Asus releases two new laptops

ASUS HAD A LOT of very cool laptops on display at CES, all were good, two were standouts.

The new Lamborghini VX2 and the W5FE Sideshow are both very different and very interesting.

The first one is the new Lambo, called the VX2, and it looks a lot like the old one at first glance. Without the two side by side, it is nearly impossible to tell the detail differences, but the VX2 had a few very nice touches.

The case was bright yellow or black carbon fibre case, nothing special there, my Ferrari also has both spiffy paint and non-structural cf. The Lambo also has stitched leather wrist rests, a gold tone button bar, and speakers that have a thick metal grill. It may sound odd, but it works.

The VX2 is not fully specced out yet, but it is a gaming box. It is aiming it at the top core number numeral chip available at the time, along with a Geforce 7700 or higher. I am guessing it is holding off until the 8700 gets announced before it talks about the final GPUs.

The other one is the Sideshow, a name taken from the little LCD on the outside of the case. This looks to be the biggest thing from Microsoft since Oragami, a sure showstopper. No, this one could be useful, but since it requires Vista and probably only has drivers for Microsoft tools, I guess I will never know.

Theoretically, you can check your mail, listen to music, browse the web and stalk people on MySpace though this interface. It is a little LED with a minimal keypad on the outside of the case, and you can do several rudimentary things with it and not fully power on the laptop.

Both machines, and the others there, are really solidly built and worth a long look if you are shopping for things in that category. In the 10 minutes I had with them, I could find nothing wrong. µ