Micro Express AL5100 review: All-purpose powerhouse - edwardshimpat

If you were to judge the Micro Express AL5100 by its elegantly plain, silver-and-black shell, you mightiness not judge what a powerhouse arrangement it is. But the state-of-the-art components hidden to a lower place its unassuming facade offers palatial performance.

Sieve elements pop onto the screen swiftly, the unit boots like lightning, and 1080p video is smooth equally silk. The system costs $1200, but if you have a need for stealthy speed, this laptop will repay your investment.

Probably the just about striking feature of the AL5100 is its display: You don't see galore 15.6-column inch displays with 1920 aside 1080 resolution. In point of fact, that resolution can induce menu and icon text a little rugged to read. Just if you switch the settings in Manipulate Panel/Appearance and Personalization/Showing to 125%, it'll be alright even for older eyes.

Performance

Though the AL5100's GPU garnered a nice make, it fizzled slightly at 1920 aside 1080 resolution and treble operating room extremist-high contingent. But all of the games in our try entourage played just fine at resolutions up to 1366 past 768.

Turning to more general performance, the AL5100 recorded a fulgurous score of 202 on our WorldBench 7 test cortege.

The core components that helped deliver that excellent WorldBench 7 score are an Intel Core i7-3840QM CPU, 16GB of DDR3 1600 Cram, an Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics card, and a very fast 240GB Intel solid-state thrust. The only component that lags behind the swerve is the Videodisc-RW burner. Blu-ray would be a everlasting match for the 1080 video display, and its absence present is a bit of a puzzle, setting aside the nerve impulse to achieve a somewhat lower price or a slimly higher margin of profit. To see movies on this unit of measurement, you'll have to rip them to the internal drive or use an extraneous drive. If you really crave Blu-ray, you can barter in a 2X Blu-ray combo ram down for $75 excess. The laptop computer's gaming performance was quite good; our test model posted an overall gaming grievance of 97.

Storage performance impressed us, too, to be sure due in part to the Intel 240GB SSD. It's a measure of how far SSD prices have come down that we now see SSDs of reasonably large capacity in the main-purpose laptops priced at under $1200.

Usability

The keyboard on the AL5100 has a very nice feel. Its layout is commodious, though I would have best-loved to have the keypad distributed a bit more from the main keys. The touchpad's rough texture is all that distinguishes it from the pillow of the keyboard deck. You may like this style decision; I prefer smooth and recessed. The buttons answer audibly and smoothly, and a biometric fingerprint reader sits between them.

Ports and connectivity are topmost-notch on the AL5100. You get two USB 3.0 ports on the left side) and two USB 2.0 ports connected the right side of meat, along with legacy VGA, HDMI telecasting output, and headphone and mike jacks. A separate mic next to the webcam lets you forgo enjoyment of a headset for sound/television chat. Situated lower than wonted on the bottom front of the unit is an SD Card proofreader that you can easily overlook happening first of all inspection. Other features admit gigabit ethernet, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 3.0.

The AL5100: right side view.

Shelling life

Despite carrying a clean-size, 7800mAh battery, the AL5100 ran for only some 4 hours, 41 transactions—considerably less time than or s admittedly less-powerful rivals managed. Still, precondition the high-solvent projection screen, the quad-burden processor, and the overall speed of the laptop computer's components, delivering almost coast-to-coast battery life is acceptable. The back out-mounted battery extends significantly below the rear of the laptop to give the AL5100 a nice forrad rake that facilitates comfortable typing.

Little Express provisioned the AL5100 with 64-routine Windows 7 Home Premium, but little in the way of third-company software. The only applications on script are those in the CyberLink Media Suite, which leverages the DVD drive. The petit mal epilepsy of a restore zone is understandable on a 240GB SSD, though having the option would feature been nice.

On a assorted tack, audio through the speakers sounds clear enough, though there's nary subwoofer to provide bass and response is heavy skewed to the midrange. The 2 megapixel CMOS webcam provides a very clear, and surprisingly smooth picture.

The AL5100 features a Trustworthy Platform Module, though information technology was disabled in the BIOS on our test building block. Corporate shops will appreciate that, the aforementioned biometrics, and the two-year warranty with a $99 option for a tierce year.

Tail line

The AL5100 is extremely fast, has a great display with 1080p resolution, and is progressive (aside from lacking Blu-ray). The hoagy-5 hour bombardment life may be a concern for some prospective buyers; just given the performance level, it's understandable. The weight of 5.5 pounds isn't too onerous for a 15.6-inch laptop, either, though it will sure enough seem a spot goodish compared to an Ultrabook. If you need to follow up and computing in a hurry, and you don't want to waste time while you're at the keyboard, this is a a must-shop laptop computer.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/461474/micro-express-al5100-review-all-purpose-powerhouse.html

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