Alienware Area-51 m5700 laptop

[Steve]

Alienware has had the time to see what the likes of Dell has done with its high-end laptops. Following on from that, it has also had the time to architect something better in the £1500-£2000 price range, and whilst the Alienware Area-51 m5700 has a number of decent features in common with the Inspiron XPS Gen 2 (now, incidentally, replaced by the similar XPS M170), which is still our current yardstick for measuring DTRs against, it simply fails to topple it.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3998

[scottyman]

call me an odd chap - but I'd be happier with a different gfx chip, with a smaller chassis, 15.4" screen - and about £500 cheaper.

i.e. one of the Acer units, Samsung, etc.
I just don't think Alienware are being competitive with their laptops (not so say that they ever have been)

I'd like to have something where I can play a few hours of HL2 on the plane, at reasonable but not kickass quality.

[davidstone28]

How can the reviewer possibly give that laptop an "Executive Award"???

The laptop is ugly as sin, has a graphics card that's a generation beind and is MASSIVELY overpriced.

Shouldn't the reviewer have mentioned that you can buy the Evesham 7800GTX based laptop for alot less.

Executive award my arse.

[Rys]

A HEXUS Labs award means it passed our tests well enough to at least be fit for sale, if a consumer does want to buy it. It's not a recommendation to buy.

Our fault for not explaining the new system in a bit more detail. We'll endeavour to do so in the near future.

Again, just to be clear, a HEXUS Labs award (in any category) broadly means "fit for sale", and it's not a buying recommendation. Recommended and Editor's Choice are, for example.

All will become clearer, in due course.

[Steve]

Executive award my arse.

/Give's davidstone28's arse an executive award...

That aside, Rys explains it well.

[davidstone28]

I think the concept of a "fit for sale" award is pointless. Practically everything is "fit for sale" otherwise you'd have the trading standards people swarming around it in no time.

Gold Award or Editors Choice or whatever, I can understand, but the more Mickey Mouse awards you give out, the more likely you are to be compared to the ridiculous Rodney Reynolds and his 3Dgameman "kick ass" award for practically every product.

Just results in loss of reviewer credibility.

[scottyman]

/Give's davidstone28's arse an executive award...

That aside, Rys explains it well.

LOL

fair enough about executive grading and the like... i.e. if you can afford it - then fair enough, it's a nice toy.

I just look at their sentia units and think, well - if tosh was selling that unit at that price point - they won't shift any units. Sony on the other hand, would. Alienware has a certain geek quotient from their desktop units, but they seem to have confused what the target market is for this model - fine, very nice for gaming, but the chassis is too large.