Product Reviews

Asus describes the A6000 as an entertainment notebook, and it comes with a handful of excellent multimedia features.

This notebook is fairly large and its footprint is bigger than an issue of Shopper. At 3.1kg it's quite heavy, too; you could easily take it away with you for the weekend, but you wouldn't want to carry it about every day. The 15.4" widescreen display has a standard 1,280x800 resolution. We ran our usual image tests, and the A6000 responded beautifully. The colour test looked bright and vibrant and the colour transitions were smooth, although blacks looked washed out if the screen wasn't tilted to the correct viewing angle.

DVD playback was superb on the gloss widescreen display. ASUS includes its own DVD software, although a remote control would have been useful. The A6000 also has a built-in 1.3-megapixel webcam and a microphone, making it perfect for users of online chat programs.

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can use the notebook as a CD player without having to start Windows. Playback controls are built into the front, but you'll have to open the lid and use the keyboard to adjust the volume. Sound from the built-in speakers lacks bass and volume, so it's better to plug in an external set of speakers if you want to enjoy your music.

The A6000's application performance is impressive. In our Shopper benchmarks it scored 81 overall, which is easily good enough for day-to-day tasks such as using email and office applications. If you need to manipulate photos or video regularly, though, you would be better off with a more powerful machine. Its battery life of 159 minutes isn't great, but this notebook wasn't intended for mobile use. Some gaming is possible, as the A6000 managed a Doom 3 benchmark score of 30.6fps with medium detail at a resolution of 800x600.

The keyboard is spacious and the keys have plenty of travel, while the touch pad is large and accurate. A dinky Logitech USB mouse is also supplied. Four slim keys above the keyboard provide short cuts for email and web browsing. It has plenty of ports, with four USB2, serial and parallel legacy ports, an S-video out for watching on a large screen and an optical mini-jack S/PDIF interface for movie surround sound.

The 6000 is well designed and has some nicely thought-out extras. If you want a second computer for the home, or you need an entertaining machine for your studio flat, this should fit the bill.