The Outside

Like the Asylum system we looked at not that long ago, upon pulling the beast that is the Smoothbook DR out of the briefcase, your jaw hits the ground faster than the speed of light. Like the Asylum, the Smoothbook DR is sporting one of those fancy airbrushed paint jobs, which is nothing short out astounding to look at in the flesh.

Up the top of the Smoothbook DR we have a skull face that looks like it's about to attack you. It's hard to explain exactly what's going on with the paint job, so it's easiest to simply let the pictures do the talking. The only other noticeable piece on the top here is three LED indicator lights that tell you when the power is on, if it's running off the battery and other useful information.

Smooth Creations has done more than just paint the top of the notebook and leave it at that. Looking around the outside, we can see that the paint job is literally everywhere it can be. This really helps tip the paint job over from a quick slap on top to a professional finish like we're seeing here today.

The paint job doesn't just stop there; upon opening the notebook to reveal the massive 17" screen that sports a 1920 x 1200 resolution, we find the skull themed paint job cover the notebook from top to bottom.

With the paint job looked at, let's have a quick look at what's on offer on the outside. The left side of the notebook gives us VGA out, S-Video out, CATV connectivity, phone line, network port, mini FireWire, PCMCIA and a card reader.

Spinning around to the front, we have some speakers along with a few audio jacks that cover headphones and a microphone.

The right hand side of the notebook gives us four USB 2.0 ports, while the back gives us a DVI port and power point.

Also included in the package is a Logitech mouse that follows the same paint scheme as the notebook. What good is a notebook that is aimed at gaming which forces you to to use the touchpad out of the box.