With most of the laptops in our Winter 2009 Retail Review Roundup sporting a fairly uniform set of components and features, any entries that break the mold in a significant way have a good chance of standing out from the crowd.
In the crowded Budget category of retail laptops, ranging from $600 to $899, we were pleased to discover the $679 Asus X83VB-X2, a 14-inch system notable for its discrete Nvidia GeForce 9300 graphics.
Sure, it's no gaming powerhouse, but casual gamers (and World of Warcraft addicts) will appreciate the extra gaming muscle in such an inexpensive laptop.