Asus G60Vx review

In a world where technology is steadily shrinking, gaming laptops are a stubborn exception to the rule. Uncompromised gaming power requires powerful components, and while that's fine in the roomy environs of a desktop tower, it's more of a challenge in a notebook chassis. Asus' G60Vx adopts the usual solution to the problem: make the laptop twice as bulky as usual.

To be fair, though, it's nowhere near as big as some of the monsters we've seen recently: at just 3.42kg, it's feather-light in comparison to the 6.1kg Asus W90, and Alienware's 5.5kg gaming goliath, the M17x.

And where many of Asus's previous gaming laptops resembled souped-up Golf GTIs - all UV lights and hulking exhausts - the G60Vx ushers in an altogether more understated charm. The glossy white lid shimmers attractively, and stands in stark contrast to the minimalist interior. Matte-black pools around the metallic trackpad, with gloss black engulfing the keyboard surround and screen bezel.

Game on

It might not be a world-beating partnership, but Asus pairs a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 with an Nvidia GTX 260M graphics chipset to good effect. The kind of person interested in a gaming laptop probably isn't too concerned with how fast Microsoft Office will run, but the Asus is pretty nippy, as a score of 1.30 in our real-world benchmarks ably demonstrates.

Turn your attention to more entertaining pursuits and that Nvidia chip comes into its own. We pitted it against our Crysis benchmarks and it wasn't until we cranked the resolution to 1,600 x 1,200 with high detail settings that the Asus finally admitted defeat; even then an average of 24fps is close to playable.

But, unless you decide to hook up an external monitor or HDTV - which, incidentally, would be a great way to take advantage of the G60Vx's Blu-ray reader - you're never going to have to run games at such a high resolution. Its rivals might pack in 17in and 18.4in displays, but the Asus saves weight, and money, by opting for a more modest 15.6in screen with a relatively low native resolution of 1,366 x 768.