Hands-on with the Asus U6 bamboo laptop

Asus first unveiled its ‘ Ecobook’ laptop over a year ago, but while the idea for a bamboo-clad portable made from recyclable plastic and other eco-friendly materials was a great one, production problems with the all-bamboo shell meant that it didn’t get much past the prototype stage.

The idea of using eco-friendly materials for its products is one that Asus appears to be committed too though, and bamboo will make an appearance on one of its laptops scheduled for release later this year – the U6 Bamboo.

The U6 Bamboo has both a lid and wrist-rest made from this environmentally material and while this is really just a cosmetic exercise rather than a major commitment to the use of sustainable materials in laptop manufacture, it’s encouraging to see a manufacturer take a greater interest in the ecological impact of its products. Asus does also have further plans for bamboo in its products though, so this could well be the start of a trend. Incidentally, Fujitsu has also shown a similar concept laptop with a wooden case, but we’ve heard little about that since April.

The U6 Bamboo (a provisional name) is based on the U6 laptop chassis and will go on sale towards the end of the year for around £1,500. It will use the Intel ‘Montevina’ Centrino 2 chipset, though the final specification has yet to be confirmed.

Asus did drop by earlier to day with a working pre-production prototype and while we didn’t have it long enough to review or test, we did get to shoot a short hands-on video to give you an idea of the look and feel.