Dell may be all finished with 11.6-inch gaming notebooks, at least as it pertains to the Alienware M11x, but if you're a fan of such powerful pint-sized PCs, don't feel obligated to cry yourself to sleep. The 11.6-inch form factor for gamers lives on, not only with Maingear's recently announced 'Pulse' laptop, but also via Eurocom, which is now selling its Monster 1.0 laptop starting at just $817.

When is an Ultrabook not really an Ultrabook? Whenever Intel says so, that's when. For consumers, the answer might not be so cut and dry, and as notebook makers look to deliver thin and light notebooks at lower price points, you'll have to ask yourself how much you really care about buying a notebook with an official Ultrabook designation versus buying one that's nearly identical but lacks Intel's full blessing.

Dell's Alienware M11x proved it's possible to play real games on a little laptop, a concept that flies over the head of every Atom-based netbook in existence. We were so impressed with the pint-sized system's gaming prowess that we awarded it a 9/10 verdict when we reviewed the system, but that was nearly two years ago and unfortunately for fans of the M11x, Dell reportedly isn't planning to refresh it's 11-inch gamer.

Boutique system builder AVADirect readily admits it's "no secret" that it hasn't been offering Clevo-brand notebooks "for quite some time," and there was good reason for that. AVADirect was preparing for the next generation of notebooks built around Intel's HM77 chipset, which brings support for both 2nd generation (Sandy Bridge) and 3rd generation (Ivy Bridge) Core processors from Intel and native SuperSpeed USB 3.0 support.