RegHardware take a look at the Asus W2Vc 17in widescreen notebook. The model they tested features a Pentium M 770 which is clocked at 2.13GHz and paired with 1GB of dual-channel PC4200 DDR 2 memory. The chipset of choice is Intel's 915PM as Asus has gone for a discreet graphics solution in the shape of an ATI Radeon Mobility X700 with 128MB of memory. On the storage side of things you get a 100GB 5,400rpm hard drive and a slot-loading DVD writer. The Matsushita drive writes to DVD-RAM at 5x, as well as DVD±R at 8x, DVD±RW at 4x and DVD+R DL at 2.4x.

I had some slight problems benchmarking the W2Vc, as it wasn't happy to run SYSMark 2004SE, nor would it give a score in the hard drive test in PCMark 2005. The MobileMark 2005 scores are not outstanding by any means as the W2Vc only managed 138 minutes in the DVD playback test, which means that you couldn't really watch a movie much longer than two hours on it. However, the standard battery test of 201 minutes means that you can get over three hours of unplugged usage out of the W2Vc. Due to the hard drive part of PCMark 2005 failing to run, the overall score is lower than it should be. As I mentioned, this is not a gaming laptop, but for comparison, I did run 3DMark05 to give you an indication of how good the onboard graphics is. It will run most games at 1,024x768, although don't expect to be able to play titles like Battlefield 2 or F.E.A.R. on it, as the graphics power just isn't there.

The Asus W2Vc is an amazing step forward for Asus and its notebook products. Not only does it look stunning, but it also has a wealth of functionality. And it's backed by a two-year warranty. At £1468, it isn't cheap,. but you do get a lot for your money. However, here's one reason why I wouldn't buy the W2Vc just yet, and that's because there's a Core Duo version with better graphics just around the corner.