OCZ DIY Gaming Laptop

Build-your-own kit makes assembly a breeze


THE OCZ DIY GAMING LAPTOP IS $699 bare-bones systems that includes the case, motherboard, graphic chip, nine-cell battery, and LCD screen. The CPU, hard drive, RAM, operating system, and networking chip are all sold separately, though OCZ included these parts with our $1,343 review unit.
Thanks to OCZ's richly detailed documentation, assembling the laptop was a breeze. You have the option of replacing the bezel touch controls and optical drive, though the documentation dosen't mention anything about the latter-a pretty big selling point if you ever want to upgrade to a Blu-ray drive. All told, we had the laptop up and humming in about two hours (including OS installation), using only a multi-head screwdriver.
You'll find a healthy mix of ports on the 7-pound DIY Gaming Laptop, including four USB inputs, FireWire, S-Video, and VGA jacks, and SD memory-card and ExpressCard slots. The glossy 15.4-inch, 1,440x900-resolution display looked very sharp, but color fidelity was a bit bland and viewing angles left much to be desired. The keyboard felt sturdy, and the touch pad, while a bit small, was accurate.

As a gaming notebook, the OCZ DIY performed on par with pre-built systems with similar specs, though many newer laptops with the same 512MB Nvidia GeFOrce 8600M GT video card will pack faster GDDR3 memory (instead of GDDR2) for better performance. The battery provided ample working time, lasting 2 hours and 22 minutes in our DVD rundown test, easily besting nearly all of the 15.4-inch and 17-inch gaming rigs we've reviewed. -Mike Spitalieri

source: Computer Shopper October 2008.