HEXUS.reviews :: Alienware Area51-m Extreme notebook

[Rys]

Alienware's most outrageous product made its way to me recently for some serious geek worship and evaluation.

P4 Extreme Edition in a laptop is just plain cool

Personally I love it. I'm a geek, I appreciate a £650 server CPU in my laptop. I appreciate being able to swap the GPU. I like having a 4x DVD+RW on the move with 1GB of memory and a 60GB HDD to feed it. I like 108Mbit WiFi without even having the means to use it.

My personal feelings aside, it's an obvious bit of niche hardware that's hard to traditionally score. Is it the fastest gaming laptop on the planet? Yes. Does it cost an absolute fortune? Yes. Do people who'd actually buy one care? Do they hell.

It's an engineering showcase with a worldwide market that's probably smaller than the market that bought a Parhelia to play games on. It's both fantastic and pointless at the same time.

Check it out here.

Rys

[pickers]

Sorry but you say it is "THREE INCHES" thick???!!!! It can't be anyway near that big can it??

[Rys]

At its fattest point, yes, it is.

Rys

[pickers]

But it says on the website (just looked) that it is 1.6" thick. 3" is about 7.5cm, that is about as thick as the latest Harry Potter!

[Rys]

It's nowhere near 1.6 inches thin. What model are you looking at? Got a link to the 1.6" quote?

Rys

[streetster]

http://www.alienware.com/configurato...m_changer.aspx

Case Specifications:
Width 13.8"
Height 1.6"
Depth 11.4"

[daniel_owen_uk]

I want one, but first I best do some weight training to carry the damn thing, anyone know weight with battery?

[Rabs]

They should change the name from laptop to fattop...

[Rys]

2 (and a fraction) ", not 3".

I blame my poor handwriting. My apologies to Alienware.

Rys

[khaine]

As gorgeous as the Alienware Area 51-m Extreme is, I must question all the fuss about it considering that another company (Falcon North West) have already released a laptop with a P4 Extreme Edition several weeks ago, with (in my opinion) substantially better stats.

It not only features an Extreme Edition running at 3.4gig (as apposed to the 3.2gig Alienware version) but also a 9700 with twice the memory, up to twice as much system RAM (up to 2gig as apposed to the 1gig available in the Alienware system) and a larger LCD display. Essentially it has pretty much all the features of the Alienware system plus more.

Also with Falcon, they can paint the whole laptop in any colour and any design you can possibly think of, rather than just you choosing from a pre-determined, and fairly boring, colour schemes.

[Rys]

And the cost for such a beast? Unless it's close to the cost of the Alienware as we reviewed it, the argument is moot, since Alienware supply a 128MB MR9700 for the 51-m if you ask for it and I'm sure they'd even shoehorn a 3.4EE in there if you really want one. 2GB is an option too.

The Alienware we received is nearly 3 months old, and they were shipping 51-m Extremes before that. They deserve the plaudits for getting such a machine out first.

Rys

[DR]

They can do 3.4EE in it - they didnt at the time of sampling due to it not being released

[directhex]

I'm sure if falcon nw sling a lappy our way we can poke it with the appropriate poking sticks

[khaine]

Dont get me wrong, the Alienware system is very powerfull for a laptop, its just that even tho numbers arent everything, I think that you cant really claim that the Alienware system is the most powerfull laptop around when the Falcon system has the the same stats in most areas and much much more in others. Check out the falcon website (www.falcon-nw.com) you will find that for the same spec machine, their prices are very similar to Alienware - except that with Falcon you have the option to go evenmore powerfull......

It would be interesting to see which company actually had Extreme Edition laptops for shipping first

[Rys]

Falcon want $5100 for an EE-equipped Fragbook DR with WiFi, 1GB and a 1680x1050 screen (although it is larger than the Alienware).

I'll email them for a sample.

Rys

[khaine]

Might it be worth while inviting them to join in with the competition between Alienware and VoodooPC over which company has the fastest laptop.....?

khaine