Gaming Laptop: Alienware mALX
Gaming on laptops truly came of age in 2006. The arrival of powerful dual-core processors and mobile GPU brought about this revolution. A lot of firms jumped onto the gaming bandwagon but no one could quite do it justice like Alienware. Alienware which was acquired by Dell earlier this year is a specialized assembler of powerful laptops and desktops for gaming and multimedia solutions. Our choice here from their extensive lineup is the Aurora mALX. This laptop packs in a 2.6GHz AMD Turion 64 ML-44 processor although not as fast as Intel solutions can easily go the distance. The system has 2GB of 400MHz memory and in terms of its graphical system, this monster laptop packs in a pair of Nvidia’s GeForce Go 7900 GS GPUs with 512MB of memory on each card. The graphical cards are run in SLI mode, which is what what makes the laptop so unique. With this kind of graphical power under its hood, serious high-definition gaming is made possible. Games like F.E.A.R which bring other laptops to their knees runs extremely smoothly on this notebook.
In terms of space, the laptop contains two 100GB hard drives which are rated at 7200 RPM. The LCD panel on this laptop is a 19-inch wide-screen WSXGA with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050. The mALX as in keeping a laptop of its stature packs in a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound system which delivers rich sound out of the 4.1 speaker system with the integrated subwoofer. With 3 USB 2.0 ports, integrated headphone and microphone jacks, a firewire slot and a 4 in 1 memory card reader the laptop is fully ready for expansion via peripherals. Overall this notebook has virtually no competition in the mobile gaming market. This laptop retails at U.S. $ 4400.
Best Ultraportable: Asus U5F
Asus is a surprise entrant in our list of outstanding laptops. They have made rapid strides in this space in 2006 and richly deserve this award. The U5F is built on the dual-core platform it features a range of processors to choose from the Core Duo T2300 which is clocked at 1.66 GHz to the T7600 Core2Duo processors which are clocked at 2.33 GHz. The LCD panel on the U5F is a 12.1 XGA which is built on the 'Splendid Color Enhancement Engine' technology that Asus is promoting in all its notebooks. This gives the screen increased brightness with vivid color output and depth which is similar to their premium desktop LCD Panel the ASUS PW201. The system offers 512 MB of DDR 2 Ram for system memory (upgradable to 1.5 GB) and an 80 GB HDD for storage space. In terms of peripheral connectivity, this laptop is fairly well equipped with 3 USB 2.0 slots, 1 Express card slot, a Firewire Slot and an 8 in 1 media card reader. Data connectivity is provided by the standard range of a Gigabit Ethernet slot, a modem slot and wireless technologies such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
Weighing in at 1.4 Kg this laptop priced at Rs. 79,000 and is arguably the best ultraportable we have last year.
Dell sucks, I bought a laptop and the HDD conked out after only a year. 
