Digital Storm Krypton

Digital Storm Krypton ($ 2,297, as tested) poses a common question for the mobile players. What's more important in a gaming laptop, the total package or pure performance? As we grapple with this quandry every time we review a new gaming machine, the answer is clear. The krypton focuses on high performance, thanks to an overclocked Intel Core i7-4810MQ processor and a new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M graphics card. Other systems may be prettier, or offer more storage and entertainment options, but as far as pure power play, the krypton deliver. It is enough to make the Digital Storm krypton our Editors Choice 'for midrange gaming laptop.

Design
Measuring 1.81 by 16.3 by 11.3 inches (HWD) and weighing 9.1 pounds, the Krypton is a great laptop that packs some powerful hardware. The design itself is a bit generic, though. The Clevo chassis just looks like we've seen from other manufacturers, and the black plastic with matte finish is not particularly exciting.

The 17.3-inch display has a 1920-by-1, 080 resolution giving full support HD,. With an anti-glare finish, no issues reflectivity, although the blacks are not quite as dark or rich as you can see in the other display. The accompanying audio pumped out two Onkyo speaker set just below the display and an integrated subwoofer on the underside of the chassis, is quite good, thanks to a Soundblaster X-Fi sound card 3. Krypton also adds to the headphone output growth, which will help headset wearers to hear every little effect, since the crunch of footsteps on the staccato beat of enemy fire.

The keyboard also offers plenty of room for typing and gaming, and it has a square key-adjacent one another rather than spaced out, like a chiclet-style keyboard, with blue LED backlighting. Just below the touchpad has a glowing signs all over its surface, which rotates through multiple colors. The mouse features separate left and right buttons, a fingerprint reader located between them for easy, secure login.

Features
The side and rear of Krypton, you'll find all manner of ports and connectors. On the right is a tray-load Blu-ray player / DVD burner, along with some audio connection (for headphones, a microphone, and external speakers), and a USB 2.0 port. On the left are two USB 3.0 ports, a port combination USB / eSATA, Gigabit LAN a port, a multiformat card reader (SD / MMC / MS), and a FireWire 800 port. The FireWire port is a head scratcher, because not only it is a bit out of date, but also because the port on our review unit protrudes slightly, just begging to get snagged on something.

The rear of the chassis has a 4-pin power connector, an HDMI port, a DisplayPort and mini-DisplayPort. For wireless connectivity, with Bluetooth 4.0 and dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac.

Both the krypton 250GB solid-state drive (SSD) for booting and a larger 750GB, 7,200 rpm hard drive. The laptop is refreshingly free of any bloatware. All you'll find when you first boot up the Windows 8.1 (64-bit), drivers and utilities for sound, and NVIDIA GeForce Experience, which serves as the control center for the NVIDIA graphics card. Recently added to the GeForce Experience features like Shadowplay, which allows you to record in-game video, Game Stream (for the stream of your game with a NVIDIA shield), and Battery Boost, which offers a remarkable dramatically improved performance in the play when the system is on battery power. Digital Storm backing up Krypton three-year warranty on labor, with one-year parts replacement and lifetime tech support.