Hands on - Asus M90, VX5 Lamborghini and U series

To coincide with their twentieth birthday, Asus invited us to the London Design Museum where they were throwing a bit of a party, as well as showing off some of their forthcoming laptops.

On display was the gaming W90 laptop – which we previewed a few weeks back, the M90 which will be Asus’ high-end multimedia laptop, the VX5 Lamborghini and Asus’ new ultraportable, the U-series.

We’ve already gone into some detail on the Asus W90, which you can find here, so we’ll move swiftly on to its cousin, the Asus M90. Despite multimedia functionality, not gaming, being the focus of the M90, the two certainly share some similarities, size being one of them. The whopping 18.4-inch LCD screen dominates the machine and the chassis is covered in a mock-wood finish, which looks pretty smart. To the left side of the keyboard sits a large wheel and a number of touch activated buttons. These are designed to make editing and browsing quick and easy.

Asus were being pretty tight lipped about the internal workings of the M90, possibly because details haven't been finalised yet, but we were told that a high-end Intel Core 2 Duo chip is likely to be the processor of choice and that the graphics card will also be suitably high end. We like the look of the Asus M90, and look forward to seeing it in the second half of this year.

Next up, we headed over to the Lamborghini VX5, which was brooding in the corner. It is a menacing looking machine with angular lines and sharp edges carved out of genuine leather and brushed aluminium. Apart from a 15.4-inch screen, many of the specs have yet to be finalised, with only a hint that the Asus VX5 might house an ATi graphics card that, again, would be pretty high end. The Lamborghini VX5 oozes style and sophistication, when you boot up the laptop a Lamborghini engine screams at you, and we can’t wait to get our hands on it later in the year.

Finally, Asus’ latest foray into the ultraportable market, the U-series. Here details are a little firmer on the ground. It is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, which should provide plenty of muscle for multitasking, and can take a 500GB hard drive. The LED backlit display is powered by a nVidia GeForce G 150 M.

The Asus U is a very smooth piece of kit, and even features an illuminated touchpad which lights up as your finger traces across it, should have trouble locating your finger in the dark. We didn't get to try this out, however, and the pre-production model we saw didn't even feature lettering on the keys... The Asus U-series will be available in the second half of this year, but be sure to keep an eye out here in the coming months for more information.