Asus W1N

Like 'em big? Dan Chiappini does. Check out this sexy widescreen lady.

Generally, we don't cover notebooks in Atomic – with the odd exception given to stand outs like Dell's Inspiron 9100 high performance gaming notebook, which was reviewed back in issue 40. It certainly made the grade with its powerful Pentium 4 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB CPU, a whopping 2GB of PC3200 DDR and a 128MB variant of ATI's MOBILITY RADEON 9700 graphics. Unheard  of in this sort of form factor.

This time, it's ASUS' W1N that's the focus of our salivation, admiration and tears of utter joy. The W1N is a gorgeous feat of engineering and aesthetics, with some kick-arse gear housed inside to boot.

Popping the hood, this beaut features Intel's 1.7GHz firstgeneration Banias processor, a little disappointing given the price point and that the unit is Dothan ready, although this may indicate future revisions will be based around the 90nm process. The unit ships with a 64MB flavoured MOBILITY RADEON 9600, which is ideal for mobile gamers and media use, complementing the gorgeous 15.4-inch WSXGA, which begs to have DVDs played on it.

Like the Inspiron 9100, the W1N features an additional third speaker mounted underneath the chassis, which is raised on rubber feet at each corner to allow sound to permeate from under the notebook. Although not true 5.1 surround sound, it does a decent job of reproducing DVD audio and puts the tinny trebly sound from budget notebooks in their place.

Another standout quality of this notebook is its integrated TV tuner module that works in conjunction with the supplied ASUS media software suite to allow you to watch TV and listen to radio, all with a touch of the supplied remote control that interfaces through the front-mounted IR receiver.

Pumping out just shy of 3300 marks under PCMark04, this is a productivity workhorse if need be, the 9162 points in 3DMark01SE further cementing the entertainment focus of the unit.

If you're going to sell a notebook for the gamers and entertainment users, make sure you back it up with solid graphics. Although sporting half the video memory of the Dell, ASUS' 9600 managed to push out an impressive average of 93 frames per second through our Bunker demo of Far Cry at 1280 x 1024 resolution, and did it looking smooth and sexy throughout. AquaMark3 results under the same res, in comparison, returned just shy 13.5 million polygons per second at its peak.

The left hand side of the unit houses the majority of its ports, no legacy to be found here, with your standard notebook affair and the addition of S-Video out, a single slot MMC/SD/Memory Stick Pro reader, F-type aerial adaptor, a single four-pin FireWire port and a pair of USB 2.0 inputs. Phew. Add to this the already powerful hardware driving force, a multi-format DVD burner and an 802.11g wireless module, and you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a better featured unit going for this price.

ASUS also include a software bundle that looks more like an entry level OEM graphics card suite than a notebook bundle, while the lack of floppy drive is more than compensated for with the inclusion of a 64MB flash memory drive, headphones and an optical USB mouse.

Not surprisingly, a notebook of this form factor and this sort of feature set isn't an ultra-portable ULV processing 'book' - we gave the battery a complete charge and a strenuous productivity workload to chew on, and it ran out of juice before hitting the three-hour mark.

If you're after a widescreen unit for business or pleasure, the sleek sexy lines and performance of the ASUS W1N are hard to beat. Granted it's not the cheapest widescreen notebook ever, but it definately does have the goods when it comes to entertainment and gaming.