New Laptops in 2012

Falcon Northwest has always been known for incredible paint jobs on their gaming systems. The Fragbook DRX is a 17-inch desktop replacement that can be configured with virtually any paint color or a custom design (for a fee). At $3,433, this large notebook is powerful but at a very high price. Part of the large expense is due to the high performance desktop processor used in the DRX. Equipped with a quad-core Intel Core i7 950 CPU, the DRX runs at 3.06GHz. While there is no doubt that this processor is extremely powerful, one has to wonder if this chip is necessary when Sandy Bridge processors are now on the market. It would be nice to see an option for the Intel Core i7-2600K for a much lower price. Undoubtedly, what you're paying for is the ability to run this full desktop processor in a laptop chassis.

As mentioned above, the DRX can be personalized with close to any color. Whether you're looking to match your laptop to your sports car or simply wish to make a bold statement, Falcon Northwest can make it happen. And while it's pretty darn cool to be able to have such a personalized piece of equipment, the overall cost of the machine is a drawback due to its midrange components. By midrange, I mean the graphics card, memory, and hard drive are merely average. The Falcon DRX 17-inch notebook is equipped with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1.5GB GDDR5 graphics card. It's a great card, but it is way too dated for a laptop of this caliber. For nearly $3,500, it's expected to have a high-end AMD Radeon HD 6970M, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 485M, or a dual card setup. The same holds true for memory. The machine comes with 6GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM for $3,433. To upgrade to 12GB is $198 more, which would be quite reasonable if the starting price wasn't so high. Hard drive storage space is also below average with a 320GB 7200RPM drive. And yes, an upgrade to a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive is under $55, but many laptops under $1,000 offer the same amount of storage space, which makes the Falcon Northwest DRX a below average value.

Overall, if you simply have to have a custom paint job to make your laptop stand out, Falcon Northwest is a viable option. However, the components in the DRX are too outdated to make it warrant the hefty price tag. The standout features are the powerful desktop processor and top-notch paint job.

Falcon Northwest FragBook DRX 17-inch Gaming Laptop Specification