Alienware
From the funky name to the sleek design, Alienware laptops are starting to find more than just a niche gaming market. Alienware was established in 1996 as a quirky manufacturer of high-end desktops and notebooks, but it has slowly expanded its market share over the years.

Not content with building less expensive laptops for the masses, Alienware notebooks only use top-of-the-line components, as the company specializes in high-end machines. The least expensive offering is the Sentia m3450, which has a 2.33 Gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo. This is a heavy-duty processor for a notebook computer, and provides a lot of computing power for the user. Since this model is billed by Alienware as its “thin and light” offering, it is smaller than the other models with a 14.1” widescreen display. It does include a lot of extras though for a light computer, including 7.1 channel high definition audio, integrated speakers, a full keyboard with integrated number pad, and in integrated wireless network adapter.

The new Area-51 (Alienware, get it?) m579 model is a definite step up from the Sentia, with a 17” wide screen LCD display, and the capacity of up to 400 GB of storage. The processor is faster as well, at 2.66 Ghz as opposed to 2.33 on the Sentia. In addition, this model comes with a Blu-ray Optical drive, for the ability to play high definition DVDs.

But for those truly hard core gamers, programmers, or video editors, the Aurora mALX is the ultimate laptop, with an insane amount of components inside. Its graphics hardware has a full gig of memory, which is split between two Nvidia GeForce adapters, and like the Area-51, it is available with a 400 gigabyte hard drive. Also, an AMD Turion 64 processor handles the main processing, for a super fast computer. And not to be left out, the LCD panel is a 19” widescreen. This is truly an incredible laptop, and its price is insane as well, topping out at over 4 G’s.

Alienware laptop computers and laptop parts, such as batteries, are available online at the manufacturer’s website, and at selected retail outlets.