We can't really imagine why anyone would choose a notebook for playing games on. Who wants a gaming platform that's more difficult to upgrade than a PC and less mobile than a Nintendo DS? However, if that is what you want, this is about the best you'll get.
A GeForce Go 6800 PCI-Express card with 256MB of dedicated memory gives the Ixius awesome visuals, backed up by the 3GHz Pentium 4.
At a resolution of 1,024x768 the Ixius managed a frame rate of 67.4fps (frames per second) in Doom 3 and 44.6fps in Halo. At 1,280x1,024, results of 59.1fps and 42.6fps were achieved - impressive stuff.
The screen is just about as good as you'll get on a notebook - while it doesn't have anything like Sony's X-black technology, the balance between colour depth and glare resistance is remarkable.
Otherwise, though, the MV is a bit of a mixed bag. The performance isn't that great for nearly £1,200, managing only 78 points in our WorldBench 5 tests. There's 512MB of DDR RAM and a 60GB hard drive - good but not outstanding - and the excellent NEC ND-6500A DVD writer.
In the model we looked at there was a 7-in-1 card reader but you can opt for a second battery, another optical drive or a floppy drive instead - this will affect the price, though.
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