Hands on - Asus W90 Gaming Laptop

Our friends from Asus dropped by today to give us an exclusive first look at a pre-production model of their freshly announced Asus W90 gaming laptop. 

The most noticeable thing about the Asus W90 is the sheer weight of the thing; this machine weighs in at a lap crushing 6.1kg. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Asus W90 is also extremely large. The 18.4-inch 1920 x 1080p full HD screen is crisp, but is currently providing slightly blue tinged pictures. This is likely to change when the final product is produced, however.

The keyboard is comfortable, but it does not look or feel particularly high-end compared to the rest of the chassis which, constructed from brushed aluminium and mock leather, exudes quality. Asus has shown restraint in designing the W90. Blue and purple lights glow up from the touch sensitive hot keys, and metallic plastic trim adorns every edge. Thankfully, the Asus W90 isn’t too garish.  

The size and weight of the Asus W90 is matched by the machine’s performance. This is a laptop with serious power under the hood. In fact, thanks to its Intel Core 2 Duo processor, two ATi Mobility Radeon HD 4870 graphics cards - running side by side in ATi’s Crossfire configuration - and six Gigabytes of memory, the Asus W90 produced the highest graphics benchmarking scores we have ever seen on a laptop.

We are expecting to see the Asus W90 hit the shelves towards the end of March with a SRP of £2,400 (inc. VAT). A lot of money yes, but well worth it if not for the phenomenal power on offer - we can’t wait to see the finished product.