The 15.6-inch Asus-Automobili Lamborghini VX7 aims to appeal to petrolheads by offering a design based upon the famous cars of the same name, and equally quick performance. Our model packed a 2GHz, quad-core Intel Core i7-2630QM processor, 8GB of RAM and a dedicated 3GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M graphics card.
The VX7 is available now for around £1,850.
Design and build quality
Lamborghini cars are renowned for being loud, in your face, and making mothers tut disapprovingly. This laptop is every bit as rude and in your face as the cars, but we're not convinced it's going to win the hearts of petrolheads the world over.
The shell is made of a highly reflective black plastic with deep ridges running across it. The classic Lamborghini bull logo sits proudly in the middle, with the slightly less classic Asus logo demoted to second place at the bottom. Around the back, you'll find two huge vents under red plastic 'lights'. The rear is evidently designed to look like the back end of a Lambo, but, rather pitifully, the lights don't illuminate.
We can kind of see the resemblance to a Lambo's posterior. Sadly, those red bits don't actually light up.
From a distance, the laptop doesn't look too bad, as long as you don't mind epic amounts of vulgarity, but, up close, it doesn't do so well. The shell is not only a total fingerprint trap, but it's also made of a very flimsy plastic that bent and creaked under our pokes and prods. Squeezing our hand around the vents at the back resulted in a further symphony of horrible creaks and clicks. The VX7 seems poorly built.
It's a real shame to see such poor build quality on a laptop with such a steep price tag. We really wouldn't trust it to put up with life on the road. You probably won't want to take it on the road anyway, though, as it weighs around 3.9kg. It will be much better off staying stationary at your desk, unless you happen to have a real Lamborghini to help you carry it around. Or a truck.
If you do decide to carry the laptop around and don't have a V12-powered monster to help you do it, Asus provides a Lamborghini-branded bag with the VX7. We just couldn't bring ourselves to use it, though. It's just too embarrassing.
The VX7's lid opens on a hinge that sits slightly further forward than usual from the back of the machine. The hinge feels pretty sturdy, and it's the only part of the machine that's free from annoying creaks. The position of the hinge also seemed to help the laptop sit securely on our desk.
Keyboard and trackpad
Under the lid, further excessive design flourishes await. The wrist rest is made of real leather, mimicking the interiors of many Lamborghini cars. It does seem a rather unnecessary addition, and it's a shame a cow had to die in order to provide leather for this monstrosity. The bovine would have been much better off saving its hide for something classy like the Acer Aspire Ethos 5951G.
The trackpad offers some lovely finger-sliding action. Asus has even popped on some guidelines so you don't get confused. Lovely.
The isolated keyboard is comfortable, and backlit too, which is handy if you make a habit of typing away in the dark. The trackpad is made of a shiny glass which feels good to slide your finger over and the adjacent buttons provide a lovely click. We all love a good click.
Screen
The 15.6-inch has a resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, which means it can display your high-definition content at its best. That's great news, as there's a Blu-ray drive tucked into the side of the machine.
The screen is bright, but blacks could be deeper, so the picture can look rather washed-out at times. The display certainly does the job when it comes to watching the odd movie or TV show, but you'll need to hook the laptop up to a TV via the HDMI port if you want a more immersive cinematic experience.
Performance
To make the VX7 seem even more like a car, the power button is marked with 'start engine', and the laptop revs when it starts up. The revving made us laugh when we first heard it, but it quickly became annoying.
Instead of a massive V8 engine, the VX7 runs on a 2GHz, quad-core Intel Core i7-2630QM processor, teamed up with 8GB of DDR3 RAM. For the graphics fanatics, there's also a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M graphics card with 3GB of GDDR5 graphics memory.
The VX7 may look like an angry beast, but it will quickly seem as weak as a kitten when you give it a press and a poke.
We sent the VX7 on a figurative lap around the CNET UK test track, throwing our benchmark tests at its leather-clad face. In the PCMark05 test of general computing ability, it scored 9,617. That's a great score for a run-of-the-mill laptop, but we really expected more from a Lamborghini-branded monster. The MSI GT680 gaming laptop delivered a blistering score of 14,392 and can be bought for a few hundred pounds less.
The VX7 performed better in the Geekbench test, which also gives the powerful graphics card a run for its money. Its score of 11,328 is very impressive. The GT680 only managed a score of 7,713.
To see how the VX7 really handles games, we fired up Dirt 3 and took a car for a spin around Finland. The frame rate stayed around 40 frames per second, making for pleasingly smooth gameplay. But we were troubled every so often by quick freezes in the action. That's not something we saw on other machines we tested with this game, and it could well prove disastrous during a particularly intense moment.
We then tried to encode our 11-minute 1080p video into 24fps H.264. The VX7 managed it in a speedy time of 11 minutes and 15 seconds. That's good news if you're hoping to get some video editing done on this laptop.
It's certainly not all smooth sailing with the VX7. We had numerous problems with installing parts of our benchmark software and found that the machine would sometimes simply freeze up during use. We restored it to its factory settings twice to ensure that no unwanted software was interfering with the machine's performance, and we still found various bugs that became incredibly annoying.
It could be the case that some of the drivers for the internal hardware are simply outdated and need to be updated. But, if we'd just paid £1,850 for a laptop, we really wouldn't expect these issues to keep cropping up.
Conclusion
The Asus-Automobili Lamborghini VX7 may pack some impressive power under the hood, but its poor build quality and software issues detract from both the Lamborghini and Asus names. If you're looking for a high-performance machine to tackle editing tasks and games, your money will be better spent elsewhere.
Edited by Charles Kloet
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Marco Hemminga 20 November 2012
Good: Stats
Bad: Grotesk
Comment: Dear all,
Currently I found this company that is willing to sell it new to me for 475 euro. I´m a student and my only goals is a quick laptop that doesnt stall/pass whilst Im on the Internet and have too many programs open. My goal is not to game, but just to have a quick laptop.
Is this something for me? I figured since it has an i7 at least it would be value for money?
BR, Marco
Baxter2308 2 June 2012
Good: Great gaming machine with premium hardware!
Bad: Terrible build quality and less than brilliant screen!
Comment: I bought my VX7 from simplyASUS and this review is in no way a reflection of their service, it was brilliant. The laptop however was a different story. I wanted this machine to be great and hoped for a great experience but the VX7 let's itself down in critical areas. I had this laptop three days and this was long enought to decide that it was not for me.
It all starts out nicely as the laptop comes in a nice Lamborghini branded box with a branded carry case and wireless mouse (if you buy this version), and the average price seems to be about £1200. For this I got the following specification:
CPU: Intel Core i7-2630QM Quad Core 2.0GHz
RAM: 8GB DDR3 (1333MHz)
Storage: 2x 750GB (7200rpm) RAID 0 configuration
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460QM w/ 3GB VRAM
Optics: 4x Blu-Ray ROM Drive
Display: 15.6" ASUS Color-Shine, 1920x1080 FULL HD
WLAN: 802.11b/g/n + Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR
LAN: 10/100/1000 Gigabit Fast Ethernet
USB: USB 3.0 x1, USB 2.0 x3
Other Connectivity: VGA x1, HDMI x1
Card Reader: 8-in-1 (SD, MMC, MS, MS-Pro, mini SD, MS-Duo, MS-Pro)
Warranty: ASUS 2 Year Global Hardware
Security: Kensington Lock Slot
Weight: 3.86kg
Other: Integrated 2.0MP Webcam
Battery Life: 2-3 hours with power management
Dimensions: 40.2cm (W) x 30.9cm (D) x 5.70cm (H)
Box Contents:
1x ASUS VX7 Lamborghini Edition Laptop
1x Power cable + Transformer
1x Li-ion Battery
1x Drivers + utilities disc
1x Instruction manual
1x Warranty booklet
1x Branded Lamborghini Carry Case
1x Logitech USB Mouse
1x ASUS screen cleaner
So it's quite a packed system with a nippy processor, enough RAM to be future proof for years and 1.5 terabytes of storage space. You even get a Blu-Ray writer and 3GB of VRAM in the nVidia GeForce GPU which does run very nicely. Independent reviewers also find that the VX7 scores heavily in the usual benchmark tests. You get 4 USB ports as you would expect from such a machine, 3 USB 2.0 and 1 USB 3.0. You also get plenty of extras including a carry case, wireless mouse and a screen cloth which is more than can be said for other machines. There is also some imagination in the packaging, which you'll see if you buy one, I'll not spoil it for you.
Then there's the looks. The system does look better than many others I've seen, even the old Dell XPS systems which were coated in leather. The VX7 boasts stitched leather either side of the mouse pad and the power button even says 'Start Engine' to make you feel as though you're behind the wheel of a Gallardo or Murcielago. The rear of the laptop is constructed to resemble those unique lights of a Lamborghini and the grills function as two heat outlets, so this laptop does stay very cool even with that powerful GPU.
The Windows 7 Experience Index Rating gives the system a score of 5.9 (highest is 7.9) which is decent. It is let down only by the primary HDD which scores 5.9 although adding an SSD would upgrade this score, all other categories score over 6. The graphics system scored 6.7 which is very good, it could even run Crysis 2, albeit with some slight reductions in frame rate and object definition.
Now here's the annoying thing, ASUS troubled themselves to install a Blu-Ray drive, fast CPU and GPU but then forgot to install a display which can support them. The description states that it is full HD but... It just isn't. My old Dell XPS 16 only had a standard WLED screen but could still support 1080p video. This screen by contrast looks washed out and colours have little depth or contrast. The viewing angles are also quite poor, you might be able to see perfectly if you're sat in front of the machine but your friend sat next to you doesn't get anywhere near the same experience.
Then there's the sound system, it is powered by Realtek and for a £1200 machine is simply not good enough. When you boot up the machine the user is met with the roar of a Lamborghini engine but all it succeeds in doing is making your ears bleed. There is a high pitched whine during this also, this does not continue when you listen to music you'll be glad to hear. However, the quality is still poor unless you spend ages tweaking the settings with THX SoundStudio, which is included along with a billion other pieces of bloatware, even though this is nothing which can't be solved with a visit to Add/Remove programs. There is no bass from the built in speakers and the function keys which control the sound don't always work, and sometimes perform the functions of other buttons which is annoying.
Now those problems I could just about live with, but then we come to the build quality. I know most laptops are made of plastic but I think they made this out of an old mark 2 Vauxhall Cavalier, for international readers, this is an old GM car which wasn't built very well. The keyboard flexes extensively just breathing on it and only some of the function keys work which is frustrating if you want to, for example, turn the wireless on. The Fn keys are the only option for these devices as there is no manual switch for the wireless or Bluetooth adapters. They added fine stitched leather on either side of the mouse pad and then seemingly forgot about the rest of the casing. The mousepad itself is quite nice, but then you have the Italian styled Lamborghini Murciélago to thank for that.
It is useful to note that like other systems nowadays, you do not get a copy of Windows on a disc but rather on a separate partition. So if you like to format your system before you use it, don't delete the recovery partition or you'll spend six months in the hands of engineers. Which reminds me, you do get 2 years of cover as standard which is admirable.
Overall I expected more from a reputable computer manufacturer who went through all the trouble of installing quality hardware and encasing it in an old bin liner. If you can get past this, with the exception of sound and the display, you will get a great system with a ton of space to store all your media but you really need all these together for the whole experience.
This may sound harsh but if you have bought one, you've paid probably over £1200. For this kind of money you could get a Dell M14x which would have been made from machined aluminium which you know will take a few knocks. I saved for a while and paid the extra for an Alienware M17x, yes it's expensive but it will last and has the same hardware, or better of you get the R4 which is updated for this year. I do like ASUS products but this was a bit of a disaster, if I were you, I'd save your money and purchase the N75 which has similar hardware but has much better build quality. It's not quite the same gaming powerhouse but it won't fall to pieces as you take it out of the box.
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