Kobalt Comanche SLI

Manufacturer:Kobalt
Base Unit Price:From £2,225.00 (inc. VAT)
Price (as reviewed):£2,870.00 (inc. VAT)

Normally when we’ve had gaming laptops in in the past, we at the bit-tech offices have gone through the same old dance. After a few minutes of beholding the laptop my frustrating need to argue takes over and I question what exactly the point of a gaming notebook is.

They are, I point out, invariably too heavy and big to be anything more than a desktop replacement when you get right down to it, except they have less power and upgradability.

Tim will ignore me, or go away and return with an inflatable hammer to beat me with. Richard will roll his eyes and go through the same old arguments about how gaming laptops offer versatility, which I counter to with the issue of inflated prices.


Recently though, things have changed at bit-tech HQ. We’ve got a new staff member, Harry, who is a super-keen LAN gamer and has finally trumped my argument – which was always put forth more out of need for confrontation than out of actual conviction – by pointing out the extra security and comfort afforded by the versatility of the design.

I guess I’ll have to find something else to argue about then. Speaking of which, I’ve never been a fan of the colour red...

Kobald Commander

Actually, that last little line wasn’t a joke – I’m not the type of person who likes to make a big show of things for the most part, and in any given situation my default behaviour is simply ‘Camouflage’.

Then again, the Comanche SLI is available in a whole range of different colours and finishes and for a little bit extra you can choose to have custom logos, LCD lid displays or completely custom paint jobs applied to the base unit. Huh – but there must be something else to whinge about, right? Let’s look at the technical specs.


CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9540 2.66GHz (12MB L2 Cache)
Memory: 4GB OCZ DDR2-PC6400 800MHz (2x 2GB)
Graphics card: 2x Nvidia GeForce 9800M GT 512MB DDR3
HDD: 2x 250GB 7,200rpm WD Scorpio Black in RAID 0, 320GB 5,400rpm WD Scopio Blue
Bundled Software: Kobalt System Recovery Kit
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Disc Drive: Blu-ray ROM
Screen: 17" WUXGA X-Glass, 1,920 x 1,200 native res
Weight: 5.4kg with battery
Extras: 7-in-1 card reader, three year warranty, choice of decoration

Wow, OK. So, there’s nothing wrong there then. This version of the Kobalt Comanche SLI may cost a fair bit, with the above configuration priced at £2,870 including VAT, but for that money you are getting some very premium kit and a lot of hard drive space spread out over the three very impressive drives.

In fact, you’re not very far off a whole terabyte of space on which to store your savegames and Crysis screenshots. Take into account the extras on offer with a system like this, not excluding the three year collect and return warranty, and the Comanche SLI is definitely one of the most pimped out rigs we’ve seen.

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