It wasn't too long ago that laptops and gaming would never be used in the same sentence, with the exception of solitaire. However, when the nVidia geforce2Go launched a few years ago, the wheels were set in motion to catapult the laptop to gaming stardom. Now ATI and now even S3 have solutions to up the gaming ante.

This past year, nVidia launched SLI soluttions for the laptops which have now made them more powerful gaming systems than many desktop systems. Huge paradigm shift! So instead of lugging a desktop system around to LAN parties, you can grab the laptop and go. There's no longer a sacrifice in performance.

This year at the E3 in LA, one of the biggest electronic gaming shows in the world, we saw some pretty good laptop action. Let's check out what some companies are doing this year.

Alienware

Let's start off with Alienware...

At the eFocus event, the first press party at E3, we saw the new "DELL Powered" Alienware getting their groove on with some "Super Powered" Laptop action. Just in time for the premiere of Superman Returns, Alienware announced a licensing agreement to emblazon the power of "The Man of Steel" onto their systems and laptops. When asked about how the "DELL Factor" would influence the company going forward, we were just told "Business as Usual". Hopefully DELL isn't the "Kryptonite" in this relationship.

S3 and VIA

Though not system builders, they make the tech that enables the laptops that system builders build. At the show, VIA was walking around with their UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) powered by their C7-M processor. We were a bit disappointed to learn that the unit would only last for 2 hrs on the battery. I sincerely hope that someone comes out with a larger battery but that would also defeat the purpose of making it ultra mobile. Although this probably won't replace a PDA or laptop for me, it certainly makes a big technology statement as to where things may go in the future.

S3 was busy unveiling their new CHROME graphics processor at the show. The competitive advantage of this product is energy consumption and performance per watt, which are perfect features for laptop graphics. We saw the desktop version of this product in action at their private booth, and we even saw two of them pumping out graphics action in a kind of a SLI configuration. Graphics performance was pretty good on the Quake 4 demo we were playing. S3 also showed off a Fujitsu notebook with the CHROME mobile version of the GPU so it looks like we'll be getting very affordable decent graphics at more price points in laptops very soon.

VoodooPC

VoodooPC, one of Canada's premiere high end boutique PC manufacturers brought the big gun in their laptop arsenal out. Known simply as the "ENVY", it truly was the laptop to drool over. With a rich red glossy finish and the power of NVIDIA SLI technology onboard, it makes a lot of desktops feel truly...envious. But then again, I don't envy anyone that has to lug around this 19 inch behemoth, but it sure beats packing your PC, monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the next LAN party.

Toshiba

Just fresh off the world rollout of their HD-DVD technology, Toshiba was showing off laptops equipped with HD-DVD drives. With new higher resolution screens that can display the true HD resolution of the HD-DVD software, their new Qosmio laptops will become the center of attention in many home theatre systems. Gaming performance should be pretty good with the use of NVIDIA GPU's in these units.

So there we have it from the E3 Expo! Laptops getting the props that they deserve as a true gaming and entertainment platform! Laptop Lifestyle for Life Folks!

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