facebook rss twitter

ASUS M70 blurs the line between desktop and laptop

by Parm Mann on 14 April 2008, 12:31

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qampc

Add to My Vault: x

Please log in to view Printer Friendly Layout

One terabyte of storage in a laptop

Earlier this year, Hitachi held its head up high and declared itself manufacturer of the world's first 2.5in 500GiB hard drive.

ASUS, quick to hop on board, loaded the Travelstar 5K500 notebook drive into its M50 laptop and went one step further by promising two of the 500GiB drives in its M70.

Now, the M70 has arrived with prices starting from Ā£1,599 and, according to ASUS, it'll provide "a new level of AV enjoyment".

ASUS M70

Pictured above, ASUS' bigger and better M70 is what you might call a multimedia dream come true. The highlight, for file-sharers and viewers of, errr, other x-rated material, is the M70's whopping terabyte of storage space. The two Hitachi drives that ASUS has managed to squeeze into the M70 go a long way toward eliminating one problem that tends to go hand-in-hand with portability; storage.

With storage taken care of, you've got the 17in WUXGA screen that provides a full-HD 1920x1200 resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio. There's also ASUS AI Light technology, that'll work to automatically adjust the display panel brightness for 'optimal viewing comfort'.

The M70 offers Blu-ray support in the form of an optional Blu-ray drive and packs a HDMI port for your high definition needs. Though laptops tend to struggle with sound, ASUS has teamed up with Altec Lansing to provide built-in Dolby Home Theatre speakers. We wouldn't expect DTS-like cinema sound, but it shouldn't be all that bad for a laptop.

The innards of the M70 will do justice to the multimedia user. There's a choice of Penryn-based Intel Core 2 Duo processors, accompanied by either a 1GiB Radeon HD 3650 or a 256MiB Radeon HD 3470, and up to 4GiB of 667MHz DDR2 memory.

Even the trackpad isn't without improvements, it features a new interface which turns the pad into a control desk for video and music playback. When you're not using the cursor, a quick switch will turn the trackpad into a set of quick-tap buttons for volume, play, stop, pause, mute and skip.

ASUS understands that you probably wouldn't want anybody else getting their grubby mitts on your new toy so the M70 packs two security measures. There's the usual fingerprint scanner and ASUS SmartLogon, which carries out a facial scan to confirm your identity.

Laptops are continuing to blur the line between themselves and desktops. Earlier this month, Intel and ATI demonstrated the world's fastest laptop - a portable that would make most desktops whimper. Make no mistake, laptops are on the rampage.



HEXUS Forums :: 1 Comment

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
enough storage space to keep all your prOn with you on the go
That's awesome… but 1TB is hardly enough for the average enthusiast's pron collection.

It is a fine laptop though. I must admit I do like asus laptops (I gots me an Asus R1f). The build quality on them is great and they come with a good accessories set too…