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ABS Mayhem G4 Laptop

As a step in the direction of diversifying our OEM systems evaluation program, we take a look at a laptop from ABS. ABS has been in the systems integration business for 15 years and is the OEM behind Newegg.com. Carrying a 6600 Go and touted by ABS as a gaming laptop, the bar is set.

Introduction

The Changing Landscape of PC Gaming

In the last few years, we've seen a push in the industry to bring gaming to laptops. There are a number of obvious reasons why getting a hold of a performance gaming laptop has been difficult. Among other things, cooling, battery life, and size constraints are the most prominent obstacles that face the Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs). For the consumer, not wanting to pay the price of a used car makes most think twice about the advantages of convenience and portability over the raw performance of a much less expensive desktop solution. Temperature issues have put designers and R&D engineers into a perpetual head-scratching fest as they try to figure out how to keep the high performing CPUs and GPUs of today cool and comfortable.

At QuakeCon this year, I was not surprised to see rows of Dell XPS desktops running Battlefield 2 and Quake 4. However, I was shocked to see that there was also a large laptop kiosk playing the same games. To my eye, I saw the laptops doing just fine. The strides that we have seen in portable gaming are impressive, and it makes one question whether we should start expecting the same gaming performance out of a laptop that we are seeing in a desktop. Well, we'll get to that, but first let's hear a little about ABS.

ABS

Starting up in 1990, ABS has been quietly advancing its place in the market. Although you may not have heard of ABS, most have heard of Newegg.com, which is the e-tail components face of ABS. ABS may be a Tier 2 OEM outfit, but Newegg.com is definitely a well-known, major components supplier, and arguably the highest profile end-user hardware site on the net. With that money in their pocket and a warehouse of parts of choose from, ABS is able to carefully select their components to not only build custom systems with the best parts, but also provide the trademark customer service we've come to expect from the OEM that spawned Newegg.com.

From their site:

ABS builds some of the most highly regarded computing solutions in the industry for demanding customers who need the highest performance machines with the most reliable components. ABS is also highly regarded for its excellent customer service and technical support quality. The ABS motto is "Always Better Service" and ABS strives for excellence in delivering the best computing experience ever from start to finish.

ABS shall provide the highest quality computer products and premium services to our clients. In addition to quality products, customer service is among our highest priorities. Our philosophy is to extend ourselves indefinitely to our customers in providing for their every need. We will never compromise our efforts to provide the "best overall value" for our customers.

Delivering high end, high quality solutions requires much diligent work. To start, ABS only tests the best of the best. New technology is not introduced unless it is thoroughly tested by our Research and Development Team. We place our manufacturing partners' latest breakthroughs and cutting edge components through rigorous testing. The results are computers manufactured with the finest technologies the world has to offer.

While all of this sounds good to us, let's see if ABS can win our hearts and minds with the first laptop in our evaluation program, the Mayhem G4.