ASUS was kind enough to send over one of the soon-to-be-released M50S notebooks for our perusal – and this is a hell of a machine at first glance.  While not as powerful as notebooks like the Dell XPS M1730 or the Alienware M9750, it’s also not nearly as heavy and should actually be considered PORTABLE to most people. 

We’ll have a review up of the system pretty soon but for now I just thought you all would like to see some shots of the sexy M50S beforehand.

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ASUS M50S Multimedia Notebook First Look - Mobile 9

The high-gloss finish on the back and on the inside of the system looks good AND allows you to see if anyone is sneaking up behind you with a weapon.

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A quick look at the specs of the system should impress most: Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 processor that rocks at 2.10 GHz, 3GB of memory, 15.4″ screen that is incredibly bright (but very capable of producing glare), 250GB SATA hard drive, 802.11 networks galore (a, b, g, n), Bluetooth and even the new NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS mobility GPU with 512MB of dedicated frame buffer.  Oh, and it comes with a Blu-ray disc reader / DVD burner as well.

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The touchpad has a lot of built-in multimedia features for one touch movie, music or video watching. 

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Left side connections consist of a VGA output, Firewire, HDMI, SD card reader, ExpressCard slot and even a combo USB/eSATA connection – the first one of those we have seen!

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On the opposite side are the audio inputs and outputs, three more USB connections and the integrated Blu-ray drive. 

Other nice observations thus far include pretty good integrated speakers from Altec Lansing (much better than most notebooks), manageable battery life and an integrated 1.3MP camera that swivels 180 degrees to face towards you or away from you.

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Again, we’ll have a full review with performance evaluations and more pics soon!  Join us in the PC Perspective Mobility Forum if you have any questions or comments.