The Storm

Hey there. I’m sorry it took a long time to get a new post up and running. I’ve been struck down with dengue fever, which is a total bummer. But now I’m back in action. Let’s take a look at this really cool laptop to get things rolling.

You may not have heard of the company Digital Storm, but they’re known as one of the biggest boutique laptop builders. They’re also known for crazy – looking desktops and workstations complete with water – cooling systems that run around the hardware.

The modestly – named x17 is their most insane laptop. By looking at this laptop, you’ll get an idea of how insane their products are.

Design

This laptop makes use of a Clevo P170EM shell. This shell is popular with other boutique builders because it is easy to customize, and simple yet good looking. It’s not ugly, but it certainly doesn’t get points for any flamboyant features. The perfect word to describe the laptop’s look is “simple.”

Though it is simple, it certainly feels like you’re carrying around a tank. This thing weighs 8.5 pounds! It’s like going to the gym already. With the lid closed, this laptop is 1.7 inches thick. Thankfully, it manages to create a rather slim profile for its size.

Display

The display is a humungous 17.3 – inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. It’s certainly expected of a company like Digital Storm to provide amazing features for gamers. Games in their native resolution will look amazing here.

The screen, overall, is nice and easy on the eyes. It’s bright and colorful, which is more than adequate.

Hardware

The real deal is found under the hood, and that’s where things get serious.

To get things started, the x17 has several Intel Core i7 processors. You can select the ones you want to save cash. The most extreme option is the 3920XM, the Extreme Edition with 3.8 GHz of speed. It’s definitely the fastest one.

You also get 8 GB of RAM as a default setting. While this is more than enough, for those who need to render plenty of multimedia files, you can bump it up to 16, 24 or 32 GB for insane performance.

How about graphics? Well, this laptop features the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M with 4 GB of VRAM. This is currently NVIDIA’s most powerful graphics card for laptops. It’s so new that not many companies have adopted it yet. Again, you can choose lower graphics cards, but you’re sacrificing performance.

In terms of storage, you can choose up to two hard drives, or you can just stick with one big hard drive to save on cash. You get plenty of choices in terms of space, and you can also choose solid state drives for increased performance.

Conclusion

With the usual selection of ports such as USB 3.0 and other features like HDMI, this machine is a full on gaming behemoth.

So how much does it cost? All of the specs I indicated here will set you back a whopping 2,698 bucks. Comparing it to other companies though, the x17 is the most affordable because the competition prices these laptops for more than 3000 bucks!

If you want a gaming laptop that packs power yet affordablability, then the x17 is the way to go.