Asus W5FE review

Most of Windows Vista's new features are available to anyone with a powerful enough PC, but one requires some additional hardware.

Windows SideShow enables your PC to use secondary displays and devices to access your data in new and interesting ways. You could have a small display on the front of your PC showing system information such as processor temperature, a screen on your Media Center remote control or even one built into the lid of a notebook, such as with Asus's W5FE.

This is the first SideShow-capable notebook available. It's largely identical to the W5F notebook, but its lid has a small 2.8in LCD set on the outside. Next to this is a joypad, three buttons and a power switch, all of which create a long, low bulge across the lid.

SideShow takes about 10 seconds to boot up. It displays the time and date, shows battery information and has an easy-to-navigate menu. Its functions are dictated by SideShow Gadgets, which can also be displayed in Windows Vista's Sidebar. You can use these to play music, read email and get local weather updates, all without turning on the notebook.

There's 1GB of memory for SideShow to store files, but synchronising music from your notebook is a hassle. You have to switch SideShow to sync mode before using Media Player 11's sync function, and you can't use SideShow during the transfer. SideShow can't access the internet directly, so it has to wake the notebook from sleep periodically to update its information. This way you get relatively up-to-date information without a constant drain on the notebook's battery. We put the notebook to sleep and set SideShow to update its memory every 15 minutes. The notebook ran for 24 hours in this mode, so you'll get more than a working day's worth of updates before the battery fails, provided you have a mobile internet connection to receive email and updates in the first place. In future we're sure there'll be many Gadgets covering areas such as public transport timetables, market data and text messaging, but the current selection is rather limited.

A notebook equipped with SideShow may be useful for those who work on the move, but you really need a 3G data card to make the most of it. For mains-powered desktop use it's pointless, as Vista can wake from sleep almost instantly.

Otherwise, the W5FE is largely identical to the W5F, although it has a bigger hard disk and Windows Vista Business rather than XP Pro. It costs around £150 more, which is a lot given the limited number of SideShow Gadgets available. We're not convinced by SideShow on a notebook, but it's an interesting technology that could do well on a remote screen, so you can stream information from your PC.