CES 2008

Laptop gamers have always had plenty of high-end 17-inch desktop replacement systems to choose from, so we were excited to see that one of Alienware's pushed this year at CES was the Area-51 m15x, a rare 15-inch gaming laptop.

Watch the Alienware Area-51 m15x video on CNET TV.

With this new model, initially announced in December but available starting later in January, Alienware has updated its iconic look, keeping the classic alien-head motif on the back of the lid, but cleaning up the design with a simple, flat look called "Ripley," which removes not only the ridges found on the lids of previous Alienware laptops, but also the indent at the edge of the touchpad, working the control surface seamlessly right into the wrist rest, where it's outlined by a backlit rectangle.

While the most exciting component in the m15x is Nvidia's GeForce 8800 video card--the first 15-inch laptop to offer that new part--we're equally enamored of the Alienware Control Center, which lets us control the system's many lighting zones. You can set different lighting colors for the backlit keyboard, the touchpad outline, the light pipes on the side of the monitor, and the quick-launch buttons.

The m15x should be available later in January, running from around $1,500 to more than $5,000, depending on configuration. Alienware is also working on a 17-inch version, but there's no availability date on that yet.

Toshiba's Qosmio G45-AV690

With Intel's new Penryn series of laptop CPUs, PC makers, including Toshiba, are revamping their lines to offer the new parts. You'll be able to find the new chips in the Toshiba Qosmio line, the Satellite X205, and select Satellite U305 laptops.

One of the more impressive new Toshibas is the Qosmio G45-AV690, which the company calls the "world's first notebook to feature an HD DVD-R/RW optical drive." Although we admit, that might have been more impressive news before last week's Warner/Blu-ray smackdown.

Toshiba's Qosmio systems are still among our favorite multimedia desktop replacements, featuring 1080p-compatible screen resolution, an HDMI output for sending those HD DVD movies to your big-screen plasma or LCD TV, and most exciting, an external OCCUR TV tuner -- also known as CableCard. Setting up CableCard, for recording hi-def TV signals with your computer, is still a major pain, but it's a vast improvement over old-fashioned TV tuners. You also get Intel's new Penryn T9300 Core 2 Duo processor, and a decent Nvidia GeForce 8300 video card.

The tricked-out Qosmio G45-AV690 is available now for $3,199.

HP announced a CES revamp of its ubersize desktop replacement late last week. Now that Intel has unveiled its new line of laptop chips, we bring you more details and hands-on observations of this high-end laptop.

While some PC makers endeavor to make ever smaller and lighter machines, HP gets credit for going the other way, creating one of the largest laptops ever seen--the massive HDX. With a huge 20-inch display and weighing more than 15 pounds, the HDX is a glorious example of conspicuous consumption. Even better, unlike Dell's similar XPS M2010, HP continues to update the system regularly--the latest version (still just called the HDX) is the third model we've seen since last spring.

The new HDX debuting at CES offers 512 MB Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTS graphics and the latest Intel Penryn processors, and offers a choice of either HD DVD or Blu-ray drives--although the recent Warner/Blu-ray deal makes that less exciting than it was a week or so ago.

Getting a chance to run some benchmarks on a Penryn HDX with the Nvidia GeForce 8800 just before CES, we didn't really see more than a modest performance boost from the new parts--but as with any prerelease hardware, new drivers are often required to unlock the real potential, so it may be a few days or weeks before useful updates are available.

The HDX may be so big that it's a laptop in name only, but the original model from last year was a constant conversation piece around the CNET office. Look for the revamped HDX to be available online sometime in January, starting at $1,999.