Verdict: Poor gaming performance and in-your-face styling.

The Asus G2S is one of the more affordable laptops in this Labs test, weighing in at a reasonable £1,432.70. For this amount, you acquire a Core 2 CPU and a GPU that supports DirectX 10, so why hasn't the Asus swept the board this month?

Part of the reason behind this is the aforementioned DirectX 10 GPU. While new GPUs from Nvidia and ATi initially accompany PCI-E boards for desktop PCs, they're also reworked for laptops a few months later. Mid-range GPUs tend to be more suitable than high-end GPUs, for the obvious reasons of cost and heat output, which means that the latest Nvidia GPU to find its way into laptops is the GeForce 8600M GT. Unfortunately, as our tests show, the 8600M GT simply isn't powerful enough to play DirectX 9 games at decent settings, never mind DirectX 10 games.

The problem is that if you buy a system with an underpowered GPU, you're probably stuck with it for a long time, as most laptops can't be upgraded. With the 8600M GT under the hood, the Asus G2S got off to a bad start, as it couldn't play any of our test games at maximum detail settings, even at 1,024 x 768.

Fortunately, the rest of the G2's spec is much more impressive. The CPU is a powerful 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo T7500, which is slightly slower than the T7600 found in the Rock, but more than capable of coping with demanding tasks such as video encoding. Like all the laptops on test, the G2S has 2GB of PC2-5300 RAM, and Asus has fitted a 200GB hard disk, although this spins at just 4,200rpm.

The 17in screen of the Asus G2S has a relatively low resolution of 1,440 x 900, which is too low to display 1080p movie content. However, as Asus provides an HDMI port and 3.5mm S/PDIF audio output, you can at least hook it up to a home cinema system. While the low-resolution screen may be poor for movies, it's a better match for gaming. The Asus G2S offers a bright, high-contrast image, although colours aren't as rich and skin tones are less natural than those from the Rock and Alienware laptops.

The Asus G2S is an updated version of the G2, and has an identical chassis. When we first reviewed the G2, we criticised its multitextured red and dark grey theme, as it looked very dated, and our opinion hasn't changed since then. The Asus G2S looks less sophisticated than the gorgeous Alienware and Sony systems, although the scrolling customisable LCD above the G2S's keyboard is a nice touch. This is more than can be said for the distracting red LED lights in the side of the lid, which start to flash when you run any full-screen application. Note to Asus - this doesn't make games more exciting.

The layout of the keyboard isn't as comfortable as it could have been either; the space bar feels a little too cramped, and the horrors of a small Enter and Delete key can't be overstated when trying to write a long essay.

Aside from this, though, the media controls are intelligently located at the front of the laptop, and the trackpad feels precise with sturdy, easy-to-press left and right buttons.

Four USB ports and one eSATA port mean that adding external peripherals, such as a hard disk, shouldn't be too much hassle, and there's FireWire and Bluetooth for using compatible gadgets, plus a 4-in-1 media card reader. With just one ExpressCard slot, you won't be able to use older PC Card peripherals, although WiFi is built in as standard. Asus also provides a good-quality backpack and a gaming mouse in the box.

With a faster hard disk drive and CPU, as well as a brilliant 1,920 x 1,200 high-resolution screen, the Rock Xtreme CTX Pro clearly offers much better value for money than the Asus G2S - even before you take into the account the fact that, unlike the Asus machine, the Rock has a GPU that can play modern games. In short, the Asus G2S is beaten hands down in every department that matters.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

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• Intel X25-M Mainstream SATA SSD - Hard disks / storage
• OCZ Core Series 30GB - Hard disks / storage
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games