Sum n substance:

Thumbs up: Killer graphics, good CPU performance, offers a lot of gaming force.

Thumbs down: Speakers aren’t that great, low battery life.

Inside the trunk:

• CPU 3.06-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9900
• RAM Included 4GB RAM Upgradable 4GB
• Hard Drive Size 500GB
• Hard Drive Speed 7,200rpm
• Display Size15.4
• Native Resolution1680x1050
• Graphics CardNvidia GeForce GTX 260
• Video Memory1GB

THE WHIZ-KID SPEAKS: This one brings in loads of good stuff for all the gamers for battling the bad guys when on the move, atleast that’s what the makers claim. I believe apart from all the juice it has to offer this one should have paid a little more attention on the designing front.

Razzle- dazzle: When the Battalion came to office I wasn’t all that impressed by its looks. And what totally put me off is the total plastic chassis. I don’t think this kind of a mellow look is suitable for a high end gaming laptop. Not that I am being shallow but then again as a gamer the look and the feel of the machine surely does matter. Anyways moving ahead with the review the unit that was left at our office was a dark brown one adorned with a few silver coloured accents around the hinges. The dark brown matte finish at the back continues throughout the keyboard and at the end of the keyboard it has some black metallic finishing which houses the power buttons. This 15- inch system weighs 7.1 pounds and measures 10.6 x 14.3 x 1.9 inches and can easily slip into the haversack.

The keys on the keyboard are spaced comfortably without causing too much hindrance when typing. But at times it failed to register a few key hits when I was typing fast. The touchpad design is gritty as well with the same texture as the keyboard. At times when pressed down the plastic area would tend to bend. I would recommend using an external mouse while playing games.

This one has a 15.4-inch display with a high-definition 1680 x 1050 pixel resolution. The display was vibrant enough to make even the dullest of colours come alive. The glossy finish though added a bit of glare at times. Unlike many other systems the viewing angles were pretty good and an extra person could clearly see what’s happening on the screen without having to shift his eyes much. The left side of the Battalion houses a DVD burner and the power switch is on the back along with DVI, HDMI and two USB ports. On the right side is there are two extra USB ports, Ethernet jack, modem port, a 7-in-1 memory card reader with an Express card slot.

Inside dope:
Talking about the audio performance, the inbuilt speakers aren’t all that great and tend to be harsh and tinny at times. Though are loud enough for a small room, I would still recommend using a headset. During calls made through Skype the audio quality was pretty much decent and was clearly audible using the inbuilt microphones.

The 2-megapixel camera also displayed satisfactory performance during the skype call test. Though the pictures were pretty clear the callers complained of a bluish tint around the edges.

As far as our benchmark tests are concerned the Battalion performed pretty well in most of our tests. Programs like Mozilla Firefox almost opened instantenously and the others like the media player took not more than two secs to open. Also when it came to duplicating media files this one scored really well against most of its other competitors.

Its most amazing feature the Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 graphics chip packed in enough punch to almost have me down on my knees. The only 15-inch competitor better than this one as far as the graphics were concerned is the Sager NP8662.

According to me the GPU is really worth all the talk. The frame rates when playing a game of Call of Duty: World at War were quite smooth and also there was not a single glitch noticed in this case. The frame dropped down very rarely infact hardly I must add.

I was almost blown away by the fantabulous graphics while playing a game of Batman: Arkham Asylum. Stupendous graphics to get any gamer wagging his tongue asking for more.

Coming to the battery life offered by this one which is 2 hours and 21 minutes it is quite when compared to the other 15 inch systems but quite decent if we compare it to the other gaming systems in the category. Also this one quite unsurprisingly doesn’t have much to offer as far power efficiency is concerned. It took almost 2 hours and 11 minutes to fully recharge it and it used up around 81.1 watts of power during that time.

Nitty-gritty: The iBuyPower has deifinitely paid more attention to the hardware and has definitely succeeded in accomplishing what it set out to do by coming up with a high-end gaming system. However I seriously wish that they had come up with a more a dandy and efficient design. Obviously when I pay over 2 grands for something I’d surely love to have a headturner in ma hands. Alright if not make a headturner they could have atleast come up with a nice and sturdy system. Anyways all said and done if the gamer in you wants a laptop to play games when on the move then this one surely deserves a look.

My rating :3 on 5

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