ASUS L5GA Notebook Review - Video and Display Quality
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The 2D visual quality of the Mobility RADEON 9600 Pro and the 15" LCD was very crisp and bright at its default resolution of 1400x1200 with a 32 bit color depth. While the resolution did seem a little high, remember you generally sit closer to a laptop screen than you usually do with a desktop. I did not have any problems with it but I know several people who would need to wear their glasses while using the laptop at this resolution. As with virtually all screens the resolution can be adjusted away from its default. But, as is the nature of LCDs, running with any settings other than its native resolution caused the desktop image to not be as sharp. The brightness and viewability of the screen were great at all but the most extreme angles. DVD playback was good, better than most portable DVD players I've seen. The game play was excellent. I noticed no ghosting, and the black levels were good. Based on its performance I would absolutely recommend the L5GA for document editing (the 1400x1200 resolution is a huge landscape to work on), playing games, or watching DVDs.
Sound Quality and Performance
The sound solution utilized by the ASUS L5GA is the Realtek ALC650. The ALC650 is an AC'97 2.2 Audio CODEC with 18-bit Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) and 20-bit Digital to Analog Converter (DAC). The ALC650 is high performance CODEC with a signal to noise ratio rated at greater than 90 decibels.
| L5GA audio | 41.05 | 6.49% |
| L5GA no-audio | 43.90 | |
I used Novalogic's Commanche4 benchmark to estimate the ALC650's CPU utilization. The results were respectable at 6.49 percent. This is lower than most motherboard's integrated audio solutions.
ASUS made a good design decision going with the Realtek ALC650. The sound quality during DVD playback, game playing, and listen to MP3s or CDs was more than adequate using external speakers or headphones. The onboard speakers are OK for a laptop, but I'd only use them if neither a an external speaker setup or headphones were available. The connectivity options are great. Through the four programmable analog plugs virtually ever function you could want from a sound card is available. The SPDIF out was a unexpected added bonus through which you could connect to a 5.1 speakers or your home stereo.
Optical Drive
The L5GA I received for review was equipped with the Matshita (Panasonic) UJDA 750 optical drive. The UJDA 750 is rated as a 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-RW, 24X CD-R, and 8X DVD-ROM. The overall speed ratings seem to be about half of what you find in a decent optical drive for your desktop. Nero did recognize the drive with 24x CD-RW ability as well as 24x CD-R. However, I did find some interesting results with the CD and DVD read.
CD-ROM performance looks like it meets its specified stats all though its top speed only reached 20.37x -- a little less than expected. CPU usage results are rather mediocre with usage going to 9 percent at 8x speed. Burst rate was also a little low at 15 megabytes per second versus 19 or 20 megabytes per second on desktop drives.
The DVD-ROM functionality did not fair quite as well as the CD-ROM read. CPU usage went as high as 94 percent and the high speed was 4x. That's half of its rated 8x!
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