Asus Lamborghini VX7 review

Asus has created some fairly unique Lamborghini-branded products, most notably the VX6 netbook, but the monstrous VX7 might actually deserve its supercar badge – the 15in laptop is a top-end multimedia and gaming powerhouse, with the price and bonkers styling to match.

Underneath the head-turning chassis there are equally impressive components providing heaps of performance, both on the desktop and in games. The Intel Core i7-2630QM processor might only run at 2GHz, but Turbo Boost can push it up to 2.9GHz for a welcome performance increase in lightly-threaded applications. It managed an overall score of 75, helped by a rapid 71 in the single-threaded image editing test. Two massive 750GB hard disks provide more than enough space for a huge multimedia collection, which you’ll be able to back up to Blu-ray using the BD-writer optical drive.

Graphics performance comes courtesy of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 460M, which might not be cutting edge any more, but is definitely still capable of playing most games – in Dirt 3 it managed a smooth 39.3fps at our default settings of 1,280x720 pixels, High detail and 4x anti-aliasing. It even achieved a superb 38fps at the VX7’s native 1,920x1,080 resolution once we disabled anti-aliasing.

The laptop may have Nvidia's Optimus technology, which switches display duties to the processor's integrated graphics when you're not playing games, but the laptop still scored poorly in our light-use test. Three and a half hours away from the mains essentially limits the VX7 to home use only, especially as the power brick weighs a kilogram – your bag will weigh almost 5kg with the laptop and its charger inside.

In everyday use, we soon noticed a few problems with build quality – the keyboard tray flexed dramatically under minimal pressure, the touchpad buttons would catch on their plastic surround unless we pressed them dead centre, and the carbon fibre-effect panels are made of cheap-feeling painted plastic. The power and display hotkeys also behaved oddly, sometimes triggering each other’s settings when pressed.