Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook

Notebook computers have been closing the power gap between themselves and desktop PCs for some time now. A while back you'd be lucky to have a notebook half as fast as a high-end PC, but nowadays you're able to pick up a notebook with roughly equal the processing power of the fastest desktop systems available. As fast as notebooks have gotten in terms of processing speed, it seems that mobile graphics chips have been increasing in speed at an even faster rate. A few years back you'd be hard pressed to find a laptop that could run a new game at similar speeds to a desktop PC. Now with things like RADEON Mobile 9800 having been on the market for a bit and better chips like NVIDIA's GeForce Go 6800 just now arriving, mobile gamers are able to run games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 at desktop-comparable speeds and resolutions. But with all of the raw speed increases, sound has been left in the dust. Sure, there are a few reasonable breakout box options, but those are bulky to carry around and make your notebook less mobile than it should be. In general, the sound options available to notebook gamers have been mediocre at best. Until now. Enter Creative's Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook, its first compact and nearly zero-footprint surround sound audio solution for notebooks. The card is essentially a very small version of its SB Audigy 2 ZS desktop soundcard, featuring all of the same features and software solutions in a tight, neat little package.

Review: Sound Blaster finally takes its show on the road with an Audigy 2 specifically designed for laptop gamers. Could ...

It's taken a long time, but Creative has finally found a way to bring desktop-quality audio to your laptop. We recommend the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook for anyone who wants quality audio on the go.

Anyone interested in playing games or making music on their notebook would do well to take a look at the latest offering from Creative.

Overall if you intent to have any sort of fun with your laptop then this is £100 you need to spend