Instant launch buttons and system status indicators

There are two groups of indicators of the system’s status. One group is placed on the right, next to the instant launch buttons, and consists of a hard disk drive activity LED, and Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock indicators. They are highlighted with orange like the power-on button. The second group is located on the left of the front panel, and this is very handy since the LEDs can be seen both when the notebook’s lid is opened or closed. This group consists of a power indicator (alight when power is attached), a battery charge indicator, an incoming mail indicator (alight when you’ve received new e-mail messages), and a WLAN connection indicator (it lights up when the integrated adapter sends or receives data packets).

The second group of system status indicators

Also on the left of the notebook’s top, there appear status messages related to CD playback and TV watching (showing the number of the reproduced track and the number of the TV channel), but only if you’ve installed ASUS Mobile Theater v.1.0 (see below).

The ASUS W1B00Na’s full-size keyboard is made of opaque black plastic; the functional keys are labeled in bright orange (press and hold [Fn] to use them). The keyboard layout is traditional: the block of arrow keys are separate from the main keyboard; the Page Up, Page Down, Home and End keys form a vertical column on the right; there is a numeric pad as well as two Windows keys available. The Insert, Delete, Print Screen and Pause keys are in the top row, next to the functional keys, and have a reduced size. The keyboard is overall handy and comfortable.

The touchpad with a rather slippery surface is accompanied with two buttons (with a fast response) that replace the mouse’s left and right buttons, but regrettably it doesn’t have an additional scroll button.

On the front panel, besides the two stereo-speakers, there are:

• IrDA port;
• RCA audio/video input;
• A combined headphones/SPDIF input;
• Mic-in input;
• Combo-connector: an audio-input coupled with a headphones output with 3D sound imitation (3D phone);
• Consumer infrared port works with the enclosed remote control in the multimedia ASUS Mobile Theater v.1.0 application. Other applications are not supported.

You may find the placement of the audio/video ports inconvenient at first, but you’ll soon realize that they are quite easy to use.