A subwoofer, 17" widescreen, wireless to the max and DVB-T reception: is there anything ASUS' new W2V media notebook does not have?
ASUS has announced the latest addition to the company's line-up of desktop replacement notebooks, the W2V. To be available in a total of three versions, main features include a high-gloss, 17" widescreen in 16:10 format, virtually every connectivity option under the sun, large hard drives and - believe it or not - a subwoofer.
Based around Intel Pentium M 730-770 processors, the W2V will range in speed from from 1.6 to 2.13 GHz and come with between 512 MB and 2 GB of 533 MHz DRAM. Hard drives, meanwhile, range from 60 through 80 and up to 100 GB in size, relying on the PATA interface and running at 5400 RPM. For those in need of optical storage, the W2V comes equipped with with a Dual Layer DVD+/-RW drive.
The main attraction of the W2V is naturally its 17" display in 16:10, available with either WXGA or WSXGA resolutions. Void of anti glare coating, it is powered by an ATI Radeon Mobility X700 chip with 128 MB of dedicated VRAM, which also drives VGA and S-Video out ports.
Speaking of ports, the W2V is riddled with connectivity options. Kicking off with 10/100/1000 Ethernet, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g and Bluetooth, the smorgasboard continues with four USB 2.0 ports, an IEEE1394 (FireWire) connector, a 56K V.92 modem, Consumer Infrared and SPDIF digital audio out. Furthermore, the W2V also boasts PCMCIA Type II and CardBus expansion slots, as well as a multi-format card reader which supports Memory Stick/Memory Stick PRO, MMC and SD Card formats.
Not only capable of playing back media, however, the W2V will also be available in two different configurations which also feature reception and record capabilities. The W2V itself offer no such functionality, however the W2Vb versions for the English, Italian, French and German markets will come with Windows Media Center 2005 and feature analog reception of NTSC and PAL signals with hardware based encoding for recording purposes.
The pick of the litter, though, is the W2Vc, which features a hybrid analogue/digital tuner with support for both analog NTSC/PAL signals and DVB-T, a digital terrestrial standard predominantly popular in Europe and parts of Asia. Unlike the W2Vb, the W2Vc does not run Windows Media Center 2005, instead relying on ASUS' Mobile Theater software for playback and recording purposes.
Weighing in at a relatively modest 3.4 KG, the W2V measures 364 x 264 x 32 mm and will be available in European markets as of May 2005. Information concerning its pricing was not available at the time of press.
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