Asus’ A8JP is the company’s first Core 2 notebook. It’s powered by the mid-range T7200 processor which sports 4MB of Level 2 cache along with 1GB of RAM and an 80GB, 5400rpm hard disk. Not surprisingly, this proved powerful, scoring 1.17 in our benchmarks – just 4% slower than last month’s Pioneer M57U: the joint fastest notebook we’ve ever seen. Needless to say, if you’re into high-powered applications, it will suffice.

3D capabilities are also catered for with a Radeon Mobility X1700 graphics chip. It’s not the fastest though: it averaged 25fps in both Far Cry and Call of Duty 2 in our low-end, 1024 x 768 tests. So it will play games, but only if you drop the resolution and detail settings.

All this power comes at the expense of battery life. Despite Core 2’s noted energy efficiency, the A8JP only lasted one hour in our intensive test and two hours 12 minutes in our light-use test. Portability isn’t the best then, though its 2.4kg weight isn’t particularly high.

The styling is plain for a premium notebook. The glossy silver chassis looks rather ordinary but the lid is stiff and does afford the screen reasonable protection. The 14.1-inch screen itself offers a comfortable 1440 x 900 resolution and text looks sharp in office applications. The glossy screen helps make colours look good in movies though vertical viewing angles mean you should look at the screen exactly head on. Lag was only noticeable in fast–moving scenes and wasn’t distracting. The speakers offer decent volume but suffer from lack of bass.

The keyboard is comfortable, if a little stiff. The trackpad has a few issues with sweaty digits and friction but was useable and the buttons were fine.

Asus has packed in the features: along with the 80GB hard disk comes 802.11a/b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2, Gigabit Ethernet, an ExpressCard slot, a generous five USB 2 ports, mini FireWire, DVI, VGA and S-Video outputs, a VGA webcam, and a dual-layer DVD writer that is compatible with DVD-RAM. There’s little missing.

It comes with Asus’ standard 2yrs collect and return warranty and basic CyberLink software for creating, editing and burning DVDs.

All in all, there’s little to fault it. We’d have like to see the TPM-based security options of our review unit carried over into the retail uint, but you can’t have everything. At $2799 it’s an upper mid-range notebook, but it’s superior in power and features than our previously-A-Listed, similarly-priced NEC Versa P8210 so it becomes our mid-range notebook of choice. The only caveat is Dell’s highly-customisable Inspiron 6400, which is worth a look if you want a three-year onsite warranty plus the ability to adjust the price and features.