ASUS, MSI Release Sub-$1,200 Gaming Notebooks

Affordable gaming laptop? That used to be a contradiction. Then last February, Gateway unleashed a monster – the nine-pound P-6831 FX. You wouldn’t want to carry it up a flight of stairs, but with an NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS graphics card powerful enough to play "Crysis," it was a $1,200 portable desktop of choice for many.

But now, laptop manufacturers ASUS and MSI have tackled the weight issue – and launched a pair of comparatively slim, sexy machines that just may give Gateway a run for its money. Specs and pics after the jump.