Falcon Northwest Fragbook DRX

This 12 pound tank is one of only a handful of boutique laptops that have enough cooling fans to run a 3.33 GHz, Intel Core i7 975 processor the top of the line desktop processor, no less. Surround the CPU with an excellent supporting cast nVidia GeForce 280M GTX graphics card, 6GB of memory, and three internal hard drives (one of which is an 80GB SSD), and its competitors can only watch helplessly while they get pulverized in performance tests.

Falcon Northwest Fragbook DRX is in essence a 12 pound refrigerator, built to cool a ferociously fast processor. Rarely does a gaming laptop cross the 10 pound barrier these days the 9.4 pound Alienware M17 and the 8.9 pound Gateway P7808u FX Edition seem like lightweights alongside Falcon Northwest Fragbook DRX. The design lacks inspiration, as the boxy plastic frame is absent of any curves, metallic accents, or fashionable LEDs.

The style of these particular frames is determined by their makers, Taiwanese manufacturers (Clevo or Compal, in this case) that sell them as bare bones frames populated with parts purchased separately by these boutique vendors. Falcon, however, does specialize in custom paint jobs. Falcon Northwest Fragbook DRX can be machine painted with any color imaginable, reminiscent of how automobiles receive their paint jobs. You can also get a custom hand painted design, depending on the request, for a hefty fee (anywhere from $400 to $600).