Review: Asus Lamborghini V6

Intro

Netbooks are dime a dozen in today's wired world and you can easily get a machine in the price bracket of Rs 15000-25000 to satisfy your basic computing needs. But every now and then, along comes a netbook that brings with it a distinguishing factor in terms of looks, performance or sheer brand value. Is the Asus Eee PC with Lamborghini branding one such? The quest is to see if the branding just superficial or if the device does pack a punch under the hood as well.

First Impression

In a word - WOW! The device looks like it's a roadster in techy form. It has curves and edges enough to compete with the most stylish notebooks out there. A Lamborghini logo is engraved on the white lid of the device, which adds a touch of class to the machine. The only downside here is that dust and scratches are easily visible on the lid. The device is slightly inclined which adds to the ergonomic value and makes it comfortable to type on.

Another thing that you will notice is that, for a 12.1-inch netbook, the device is a little heavy, weighing about 1.5kg with the battery.

The netbook is available in two colours - black and white.
 
Performance

Switch on the device and you will be greeted with the roaring sound of a Lamborghini roadster before the device loads the OS. In terms of performance though, the device works like a typical netbook and the extra power under the hood is barely noticeable. As mentioned earlier, the build of the machine feels very sturdy. The battery is easily removable so if you are a    traveler by nature, you can change the battery on the go with absolute ease.

The keyboard is of the standard chicklet variety that we have come to know and love from Asus' Eee PC range. The keys are well spaced and typing on them is a breeze.

A major drawback on the machine is the trackpad, which is plasticky and very uncomfortable to use. You would do better to carry a USB mouse with you.

In terms of connectivity, the device houses the charging port, HDMI out, one USB 2.0 port and the card reader to the left. The right of the device houses an Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 Ports, a headphones and mic port.

The power button rests to the upper right of the keyboard. To the upper left of the keyboard rests a button that lets you quickly switch between the various power modes on the device. These modes vary between Power Saver, Auto High Performance, Super Performance and High Performance.

When the machine is turned off this power mode button can be used to access the Asus Express Gate cloud. This service essentially looks like a tablet OS on a Windows machine and gives you access to a variety of features such as games, Internet, photos, calendar and more. Essentially, it can be added to the pre-loaded bloatware and the extent of its utility depends entirely on the user. Some may actually prefer to use an iPad or a Honeycomb based tablet if these features are on their preferred list. The Asus Express Gate cloud gives you quick access to either shut down the machine or boot the Windows 7 OS.

The device also has a 1.3MP webcam, which is decent for video chatting. Like Apple's photo booth, the Asus Lamborghini V6 has an app CyberLink YouCam app that lets you click photos and record videos in a variety of themes. The themes include a wide variety of frames, filters and distortions that are a lot of fun to use. The app also lets you instantly upload a video to YouTube, print the photo or send the file as e-mail.

When tested on the Imtec Battery mark, the netbook survived for three and a half hours when pushed to its limit. The test suggests that you can get close to four and a half hours if you use the device conservatively.

Multimedia

The biggest advantage of having a windows based netbook on the go is the ability to use it as a multimedia device. You will probably want to surf the web, watch movies, listen to music and play a few games on it.

For the most part, the machine delivers what it promises. We watched a few MP4, 720p movies on it and these ran very smoothly. There were however, a few moments where we saw a jitter in the image. The audio was crisp, clear and loud enough to prclude the need for additional speakers in a small room. But, like most netbooks and notebooks, the speakers lacked bass.

The display is a 12.1-inch LED backlit WXGA HD display with a resolution of 1366x768, which is really good for watching HD videos. The colours represented look vibrant and crisp. Although like all other netbooks, the display is tedious to view if you are outdoors as the screen faces a lot of glare.

If you are an HD buff and want to watch uncompressed 1080p movies, then this machine will disappoint you. Sure, it has 4GB RAM and a dedicated 512MB graphics card -  but the Atom processor just isn't powerful enough to handle movies. Uncompressed 1080p, MKV - Iron Man 2's frame rate dropped dramatically. We faced a jitter in every scene and the movie was just not watchable. This can be considered as a huge negative, given that the device has an HDMI out that users should have been able to take full advantage of.

When compared to other netbooks, it seems that the boost in specs is only incremental rather than a differentiating factor.

As usual, most netbooks these days come with a lot of bloatware. The Asus Lamborghini V6 is no exception to this phenomenon. An app called Asus@vibe gives you access to a plethora of games, music, radio stations and learning. The content library is really large but the loading speed of the app is really slow. You will spend a bit of time waiting for your selected radio station to load or for your selected track to play.

The games library doesn't house the AAA titles you'd expect, like Assassins Creed, Civilization or Call of Duty. The system anyway doesn't seem to have the power to run current HD games. The games available on the app are basic strategy and platformers. You can download a demo for free or pay $6 to $10 for the full version.

Although a lot of the pre-loaded bloatware is something you could easily overlook, there is one really nifty feature here called USB Charge+.

USB Charge+ allows you to charge your mobile phones or digital audio players while your Eee PC is sleeping, hibernating or shut down. Two modes are available for you to choose from, Adapter Mode or Adapter+ Battery Mode. By default, these modes are deactivated and need to be activated manually.
When in Adapter Mode, the netbook will not charge your connected device without an attached adapter; when in Adapter + Battery Mode, the netbook helps charge your device with or without an attached adapter.
You must note that not all mobile phones or digital audio players compliant with USB specifications can be charged with USB Charge+ through the dedicated USB port.
USB Charge+ stops function automatically when the charge remaining in the battery drops below 10%.


Verdict

There are a lot of Windows based netbooks available in the market for Rs. 10,000 - less than what you would pay for the Asus Lamborghini V6. The extra cost gets you a little more power under the hood and cool brand name to accompany a netbook that is otherwise average, performance-wise. For Rs. 35,000 you can easily get an entry-level notebook. But if a jazzed up netbook is what you are looking for, then put the Asus Eee PC Lamborghini V6 on your list.


Pros
Good Build
Great Keyboard
Good Battery Life
Great looks
Lamborghini Branding

Cons
Annoying trackpad
Performance could have been a bit better
Heavy for a netbook

Price: Rs. 35,799

Specifications:

Display: 12.1-inch LED backlit WXGA HD display with 1366x768 resolution
CPU/Chipset: Intel® ATOM D525 (1.80GHz)/Intel® NM10 Express chipset
Graphics: Discrete next generation NVIDIA® ION™ (512MB dedicated memory)
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 320GB HDD
Webcam: 1.3MP
Battery: 6-cell Li-ion


RATINGS:

Performance: 3.5
Price: 3
Ease of setup: 5
Ergonomics: 3.5
Wow Factor: 4
Overall: 3.5

Benchmark scores:
3D Mark 06: 2679

Battery Mark:

Forecast: 4 hours 24 minutes and 51 seconds
Test: 3 hours 26 minutes 26 seconds

PC Mark Vantage:

PC Mark Score: 1900
Memories score: 531
TV and Movies score: 1619
Gaming Score: 782
Music Score: 2297
Communications score: 1593
Productivity score: NA
HDD score: NA
PC Mark 05: 2147