When news of this product hit the Internet a few months back, it was met with a lot of high expectations from consumers looking at streaming HD content to their lounge room HDTV. We intend to see how much of this expectation and hype the product actually includes, as we take a close look at it today.

The O!Play HDP-R1 is actually very similar to the Astone Media Gear AP-100 1080p Media Player that we video reviewed last month. Physically on the outside they look entirely different, but internally the hardware and chips used are basically identical. We weren’t terribly impressed with the Astone AP-100; can ASUS do a better job at impressing us with the HDP-R1?

The player itself is little to get excited about, being compact and fairly inoffensive looking. As with most current media players, there are two USB ports for attaching local storage devices. One of these though also doubles as an eSATA port, so you can connect high-speed storage devices – we can’t see any great use for this but it could be handy for some users.

There’s the usual HDMI output, plus composite video, stereo phono and an optical S/PDIF. It supports HD resolution up to 1080p and there’s support for 24fps to match the frame rate of HD movie content.

An Ethernet port lets you connect the HDP-R1 to your network, so you can stream files to it. There’s no wireless networking provided, for that we’d recommend the Xtreamer (see What’s New, Shopper 262) with its free bundled adaptor. As mentioned, you can now stream files from UPnP media servers, or browse through shared folders on Windows PCs attached to your network. There’s no support for online services like YouTube or Flickr, as on the Western Digital WD TV Live. If you want to connect to a network, there’s an Ethernet port round the back but sadly no built-in Wi-Fi. Also on the back are sockets for stereo analogue audio, composite video, optical digital audio, HDMI, and of course power. The lack of component video output may be of concern to those with older TVs but we can forgive Asus for this as HDMI is just so ubiquitous nowadays.

With the release of the 890FX chipset, ASUS steps up to the plate with their latest top of the line AMD motherboard, the Crosshair IV Formula. Most of the new features for the 8-Series chipset can be found in the SB850 southbridge, the most notable being native support for SATA 6Gb/s. Like the 790FX chipset, the 890FX has 44 PCIe 2.0 lanes, allowing for CrossfireX dual x16 graphics card support (or even three cards running x16/x8/x8). A new and unique feature of the 890FX chip is an IOMMU implementation. Much like Intel’s VT-d, AMD’s IOMMU should increase performance and security for virtualized environments.

We all know that budget is not a term associated with the Republic of Gamers brand and unsurprisingly the Crosshair IV is no exception. As always one would expect a level of innovation in a board that’s set up to be one of the best or at least set of features that helps it stand out from the rest.

ASUS takes all the features of the 890FX/SB850 chipset and adds in a few more goodies. First, there are a pair of USB 3.0 ports for next generation high-speed USB devices. Second, an additional SATA controller provides an eSATA port on the back, along with a 7th internal SATA header. This is very creative on ASUS’ part as it allows for the six native SATA ports to be utilized in a RAID configuration, with the 7th extra port there for an optical drive. Third, ASUS added SupremeFX X-Fi audio, which provides the familiar Creative audio interface and some X-Fi features. Finally, with the ASUS TurboV EVO chip(s), there is a plethora of overclocking features and control over the CPU and memory components.

The Asus Crosshair IV Extreme is set to sell for $300, easily making it the most expensive AM3 product around and costing considerably more than the already opulent Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD7. With most high-end AM3 motherboards priced below $200, you have to wonder what is so special about Asus’ offering.

Without beating around the bush, what separates the Crosshair IV Extreme apart from the pack is Asus’ CrossLinx 3 technology. This allows users to mix and match multiple graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia, including models of different GPU generations. CrossLinx 3 uses the Lucid HydraLogix engine, which bridges various graphics cards to enable their simultaneous usage.

Both of the $200+ AMD boards are built by Asus and the company recently sent us its top-end AMD offering. The motherboard’s retail price point of $299 dwarfs anything else anyone offers in an AMD flavor these days, but Asus has packed the Crosshair IV Extreme with every goody you can think of.

Time for your best meal yet, and on the platter are dual B&O speakers, a supermassive 18.4 inch, 1080p screen, dual multi-touch-pads, one on each side of the keyboard. A fiery Intel Core i7-820 QM quad-core processor powers the NX 90 on the inside.

You get over a terabyte of storage space and 4GB of DDR3 memory, upgradable all the way upto 12GB. Playing the latest bleeding edge games at full pump on the NX 90 is a no nonsense job, thanks to the Nvidia’s GeForce GT335M graphics card.

High definition video playback (HD 1080p, Blu-Ray equivalent) can also be handled by the processor alone or the dedicated NVIDIA graphics card. We do however advise you to use the excellent video decoding capacities of the graphics card. For that, you’ll just need software that supports the graphics card hardware decoding. This is the case with Power DVD 9 or Media Player Classic HC for example. The processor is then totally freed up, which reduces energy consumption and makes it available for other tasks.

Specifications:

• 18.4? display @ Full HD 1080p (1920×1080 pixels)
• Intel Core i7 740QM (6M cache, 1.73 GHz, 4 cores, 8 threads)
• Turbo Boost to 2.93 GHz
• nVidia GeForce GT 335M 1GB DDR3
• 6GB DDR3 RAM
• 2 x 6400GB HDD (1.28TB)
• Bluray/DVD+RW combo
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 6-cell battery

The VX1 comes in two flavours: black, and the more traditional Lamborghini yellow. Both are attractive, but our yellow review sample makes an instant retina-searing impression straight out of the box, making it the more suitable poser’s accessory. Asus says the laptops use the same paint finish as the iconic cars, incorporating subtle golden paint flecks that catch the light of the sun, as well as the famous Lamborghini logo.

Unusually, Asus has opted not to use a widescreen 16:9 display on the Lamborghini VX1. Instead, you get a 15-inch screen with a native resolution of 1,400×1,050 pixels. This is fine for everyday use, but its 4:3 aspect ratio limits the number of windows you can view side by side, and means you get a letterbox view when playing 16:9 widescreen movies. Some may take exception to the screen’s glossy coating, which is a tad too reflective to use in direct light, but aside from this, we were very impressed with the image quality. Colours were recreated faithfully, and the screen was able to accurately display the subtle tonal differences.

he remarkably slender Asus Lamborghini VX1 measures just 1.1 inches thick, 13 inches wide, and 10.8 inches deep, making it smaller than another recently reviewed 15-inch laptop, the Lenovo 3000 C200. Like the Lenovo, though, the Lamborghini is quite a bit boxier than thin-and-lights with wide screens, such as the Acer Ferrari 5000 and the Dell Inspiron E1505. At 5.8 pounds, the Lamborghini VX1 undercuts all three competitive models when it comes to weight, though its chunky AC adapter adds nearly a pound to the package.

Though the Lamborghini VX1 features a sturdy brushed-aluminum keyboard deck, its plastic case is so thin that it seems just a bit fragile. The optical drive, for example, feels like it could be crushed with a strong squeeze. Fortunately the lid, often a point of weakness on thin laptops, flexes very little and does a good job of protecting the screen.

The Asus Eee PC 1015PE builds on the very popular 1005PE, taking on a whole new improved design, and a few specifications changes. As a reminder the Asus Eee PC 1015PE has a 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 pixel display with a matte finish, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive + 500GB online storage, 802.11b/g/n WiF Bluetooth 2.1 and the Intel Atom N450, N455, N470, N475 processors. It also comes with a number of battery options, the smallest lasting 5 hours, with the longest providing 14 hours of battery life.

Now on to the design! As well as looking a lot slimmer the Asus 1015PE now has a matte finish, with a matte display, yes no more fingerprints! It also has a very large and wide trackpad, and a manual on off slider for the webcam.

Apparently the Asus Eee PC 1015PED version should feature the same battery as found in the 1015PE, so we should expect to see 8 hours plus from that model. Strangely both models reviewed had a glossy screen, rather than the matte finish as featured by the models previously on display at press events. The rest of the specifications are fairly standard with 1GB of RAM, Intel GMA 3150 graphics and Intel Atom N450 / N455 or Atom N70 / N475 processors.

Even with its diminutive size, the 10.1 inch display screen will suit most users and the keyboard, while small by desktop or full-sized laptop standards is still quite usable for most purposes. The 1024 x 600 pixel screen resolution is certainly adequate but could be crisper. Best advantage has been taken of the relatively limited keyboard real estate by utilizing tiny function keys, squashed up and down arrows and multi-function keys for numbers and some letters. Still, we don’t have much room for complaining … after all, we’re the same folks who write about spacious keypads on smartphones. The computer includes an integrated webcam and digital microphone to support video conferencing and video phone calls. The device supports high speed wireless networking with Wi-Fi b/g/n running on the 2.4GHz frequencies.