17. Sound Quality

The audio quality of the A7J is the best in our test group. The tone from the four speakers is clean and rich, even at high volume levels. But there's no special volume control on the notebook, so sound levels must be managed using the Windows volume control. The headphone output can be switched to SPDIF. As with the Acer 5672 WLMi, the Asus includes a sound mixing application with numerous audio effects and a karaoke function. The analog output from the A7J system supports 2-channel sound; the digital output supports 5.1-channel sound. So you can select and activate EAX 2 in the Spellforce 2 sound menu.

Recovery CD: Slow To Complete, Not Free Of Errors

Asus includes a package of three CDs for system recovery and repair. Two CDs contain an image of the complete system, and the third driver contains all necessary drivers.

To restore the system, it's necessary to insert each of the three CDs in succession in response to software prompts. An unhealthy dose of sitting and waiting is part of this process, as it takes nearly two hours before the system is completely restored. On the other hand, users need only insert the CDs in response to on-screen prompts - the software literally handles everything else. It would have been nice to have a progress bar that tells whether the system is actually doing the restore.

Recovery is an "all-or-nothing" proposition. Because the contents of the two operating system CDs are compressed and no front end is available to deal with compressed code, it's impossible to install only whatever missing or suspect parts you need. We also stumbled on another problem following a system restore, as we attempted to use the TV tuner card. We could view an unstable picture, but could no longer hear any sound, nor could we play back DVDs inside Windows MCE. After various trial and error experiments, we determined that you must manually install and activate the Asus DVD playback software following a restore, in order to regain the unit's complete range of functions and capabilities.

From our perspective, the recovery process could use substantial improvement, and Asus also needs to integrate the DVD player software into this process.