One look at the 550-2 on this issue’s cover is all it takes to know that Lamborghini is associated with power and luxury, sunny yellow, sexy-styling and top-notch quality. However, the brand is not restricted to the iconic sportscar alone, but, now extends into lifestyle products and other merchandise like clothing and accessories. Lamborghini has also forayed into co-branded electronics, much like its competitor Ferrari. A few weeks ago, what arrived on our test bench was a turbo-charged netbook, the Asus Lamborghini VX6. Unlike the previous netbooks in this range, the VX6 loses the trademark yellow characteristic and opts instead for demure black or white. We ran this netbook through a series of tests to find out whether it matches up to the Asus and Lambo marks of excellence.

First look

Although we were slightly disappointed not to have a cheery yellow Asus-Lambo unit at hand, the glossy black unit we got for review still made heads turn. With a screen size of 12.1-inches, this netbook is bigger than the standard 10.1 inches we’re used to seeing.

The reflective black plastic cover is so shiny, we could see our faces mirrored on it, and the raised, curved edges add definition. Near the hinge is a grille that imitates the trademark Lambo honeycomb style grille that the sportscar gets for its nostrils! The gold and black Lambo logo is embossed on the top, giving the netbook a distinctive look.

Power on the laptop and the pre-recorded trademark Lambo ‘engine revving’ sound plays, psyches you and preps you up for the Lambo experience.

Inside, you’ll find a black chiclet style keyboard and palm-rest, which fits snugly in a silver casing. On top of the keyboard, at either side, are two buttons. The one on the left starts up the Asus Express Gate Cloud software and the other is the main power button. The buttons are rectangular with a diagonal bend towards the inside, and the main button has a white LED light that flashes when the netbook is powered on. Between the buttons is another gold embossed Lamborghini logo.

The trackpad is smooth and glossy, and larger than what we’ve seen in a lot of notebooks. The bottom of the trackpad has indicator lights for power, battery, Wi-Fi and a lock icon.

On the left, you’ll find a VGA port, an HDMI port, one USB port and an SD card reader. The right side has two high speed USB 3.0 ports, a headphone and microphone jack, LAN port and a Kensington Lock slot.

Hardware

We were really impressed with the keyboard on the VX6. If you’re used to a notebook or PC, typing on a cramped netbook keyboard can be difficult at first, but we had no problems getting used to this one from Asus. Keys were well spaced out and gave good tactile feedback, and we were comfortable typing for long hours.

The trackpad was smooth to touch and responsive, and also supported pinch to zoom. We found it easy to zoom out of photos but zooming in posed some problems at times. The physical left and right click buttons on the trackpad are absent and have been replaced by one long button that can be depressed for a left and right click. This feature was quite user-friendly too.

The 1.3-meg webcam provides decent low light performance, however any rapid movements resulted in visible blur.

Videos looked crisp and clear on the 1366×768 widescreen HD display and played without any stagger. The colour reproduction was impressive. The extra two inches made watching videos a more comfortable experience.

The VX6 comes with Bang & Olufsen speakers, and provided impressive sound, by netbook standards. However, they are placed at the bottom, which often leads to sound getting muffled when the VX6 is on your lap.We felt that the 320GB hard drive was sufficient for most storage needs.

Performance

The VX6 is powered by an Intel Dual Core D525 1.83 GHz processor. The unit that will be commercially available in India will ship with 2GB RAM, however the unit we got for review came with 4GB of RAM.

We were able to multi-task without any strain on the laptop, with multiple browser windows open, and we switched between running videos, music and photos quite smoothly.

Graphics are powered by NVIDIA Ion and the netbook also comes with the Optimus technology which enables you to switch between graphics automatically, which we first tried on the Asus Bamboo U43Jc that we reviewed a few weeks ago. We also tested the Streetfighter IV Benchmark game, and were impressed with the quality of the graphics. However, we suspect that playing hard-core PC games on this would be a bit of a letdown.With the Wi-Fi on, we played a few videos, surfed the web and played some music and the battery ran out in three and a half hours.

Our Verdict

The Asus Lamborghini VX6 is definitely more stylish than its other small counterparts, and its dual core processor definitely makes it a better performer. The Lambo branding does make it a collector’s item, but the question is whether you will be convinced it’s worth the elevated price tag.

Love: Stylish looks, good graphics performance

Hate: Pricey, average battery life

Rs 42,999

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