ASUS N81vg

The official mumbo-jumbo takes off as usual, but I think it's worth taking a look: "ASUS, a pioneer in the adoption of cutting-edge notebook graphics, announced today the ASUS N81Vg, the world’s first notebook to feature the new NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M graphics processing unit (GPU). The NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M GPU features NVIDIA CUDA™ technology with 32 processor cores, DirectX 10 support, and 1080p High Definition video playback through NVIDIA® PureVideo® HD technology. Coupled with the ASUS N81Vg’s 14-inch LED backlit display, the NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M delivers unrivalled visual clarity and vibrancy."

According to the news release from ASUS, the N81Vg is able to hit an impressive 3DMark® 2006 score of 5,431, delivering "up to 15 times better performance than most other 14-inch notebooks." Unfortunately, battery life isn't that impressive, with 3 hours in Performance mode and 4 hours in Battery Conservation mode, according to ASUS.

Apart from the new graphics processor, you can choose your components as you wish, a variety of Intel Core 2 Duo processors, and hard drive capacities from 160GB to 500GB being available. At last, the two DDR2 SO-DIMM slots allow RAM expansion up to 4GB, and you can also add the DVD Super Multi drive with Blu-Ray capabilities into the equation, and see if the ASUS N81Vg is a good piece of hardware for your needs.

Oh, yeah, the sad and the ugly part - pricing and availability are still unknown, so... you'd better start saving some money, just in case!