For most of the history of PC gaming, your choices were limited to either an immovable desktop PC or a massive 17-inch-or-larger laptop, at least if you wanted the kind of dedicated graphics and high-end CPU required for decent performance.
Origin PC EON13-S
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Previous portable gaming laptops, including the 14-inch Razer Blade and the 11-inch Alienware M11x, have all required serious compromises in design despite their high prices, from low-resolution screens to underpowered components. More recently, the new Alienware 14 was a strong performer, both in terms of design and components, but it was still too big and bulky to be easily portable.
Origin PC is one of the few boutique PC makers we've come to count on for solid, if expensive, gaming laptops over the past few years, making 15- and 17-inch systems with big, bulky bodies that required a padded backpack to carry around even somewhat comfortably. Now the company has a rare 13-inch gaming laptop, called the EON13-S.
The EON13-S starts at around $1,200, but our review unit clocked in at almost double that, $2,145. For that, however, you get a new fourth-generation Intel Core i7 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 765 graphics, 16GB of RAM, dual 120GB mSATA solid-state drives (SSDs), and a separate 750GB hard drive. What you don't get for that price is Windows 8 or a touch screen. Windows 8 is available as a further option, a touch screen is not.
While the $1,200 starting price may seem tempting, it doesn't get you the level of components anyone is really looking for in a gaming PC. I'd say you can get away with spending around $1,600 and get an excellent gamer-ready configuration.
The EON13-S is small enough to slip into a decent-size shoulder bag, but an ultrabook this is not. At first glance, it looks a bit like a throwback to laptops from several years ago, when bodies were thicker and gunmetal gray was the standard. That's because, like nearly every laptop from a small boutique PC maker, this system is built into an off-the-shelf third-party chassis, slightly customized with a new panel on the back of the lid. Only very large PC makers, such as Alienware (which is owned by Dell), can afford to create unique custom laptop bodies, like the Alienware 14's.
Despite its lackluster looks, the EON13-S passed my most important test, in that it was fun to use. But a 13-inch screen may be too small for full-time gaming, depending on your eyesight or tolerance for squinting. I found myself plugging the system into a 27-inch 1080p monitor via HDMI more often than not.
The EON13-S beats the Alienware 14 in terms of portability, but both suffer from extremely loud fan noise -- a universal problem when you're running such high-end parts in a small chassis. It also has serious advantages over the slimmer Razer Blade 14, an ambitious 14-inch gaming laptop undone by a poor-quality, low-res screen.
Price is always important, but in this rarefied air, the differences are not extreme. The closest Alienware 14 configuration runs $2,299, but you could knock the CPU down a few pegs (while still getting a quad-core Core i7), and get down to $1,800. And make sure to note the intangibles. Origin PC has a reputation for excellent hands-on customer service, and you'll want someone reliable on the other end of the phone if you encounter a problem with such a hefty investment.