LA County-based gaming systems manufacturer iBUYPOWER has just announced that they’ve come up with the “most powerful 15-inch gaming notebook ever.” We’re not sure if that’s entirely true—since there’s no way of accurately accounting for all the 15-inchers that have ever come out, but the specs do make it a pretty sweet gaming laptop.
Tagged as the Battalion 101 M865TU, this notebook is banking on the fact that 15-inchers are simply easier to lug around to LAN parties than the usual 17-inch monster. While it does sport an HD-capable screen with a 1680 x 1050 resolution, 15 inches might still prove to be a bit too tight for high-end gaming. An HDMI port gives it the added ability to display to a larger display.
The system is anchored on an Intel Core 2 Duo platform, with options that offer a choice of processors from the Montevina Core 2 Duo Mobile P8600 (2.4GHz, 3MB cache, 1066MHz bus) to the T9800 (2.93GHz, 6MB Cache, 1066 bus), and memory sizes from 2GB to a max of 4GB of DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM. These specs make it high-end, but what makes this porta-rig special is the mobile graphics that it comes packed with– Nvidia’s GTX260 mobile graphics with 1GB of GDDR3 memory—to make it crunch 3D graphics faster than the average desktop PC (as well as gaming desktops that are at least 2 years old).
It doesn’t come cheap by any means, but iBUYPOWER’s standard $1,499 package also comes with a 250GB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive and a DVD combo drive, with upgrade options for up to 500GBs of HDD storage, a faster 128GB SSD, an 80GB Intel X25-M SSD for nearly instant data access, or a really fast 32GB NAND flash SSD by RiDATA (which is a bit small, but you can always add more storage via the eSATA port).
Powered by an 8-cell battery, the rest of the M865TU’s highlights include a fingerprint scanner, a 7-in-1 card reader, built-in audio, and a 2MP Webcam. Connectivity options include Gigabit LAN and Wi-fi n, plus HDMI and eSATA ports.
