Ultraportables in the 3-pound-and-under range that run a full-blown operating system (Windows, Linux, or Mac) have become commonplace—around 30 have already hit the U.S. market alone. ASUS has one for every budget, ranging from the über-affordable EeePC 900 to the glamorous U1F. If you thought the U1F was expensive at a street price of $2,100, wait until you take a look at its successor—the ASUS U2E-A2B. Its internal optical drive and a 32GB SSD push the price up into the luxury range. The leather fixtures and 2.7-pound frame befit the $2,499 (list) you'd pay for this laptop, but I'm still not completely convinced that it merits its high price.

The leather-clad lid and palm rests are aesthetic enhancements that only ASUS has pulled off. The U2E is as sexy as the Sony VAIO VGN-TZ150N and its carbon-fiber ensemble, though it doesn't come close to the Apple MacBook Air's thin and ultra-sleek design. The U2E keeps its frame to 2.7 pounds by incorporating an 11-inch widescreen and a paltry 27-Wh (three-cell) battery. The Sony TZ has a similar footprint and weight but includes a bigger (63-Wh) battery. The U2E also bundles in an additional 87-Wh battery that you can swap with the smaller one. The larger battery gives it superb battery life but brings the weight up to 3.4 pounds. ASUS should have been able to hit the lighter of the two weights without compromising battery life, as did the Fujitsu LifeBook P8010, a 2.8-pound ultraportable with a 63-Wh battery.

A year ago, I would've been satisfied with a 92 percent keyboard on a sub-3-pound ultraportable. But with the advance of technology and the emergence of full-size keyboards on featherweights such as the Apple Air, the Lenovo ThinkPad X300, and the Toshiba Portégé R500 (SSD), anything smaller than full size is no longer going to cut it. I dinged the Fujitsu P8010 for its 91 percent keyboard, and the U2E shares the same fate.

The 11-inch widescreen is backlit by a series of energy-saving LEDs. There are ultraportables on the market that have bigger screens, like the Panasonic Toughbook CF-W5 (12-inch) and the Fujitsu P8010 (12-inch). Still, the U2E's screen is large enough for business road warriors, as well as homebodies who want to take in a flick and edit photos. It's exactly the same screen and resolution (1,366-by-768) as those found on the Sony TZ150N and the Lenovo IdeaPad U110.

Unlike its predecessor, the U2E has something that's hard to pull off with a 2.7-pound frame—a built-in dual-layer DVD burner. It places the U2E on the same playing field as the Sony TZ150N, the Fujitsu P8010, and the Toshiba Portégé R500, sub-3-pound ultraportables with optical drives. To its credit, the U2E is the only one in this group that has an HDMI port—in fact, it's unheard of on a laptop of this size. The HDMI port is extremely handy for driving high-quality video to a bigger, external display.

This particular model also has a 32GB SSD drive. Solid-state drives are not ideal if you want a lot of storage capacity, but they are more durable and arguably faster than spinning hard drives. Still, I think ASUS should have made a spinning drive an option for those who don't want to pay the premium on an SSD.

Three USB ports are impressive in a sub-3-pound system, although the 4-in-1 card reader (SD, SM, MS, MS Pro), VGA-out, and Ethernet port are what you'd expect in an ultraportable this size. ASUS is one of the few vendors that doesn't support internal cellular modems such as EV-DO or HSDPA, so it isn't all that surprising that the U2E is not "mobile broadband ready." Alternatively, you can purchase an ExpressCard cellular modem for the U2E's built-in ExpressCard slot or go with a laptop like the Lenovo ThinkPad X300, the Sony VGN-TZ150N, or the Editors' Choice Sony VAIO VGN-SZ791N.

When a manufacturer breaks the 3-pound barrier, the inverse relationship between processor type and battery life becomes more of a factor. Because of its size, the U2E had two basic choices for processor types—an Intel low-voltage (LV) or an ultra-low-voltage (ULV) processor. LV processors like the ones on the Lenovo U110 and the Apple Air have more raw horsepower, but battery life takes a hit. The 1.06-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7500 isn't as fast as an LV processor, and it's obvious that ASUS chose battery life over speed. The U2E's SYSmark 2007 Preview Overall score of 59 was the lowest in the 3-pound weight class. Even with 2.5GB of RAM and a 32GB SSD drive (with fast transfer speeds), its scores on tests like Photoshop CS2 (1:15), CineBench R10 (2,057), and encoding video (2:37) ranked among the worst.

Battery life with the 87-Wh battery, however, was phenomenal at 5 hours 28 minutes on MobileMark 2007. You'll need the bigger battery, too, because the three-cell battery produced an uninspiring 1 hour 27 minutes.

One benefit of going with a low-powered processor is saving money on your electricity bills. Using a P3 International Kill-A-Watt meter, the U2E consumed only 13 watts in idle mode, a single watt below the Energy Star's maximum threshold. Although it passes these requirements with flying colors, the U2E is not yet certified by Energy Star 4.0 or any flavor of EPEAT. It's RoHS-compliant, however, meaning that ASUS meets the requirements for eliminating wastes and hazardous materials from production. The Fujitsu LifeBook P8010 and the Toshiba Portégé R500 (SSD) are PC Magazine GreenTech-approved products because they meet all of these criteria.

The ASUS U2E-A2B is one of the best-looking sub-3-pound ultraportables. Its leather accents, built-in optical drive, and HDMI port are rarities in this category. What it couldn't accomplish, however, was finding a way to fit in a full-size keyboard and balance out speed with battery life. Both the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 have this balance, as does the Sony VGN-SZ791N (albeit at 4 pounds, not 3). If the U2E were a little cheaper, some of these shortcomings could be overlooked, but at $2,499, for all its style, it comes across as underpowered and overpriced.

Check out the ASUS U2E-A2B's test scores.

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