Ultraportables with 8600M or higher anytime soon?

I'm looking for a new laptop to use on campus and travels. Since I'm going to be carrying it around for quite a bit, portability is an important factor in my choice for a notebook. Even though games won't be my primary use for the notebook I would still like to be able to play games once in awhile.

Trying to find an ultraportable with a decent video card is hard though. I'm currently looking at the Dell M1330 which seems to be the best tradeoff between portability and (gaming) performance. Compared to the nvidia 8600 the 8400 seems to be a weak performer though and the 8600 more future proof. So I'm wondering if you think there will be ultraportables avaliable anytime soon equipped with the 8600? If so, it might be worth waiting for.

 

Nope, the smallest one is 14" with the 8600 so far.

Anything under 14" has a 8400 at best.

 

The upcoming 14.1" Asus V2s has an 8600M GS. Several Zepto notebooks have the 8600M GT in a 14" frame, but those are only widely available in Europe.

In the 13.3" laptops and smaller category, the XPS m1330 is undoubtably the most powerful graphics-wise.

 

Well, the SZ and U3 is also slated to have the 8400GS, so it'll be a tie between the three

Now, none of them are available in mass amounts(The m1330 is slowly trickling out one unit at a time ), so its too early to say.

 

Isn't the SZ supposed to have the 8400M G only?

And the U3 isn't supposed to be released for several months

 

From the benchmarks I've seen, the 8600 GS is a total dog, it's barely faster than an 8400.

 

Thanks for your quick answers. Seems like Dell is the way to go then. The new Sony SZ (a quick search on the Sony forum gave me the idea that you were referring to the VGN-SZ680?) will probably cost a zillion, and the performance seems to be at par with the M1330, at least in terms of gaming performance. And a few months is too long to wait, then there will be something new around the next corner anyway. Although with Dell's current delivery times, the M1330 could be old before I get it...

 

It's slightly faster than an 8400M GT, but it's definitely, definitely faster than the 8400M GS, which is the only mid-range graphics card currently offered on ultraportable computers. I haven't seen widespread use of the 8400M GT yet. The 8600M GS is easily very much more powerful as the 8400M GS because of its increased stream processors and double the memory bus (64 bit versus 128 bit).