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Final Thoughts

Unflattering benchmaks not-withstanding, I enjoyed my time spent with the Asus C90S.

Let's go over some pro's and con's.

On the positive side of things, the upgradability of the C90S is unmatched. Getting into the guts of the machine was a piece of cake. Any experienced desktop do-it-yourself'er will have no troubles at all swapping CPU's, video cards, or components in the C90S (with the possible exception of the hard drive.) The 2.93 GHz CPU cap is somewhat limiting, but nonetheless, being able to use a desktop CPU is a huge step in a great direction. I can imagine some consumers out there might even have a spare CPU kicking around home that they could then put to good use in this laptop, and save some money in the process.  Technically the C90S is a "build to order" type system where you can order one with different components - so in theory if you already have a desktop CPU you could order it barebones and pop your CPU in.

With this upgradability and extent of customization comes the possibility of saving money. Especially with those savings on the processor, many consumers will be able to build a system in the $1000-$1500 that will offer superior performance over many 'standard' laptops in the same price range.

Battery life on the C90S was fair. For intense applications, such as gaming, you can expect about an hour's life of battery power. For productivity-related applications, you can expect more than double that.   

The C90S paired with a 8600M GT made for a reasonable game machine, but not a fantastic one. Something seemed to be holding the performance of C90S back, in this regard.  Whether it was unavailability of more recent, official drivers, or the automatic down-throttling of the CPU due to heating issues, I was hoping that the C90S was going to stack up better to the similarly configured desktop system. With the 8800M GTX recently announced, I hope that it will soon become available for the C90S. That would be make for a mean game machine, to be sure.

One other area that I felt was lacking in the C90S was the BIOS. While the Asus C90S is aimed toward the consumer that knows his way around a computer, the BIOS did not reflect this. The C90S BIOS is limited and simple, and I'm sure that many enthusiasts out there would have appreciated increased functionality in this important aspect.  Having to rely on software to overclock is not really a DIY friendly expectation: tweakers like to go in and adjust things to their liking to maximize the balance of performance, stability and heat that they can achieve.

These may seem like many negatives, so I'd like to repeat my earlier statement: beyond these listed shortcomings, with the upgrade options available, great screen, fine keyboard, good price, and the measure of customization inherient in the C90S, this machine compares favorably to other similarly priced laptops.

In the end, the C90S is an exciting step in a new direction for portable computing. And while the C90S did feel at times to be only the first few steps on the way of a longer venture, it's a great entry into an interesting new territory. Hopefully Asus will continue along this path, and refine these design concepts, and continue to expand the potential of what may one day be a attractive fusion of the best from both the desktop, and laptop worlds.