New Blog 1: Netbook Gaming

Thursday 18 October 2012

Netbook Gaming

At about $800 MSRP, the Alienware M11x costs more than any netbook you’ll find on the market. But that extra coin goes towards some serious hardware advantages. Packing a Core 2 Duo processor and an Nvidia 335M graphics card with Optimus power-saving technology, this little notebook has a lot of muscle. For about $150 extra, you can even boost it to a Core i3 processor. Both the stock CPU and the upgraded CPU are practically unheard of among netbooks, which tend towards the Intel Atom processor, which, while scrappy for its size and power demands, doesn’t hold a candle to most dual cores. Compared to a full-size notebook, the Dell Alienware M11x isn’t quite as fast—but none of the netbooks you’ll find this list will be. In spite of that, it still has an impressive battery life of about 6 hours, though that’ll certainly vary depending on your usage. The Acer Aspire One is your typical netbook, but it distinguishes itself as a viable gaming computer with its 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 processor and its integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 video processor with support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0. The most limiting factor will be the Acer Aspire One’s native resolution of 1024 x 600, which may seriously inhibit your ability to play some of the latest games. But slightly older and less demanding games can be played on the Acer Aspire One with ease.