Asus M50SV-AS030G

The lid feels strong, with a very small amount of give towards the hinge area, and there's a rotating 1.3-megapixel webcam above the screen.

One area of disappointment is audio. Despite a large Dolby Home Theater logo above the keyboard, the speakers sound far too tinny and lack bass punch. They're certainly not unusable, but we wouldn't want to watch a film using them.

For storage, our review sample has a generous 250GB Seagate. If that's not enough, take note of the eSATA port on the side - perfect for connecting the latest external drives.

A media card reader supports Memory Stick, MMC and SD formats, plus there's a mini-FireWire port, three sensibly positioned USB sockets and an ExpressCard/54 slot.

We're always happy to see a physical wireless switch, and the M50SV has an adapter compatible with 802.11abg networks as well as draft-n. Infrared and Bluetooth adapters complete a full house of communications tools.

We can't help feeling that the Asus M50S has a bit of a split personality. It's blisteringly fast with applications, but not so hot as a gaming system; it has an HDMI port for entertainment but lacks a cutting-edge HD drive; and it's quite heavy at 3kg but with a screen measuring 15.4in it doesn't really qualify as a full-on desktop replacement.

That doesn't mean the M50SV is a poor machine, though. If you need a laptop for mostly 2D applications, it's the most powerful machine we've ever seen, and manages to combine this with a good deal of style at a reasonable price. Add the luxury of Windows Vista Ultimate, and it's an extremely attractive system.

Author: David Bayon