Asus TV lappie cranks up a gear

Way back in 2004 – you know, when Nathan Barley was but a twinkle in the eye, David Cameron didn’t exist and Little Britain was still funny – the Asus W1 made other laptops cower with fear. For, lo, it was one of the first media laptops with a TV tuner built-in.

Things have changed a tad since then – TV laptops are everywhere and USB TV tuner add-ons can be grabbed for a measly £60 – so Asus has evolved too.

The W2 above has been given a massive speed injection, mainly boosted by Intel’s top-of-the-range dual processor, the T2500. And where the old Asus could only pick up analogue TV signals, its successor has both a digital and an analogue tuner.

Elsewhere, specs are respectable rather than jaw-dropping. Which is good, because the floor in our office is a tad dirty and we don’t like getting germs on our bottom lip.

Along with a 17in screen, there’s the usual Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and DVD burner, plus a capacious – by laptop standards – 120GB hard drive.

We would be salivating if it wasn’t for the recent arrival of the Toshiba G30 at Stuff Towers. For £300 more than the Asus’s £2K asking price, it packs in the Media Center version of Windows and, the head-turner, the UK’s first HD-DVD drive (story here)