The WidowPC Sting 517D is a high-end gaming notebook with a high-resolution 17” display, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and the holy grail of notebook GPUs, the Nvidia GeForce Go7900GTX with 512MB of dedicated memory (the best video system on the market so far), gathering more power than most desktops. When it comes to competition, there are very few notebooks that can stand up to the WindowPC 517D in terms of performance. There is a spider logo on the black lid that makes an impressive look. the design and overall appearance is a work of art with everything at it’s place.

The 517D is a heavy notebook, with the lid made out of aluminum, black colored and the rest of the case is made of high-strength ABS plastic feeling extremely sturdy and inflexible. The keyboard is also black while the rest of it it’s silver. The full-size keyboard is bolstered on each side by a pill-shaped integrated speaker with an silver grill and metal trim. The touchpad is slightly off-center to the left to line up with the main keyboard and the buttons are made of metal, with matte silver tops and shiny borders. As far as notebook speakers go, these are top-notch in terms of sound quality, and they actually have a quite amount of bass - finally a laptop with decent sound!

A notebook with as high-powered of components as this one demands an effective, reliable cooling system, which in this case is provided by the two large fans (located on the bottom of the notebook) and large copper heatsinks: the Sting 517D does a commendable job of cooling itself, leaving no hot spots. However, there is a reasonable noise level, 517D not being classified as a quiet laptop. The Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-K16 optical drive is reasonably quiet for all tasks, and does not have any problems burning different types of media. The WidowPC Sting 517D has a multitude of ports as a desktop replacement should have, including an ever rare DVI-D port for connections to external monitors and HDTVs, 4 USB 2.0 ports, and a legacy Serial port. 1 hour and 36 minutes battery life is not impressive, so keep it plugged-in.
WidowPC Sting 517D Specifications