The name says it all. The ASUS Lamborghini VX3 is a luxury notebook, offering plenty of style and top-notch performance, thanks to its 2.5-GHz processor, 4GB RAM, and discrete graphics. We recommend it to executives who like to show off on the go—not just because of the size, but because they’re the only ones who can afford the $3,299 price tag and possibly the only ones who’d want such a bold-looking machine.

Three Thousand–Dollar Baby

Designing the Lamborghini notebook took more than just slapping the company’s crest on the lid. According to ASUS, the two companies worked closely to iron out the VX3’s refined details. The lid, available in black or a striking yellow, is coated with the same paint as real Lamborghinis. Applying four layers takes 48 hours. The result is a vibrant, nearly scratch-proof surface. A narrow black speaker stretches across the top of the lid; beneath are icons for power, battery-charging, Wi-Fi connectivity, and Bluetooth connectivity, with corresponding white lights. It weighs 4.4 pounds with the nine-cell battery, the same as the 12-inch Acer Ferrari 1100, but at 1.2 inches thick, it’s slightly slimmer.

Underneath the lid is a titanium-alloy frame, with a durable sapphire crystal webcam embedded in the bezel. On the frame, above the keyboard, is a Mode button, from which users can choose High Performance, Entertainment, Quiet Office, and Battery Saving power modes. We love the quiet, full-size keyboard and think ASUS made good use of the 12-inch-wide deck: The keyboard extends almost to the edges. Like the ASUS U2E-A2B, ASUS’ other luxury ultraportable, it has a genuine leather palm rest. To match the Lamborghini theme, this palm rest has yellow cross-stitching.

The touchpad has a slightly trapezoidal shape and rubbery surface, which feels smooth, but dragging your finger across it is a little slow. The mouse buttons, also rubbery, are on the stiff side, as they are on many ASUS notebooks. Both the pad and buttons are rimmed in titanium alloy to match the hinge. The system also ships with a leather bag, a mousepad, and a Bluetooth mouse, whose slick color scheme makes it look like a race car in its own right.

Display and Sound

The VX3’s 12.1-inch screen has a resolution of 1280 x 800. When we watched Mean Girls, the color and brightness were good, but the reflective screen limited our viewing angles, especially when we pushed the screen forward or backward (viewing from the sides wasn’t so bad). Despite the attractive speaker strip on the lid, the sound quality was weak.

The 0.3-megapixel webcam offered blurry image quality but fluid movement, with sound that synced well with moving mouths. The Life Frame 3 software suite includes plenty of neat features, such as continuous shooting, night and portrait scene modes, and special effects, including filters, accessories, and frames, which might be overkill for such a low-resolution camera.

Lamborghini VX3 Features

The VX3 outpaces the competition in nearly all performance categories, and we’re not surprised, given the components inside. In addition to the Lamborghini namesake, the VX3 has a 2.5-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 processor and 4GB of RAM to power Windows Vista Ultimate. The VX3 is a strong option for people who want to carry lots of information with them wherever they go. The 320GB hard drive is the most storage you’ll find in a system this size. We wish it had hard drive protection, though.

The VX3 has four USB ports, as well as ports for HDMI, Ethernet, modem, headphone, and mic. You’ll also find an ExpressCard slot, a 5-in-1 memory card reader, a fingerprint reader between the mouse buttons, and an 8X DVD±RW DL drive.