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.