It’s always a fine and dandy thing to ramble on about specifications, features, and performance when the topic turns to laptops, but it does get a bit repetitive, unless the manufacturer hides a trick up its sleeves and delivers a truly unique product. In the case of Asus, they did this by going back to their production process and inserting something very natural and very unique – producing the Asus Bamboo U6 laptop as an end product.

                                            How's that for "green" advertising?

As its name obviously indicates, this particular U6 has some unique bamboo elements – which can immediately be seen at first glance as what looks like inserts on the palm rest and the lid of the laptop. In fact, these bamboo accents, so often mistaken for “G-Mask” type stick-on accents, are actually complete pieces of bamboo that replaces the equivalent leather or plastic offering on other U6 laptops. This is especially noticeable on the palm rest area, plus in the way the Asus name and the model is engraved onto the bamboo.

                                             The lid and the palm rest are both made out of bamboo panels that replace their metal and plastic counterparts.

                                             The touchpad is nearly flush with the surrounding palm rest, but is nicely separated by a chrome lining.

Continuing on its appearance, this U6 model follows the looks of the previous models – a slim form factor with an outstanding LCD element that’s so thin that it can easily be bent this way and that (not that we recommend you do so). Other than the palm rest and the lid, the rest of the U6 is silver and chrome, and while the color combination is inoffensive, some people might find the contrast between the grainy bamboo elements and the smooth silver of the chassis a bit jarring, especially when the U6 is outfitted with its optional 9-cell battery, which is resolutely silver and clashes with the bamboo lid.

                                             The U6 Bamboo is chock-full of ports and connectors on both sides.

The Bamboo U6 weighs in at 1.57 kg with its 3-cell battery, about half again as heavy as most netbooks. Connectivity is a pleasant surprise at least as far as ports and connectors go – 3 USB slots, an HDMI connector, an E-SATA connectors, Express Slot, mic and earphone jacks, LAN connection, card reader and external VGA makes for a well-rounded selection. A dual-layer DVD writer, Wi-Fi N and Bluetooth V2.1, webcam and a finger print reader are great additions. The keyboard has good action, with none of the squishiness exhibited by slimmer notebook examples. The smaller right-hand keys are bothersome however; the right shift key, enter, backspace and direction keys looks somewhat squashed in relation to the rest of the keyboard. Getting used to this didn’t prove too difficult however.

                                             Power button and indicator lights line the hinge portion of the laptop.

Some other small nitpicks on the external features and design of the U6 are the touchpad and the speaker – the former is also inlaid with bamboo and surrounded by chrome lining to delineate its area.While responsive, the touchpad had a disproportionately large scroll area that always threw me for a loop. Worse, the two mouse buttons were much too squishy and had too much “give” for comfort; a heavy press is required to actuate either key. The speaker is strangely located – not quite in the middle and with no equivalent, this U6’s sounds all seemingly come from one side, but on the plus side, output can get quite high, and the sound jacks at the side can always be used instead.

                                             The 12 inch LCD panel is super-thin to the point of flexibility - it looks mighty good.

The U6’s 12.1” LED-backlit LCD is a glare-type display, meaning it presents vibrant color and good brightness indoors but suffers from direct sunlight. Asus’ Splendid Video comes into play with the LCD, driven by the GeForce 9300M  video with its own 256MB of external VRAM. Other key internal components include the CPU, which in our case was the Core 2 Duo P8600 running at 2.53GHz. Intel’s PM45 chipset provides RAM upgradeability of up to 4GB, although our sample unit came with 3GB and only a 32-bit flavor of Windows Vista – 4GB or RAM would require a 64-bit OS. Storage is handled by a 250GB 2.5” HDD in our unit, although up to 320GB is available as an optional upgrade from Asus.

                                             Webcam has a face logon feature, part of Asus' SmartLogon capability.

                                             The 9-cell battery sticks out like a sore thumb but gives a lot of runtime on the flipside.

                                            Rear view of the battery pack, along with the VGA-out and LAN connector.

Its many hardware features are made full use of by some select software capabilities – Asus SmartLogon can use a quick facial scan in conjunction with the fingerprint reader to secure the laptop against unauthorized users. Super Hybrid Engine combines with optimized hardware and BIOS design, as well as the humongous 9-cell battery to give excellent run-time – up to 3 hours and 22 minutes even when the laptop is set to high performance, maximum brightness, and set to read from the optical drive to run a movie clip in a continuous loop. At much more modest settings this battery should be able to reach 5 hours easily.

                                             Set-up like a shoebox, opening the black lid reveals several boxed layers containing the U6 Bamboo's many parts and peripherals.

Asus did not neglect any of the details in the Bamboo laptop’ even the packaging is well-done. Starting with a matte-black box, we extracted two compartmentalized sections containing the different additional items in the package. One compartment is accentuated with bamboo leaf designs. Also included is a wood-themed notebook sleeve from Targus which also boasts of bamboo-leaf patterns arranged artistically on the flap of the case. A small bamboo-paneled planner rounds out the nifty additions.

                                            The warm color of the bamboo lid is matched by the included laptop sleeve and planner included in the bundle.

In the end, I still had to list down all the specs and features of the U6 Bamboo laptop, but this is tempered by the fact that the buyer will take first impressions into account, and the Bamboo is set to make the best impression possible on anyone looking for something unique and attractive, while its internals and its performance based on its excellent components will undoubtedly further convince the buyer on the accomplished execution and worth of this Bamboo product.

                                             Parting Shot.