Pitched by ASUS as a 'fashionable luxury' this notebook is easy on the eye and has some unusual, but welcome features. The most obvious of which is the inclusion of a 1.3 megapixel digital camera integrated into the bezel of the display. The camera swivels a full 180 degrees, meaning you can take photos of your surroundings or yourself by adjusting it accordingly. The included software allows you to capture stills, video or put it into a security mode which will take a series of photos in quick succession once an object enters its field of view.

In addition to this, it has an very well-rounded feature set, with a combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW optical drive, 802.11b/g wireless module, 60GB 4200rpm hard disk, half a gigabyte of memory and comes bundled with a mouse and carry bag. As it's obviously a portable unit, it helps that this notebook weighs only 1.8KG with battery -- light enough to throw in a bag between classes or work with it on your knees.
 
From a performance point of view, the W5 takes advantage of the Sonoma platform, bringing DirectX 9 quality graphics and performance for home and business users in the one notebook. Returning a commendable 3286 marks under PCMark04 and just shy of 5000 3DMark01SE points in the default 1024 x 768 resolution shows this to be a capable productivity, entertainment or basic gaming machine. It's not a high-end gaming device, but it is good for kicking back and playing a game during your downtime.

The notebook managed 163 minutes of running time during a full productivity load run, so students and business users in meetings should have no trouble getting down notes before needing to recharge. The lack of a latch on the front means it's easy to open, but those with a penchant for ruggedised chasses may be disappointed. 
Stylish and packed with features, it is not the cheapest 12 inch notebook available. This said, if you simply must have the features on offer inside this 'book, then this notebook does it all with style.