I often hear comments from friends and forum users stating that a laptop with a 12" screen is too small for them either because the screen resolution is too fine or that the keyboard is too cramped. To those people I say this: listen up! Today we are reviewing the new Asus W7J with as 13.3" screen. While it looks and feels like a 12" laptop, it's slightly bigger to make your daily work a bit easier on your fingers and eyes.

Asus has accomplished the seemingly impossible: they've made a 13.3" laptop that feels like a portable 12" laptop, but uncompromising in features like a larger 15.4" unit. This is definitely a notebook road warriors, business people, and mobile students users will want to look at closely.

Features

The portability of the W7J is the clear draw for this laptop. By using new LCD technology, Asus has managed to slim down the thickness of the LCD thus liberating some weight and making a smaller package. The result is a 13.3' laptop just over 4 pounds!

Besides being light, the W7J has a GeForce Go 7400 integrated video processor which makes it ideal for multimedia and some occasional gaming. Like other Asus laptops, the W7J comes with Asus' superb Splendid Video and Power4Gear power profiles. There is also an integrated webcam and microphone for those of you looking to video conference.

There are more details, but we will take a closer look at them later in this review.

Specifications

Compared to the W5F we reviewed in April, the W7J has improvements in the quantity of RAM (1GB vs. 512MB) and a faster CPU (1.833 GHz vs. 1.66 GHz). This should help put the W7J ahead of the W5F in our benchmarks. With the 1GB of RAM and the decent video, this laptop has a very good chance at running Windows Vista with the 3D accelerated Aero interface.