Gamer’s Delight

Alienware is under the wing of Dell, and has been specialising in developing powerful custom made computers mainly intended for game players.

Alienware is under the wing of Dell, and has been specialising in developing powerful custom made computers mainly intended for game players. The company’s M17x is claimed to be the most powerful 17-inch gaming laptop and offers mind blowing performance and features at a premium price.

The distinctive Alien logo on the chassis glowing is the first thing which strikes you. The new ?stealth? look from Alienware features very interesting design choices that make it look like a futuristic device. Adding to its unconventional looks are the numerous back lighting effects which make it a device that will turn more than just a few heads ? the M17x is truly a wonderful sight to behold.

The gaming laptop is available in 3 chassis colours ? Space Black, Lunar Silver and Nebular Red. We received ?Space Black? which actually looks the best out of all three when taking into account back lighting. The anodised aluminium finish along with the industrial design is very fitting and appropriate. Under the hood is where the M17x incinerates the competition. Stuffed to the brim with two 500 GB 7,200-rpm hard drives arranged in a Raid 0 array, meaning that the two hard drives are merged for faster performance, a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad QX9300 processor, 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, Dual Geforce 280M graphic cards along with a power saver option upping the amount to 3 makes it the ultimate desktop replacement. Saying that the machine is jam packed is an understatement.

When we talk about ergonomics, keeping the laptop on the lap will not make for a comfortable experience unless you enjoy burning your legs for amusement. Cooling is provided for various sections of the laptop and sound is justifiable in a normal environment, but in places where there is pin drop silence the fans will make a very audible whirr so discretion is advised. Kept on a table, the luxurious amount of space provided for the palm rest with the inclusion of a full sized keyboard make typing as well as solid gaming sessions a breeze. There is no fatigue or cramps at all which will make you wonder whether it is a desktop or a laptop.

The touchpad is matte finished differentiating it from the palm rest. The touchpad buttons offer good feedback and the horizontal and vertical scroll spaces allocated on it make Web browsing a great experience. No doubt a mouse will be required for playing games but it is good to use for routine everyday functions.

The AlienFusion software can be used to customise the keyboard functioning, lighting, touchpad sensitivity but the star of the show is the Fusion FX lighting. Not only can you customise the backlighting of the keyboard but it is also divided into four parts so that a rainbow effect can be produced. All the backlit areas can be customised be it the logo on the lid, the touchpad lighting, the Alienware font on the display and even the speakers. Soft touch buttons located above the keyboard include controls for ejecting discs, full media controls for skip and play/pause, volume controls, a wireless launch button and quick-launch buttons for the system?s AlienFusion control panel.

The M17x scored perfect points on the performance front. It got 5,276 points in PCMark Vantage and 12031 in PCMark 2005. The PCMark scores indicate performance in everyday activities and general overall functioning. As if the 5 digits weren’t enough of an indication, it translates to amazing performance be it productivity suites, multitasking and even virtualisation, all of which it will handle with ease.

The 500GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4 hard disks arranged in a RAID 0 array deserve the credit for the faster processing with the only niggle being backup issues especially since the RAID mode splits up the data on both the hard disks for faster performance. So, if one crashes then the entire data is lost. The Alien Respawn recovery software came to the rescue and restored the computer to factory settings. The 3DMark score of 11771 reflects upon the power of the dual Geforce 280M cards giving amazing performance at full resolution.

This laptop is probably best suited for gamers, but if you are looking for top performance as well as mobility the Alienware M 17 X is the laptop you are looking for.

Specs

Dimensions: 51.31 x 405.89 x 321.31 mm (H x W x D)

17-inch screen

2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9300 processor

8GB 1033 MHz DDR3 RAM

2 x 500 GB @ 7,200rpm hard drive

Slot-load Blu-ray reader

Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit/(32Bit Recovery) OS

Internal high-definition 5.1 Surround Sound Audio

4 Hi-speed USB 2.0 ports

8-in-1 Media Card Reader

Front Speakers Audio Out Connector / Headphone Jack