this a less than suitable notebook for 3D applications such as gaming or high requirement video playback. Graphics are powered by the Intel 855 GM internal GFX.

However it’s not all doom and gloom. This ‘book is the epitome of style and looks, encompassing the usual swag of connectivity options, with extreme portability to boot. Pop this one under your arm, in a briefcase or backpack and work anywhere, the 12.1in XGS display reduces the notebook’s footprint size to a mere 275 x 233mm.

ASUS is offering a comprehensive two-year international warranty on this product, ideal for the frequent jetsetter.
The price isn’t unreasonable for a brand name notebook of this size, although the power users may want to look elsewhere for something in two spindles, offering optical drives and more in the speed department. Perfect for students and basic office usage, this would be an asset to road warriors and anyone else on the go.