Asus Lamborghini VX3

10/06/2008
By Staff Writers
In Cybershack Reviews

The looks of a Lamborghini with its own engine underneath. Could this be love at first sight?

You might not think that a laptop and a Lamborghini have a lot in common, but you’d be surprised if you took a glance at each.

For instance, they both are high performance vehicles (of sorts). The Lamborghini transports people at high speeds while a laptop transports data at higher speeds (technically). They both usually end up with enormous amounts of money being put into the research. And some laptops even excel to the high point that is art, just like a Lamborghini.

Asus have gone and done something intelligent: they’ve made the Lamborghini of laptops. Literally.

Cased in a shell that features titanium alloy hinge, the Asus Lamborghini VX3 is a laptop of magnificent design. I don’t normally say that about a laptop that isn’t from Apple so just let me say it here and be done with it. Designed as a luxury notebook, this is the sort of computer you can take with you that stands out. Painted in the vibrant canary yellow that Lamborghinis like the Diablo are famous for, the VX3 looks the part. The top shell features its own car-like grill with a fading metal effect.

You can also get it in black, but I’d stick with yellow. How many people have yellow laptops? It’s just that more special.

The slick Lamborghini badge that the cars get is also present here, though in a smaller size. I found that it will just stare at you, the bull making sure that you are aware of the sheer power underneath.

Just like a Lamborghini, the Lamborghini laptop reflects a power to weight ratio that works. With a screen size of 12.1 inches, the VX3 is made to be portable. Much like the designers on a Baby Diablo or Countach, this laptop is made to emphasise the notion that good looks, power, and small size can exist.

As a result, the VX3 features an Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 giving you 2.6 Gigahertz of performance. Four gigs of DDR2 rests under the hood with a nice 320 gigabyte SATA drive and dual-layer DVD burner for your storage needs. Things don’t stop there as the VX3 features a brand spankin’ new Nvidia GeForce 9300M which produces decent results with games. You should realise that this is not a gaming laptop, but it will get things done and unlike most other 12.1 inch portables, it gets things done in style. Connectivity is excellent wit Bluetooth, Gigabit ethernet, and WiFi covering the A & G settings as well as the draft-state future-proofed N for faster access. You also get HDMI, Windows Vista Ultimate, a small video camera at the top, and a biometric fingerprint scanner to secure your device with.

It even vrooms when you turn it on. Vroom vroom, baby.

But some of the more interesting things are the details that Asus have gone to in bringing out that Lamborghini “feel” that you might expect from a laptop of this calibre.
Things like the leather wrist pad aren’t exactly something normal on a laptop, but they do add a little to the comfort here. The extra details such as the Lamborghini imprint at the bottom of the keyboard, the Sapphire crystal-coated webcam, and the carrying bag all help to make this device something special.

And while you end up getting a load of laptop for your lavished dollar, you also end up with some unexpected things that probably could have been fixed when the development was being rounded out.

For instance, unlike pretty much every other laptop on the market, the Asus Lamborghini lacks a scrolling section of the touchpad. It sort of takes you back to a time when laptop trackpads didn’t have them – around two or three years ago – and makes you yearn for one. While the lines that make up the parallelogram shape limit the space the mouse has, if you find that you need a scroll wheel, you’re going to be lost with this.

The addition of a 3G HSDPA component does add to the Lamborghini but you will find that having to remove the battery from the computer every time you want to replace your SIM card might irritate you. What Asus have obviously designed this one for is to keep your SIM at all times. So leave your data-plan SIM card in your computer; no more fussing with those rebadged Huawei dongles that pretty much every 3G provider uses.

Then there’s the price: at just slightly under five grand, this is not a cheap laptop. But the Lamborghini name emblazoned on just about every side of this computer should also point that out. And while I’m not likely to go out and buy one, you just might if you’re after a computer that will not only make you stand out in a crowd, but works just as well as it looks.

And it looks goooooooood.
VX3-03