The Asus K52F is the first Core i3-powered laptop to come to our test labs and is by far a much better performer than mainstream laptops, which run on Core 2 Duo processors. It impresses us as to how this much processing power can be availed in a sub-40K price bracket. Let’s see what makes this laptop special and whether the price point can compel somebody to buy it.



Processor
The Core i3 processor belongs to Intel’s new lineup of Core processors. Code named Arrandale, the Core i3 is the entry-level processor—Core i5 and Core i7 are the mainstream and high-end ones respectively. The Core i3 variants are intended to replace the old mainstream Pentium Dual Cores and the Core 2 Duos. Based on a 32nm manufacturing process, one of the most striking features of the Core i3 is the use of Hyper-Threading technology (HT).

On a single die, there are two independent cores running at the same frequency and, due to HT, each core runs two threads. So, two cores running two threads each, gives the throughput of four simultaneous threads at the same frequency. Therefore each core can work on two tasks at the same time, enabling the user to work in an intensive multi-tasking environment. So, it is the price-performance ratio that makes this processor, and hence this laptop, special.

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