Alienware M11X - the first ultra-portable gaming machine!

[Covenant]

The Acer also has an XGP port which can be used with an external graphics card:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news...i-netbook.aspx

AFAIK and XGP graphics cards should be able to run the notebook display too.

I've given up waiting for the UL30JT and decided that the M11x is too expensive so took the plunge and bought an Acer Ferrari One to tie me over this year. I'm sure by next year there will be plenty of good CULV + ion2 to choose from at a decent price.

Any idea when / if these XGP graphics cards will be available to buy? Would be quite useful to connect my new netbook to the lounge TV (not to mention be able to play some games on it!!)

[McPhee]

Ooh. Let me know what you think of the Ferrari, had my eye on it too. Any chance you could see if some games are playable on it? I'm thinking Source engine, so Portal, Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2. Anything would be grand!

[Covenant]

Ooh. Let me know what you think of the Ferrari, had my eye on it too. Any chance you could see if some games are playable on it? I'm thinking Source engine, so Portal, Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2. Anything would be grand!

Your other option for those games is the eee pc 1201n - only has the Atom330 cpu but the ion gfx should be faster then the HD3200 in the ferrari. Anyway, mine arrives tomorrow, so if I get a chance I'll let you know.

Crazily I almost bought one of these:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/11/s...14gx-s-review/

Spec'd it up on the Sony site, thought it looked good, made a cup of tea and then suddenly thought £1,348.99!!... what am I doing?! And managed to stop myself... hehe.

[Covenant]

Ooh. Let me know what you think of the Ferrari, had my eye on it too. Any chance you could see if some games are playable on it? I'm thinking Source engine, so Portal, Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2. Anything would be grand!

Hey McPhee,

Haven't had a chance to benchmark it, but have used it extensively over last week or so.

First impressions: Stunning. Much better build and feel then entry level laptop (I'm guessing at £380 that's what people would have to compare it against) . Forget what people say about the kitch ferrari styling, it looks and feels solid and slick - and the Ferrari badge on the outside actually looks quite nice - even for a non-fan like myself. Screen, keyboard and general weight perfect size for browsing on the couch or in bed - even watched a DVD on it with a portable drive I have, and the 16:9 screen gives you a bar-less image. Anyway, asthetics and build quality wise it's great - and the GF absolutely loves it.

Win7 performance: I bought an extra 2gig stick with it, to give 4 gig in total - so not sure what it'd be like with 2gig. Win7 loads very quickly from cold, and is almost instant from sleep. Overall experience for browsing several tabs in Firefox was snappy, all videos on youtube and BBC news ran perfectly, and not noticed slow down once (so basically, like a standard PC, as oppose to an Atom based notebook). Even been using Lightroom3 beta and although not as quick to bulk output as my desktop, was completely useable - there's a lot to be said for having a dual core 64bit cpu and 4gig ram.

Gaming performance: I clocked the CPU up to 1.38Ghz and the Gfx core to 600Mhz/560Mhz Mem. Both can go higher I've heard, but without temps I don't want to risk it. There's a heat exhaust out from one side, and so far it's all been okay - if you're conservative, then don't bother, it'll only add 10-15% to your fps anyway.
Team Fortress 2 - only had a quick play. Set up with most gfx options turned down to medium or low, but ran at panel's native resolution 1366x768 (I think) - and was playing fine. Probably if you're going to play competitive and need more then 30fps then you could turn down more stuff and reduce res further, but conclusion from this is that it's TF2 is definitely a go with this machine.
Company of Heroes - Now THIS surprised me. With all the options turned down to min, and running again at panel's native res, I was able to play this game fine. Frame rate from the built in test reported avg. 35fps, but that's not really accurate. Played a few 2v2 skirmish (3 AI controlled) and minimum quoted was between 14fps and 16fps (don't know the average, but I would say in the 20s, which is fine for a RTS). Could prob improve that with a lower resolution, but it was already playable - just remember to use a mouse, using a trackpad for games is annoying!!

If you look at the CPU scores (just google the cpu and benchmarks) it comes out ahead of Atom330 (dualcore 1.6Ghz), but behind the Core2 CULV 1.3Ghz. Didn't see any benchmarks of it clocked up to 1.38Ghz, but guess it's safe to assume an extra 15%. Gfx is where this machine is weakest probably. Just waiting on when the XGP boxes to become available to buy as it'd be nice to hook it into my Plasma screen and use a decent gfx card.

Let me know if you want to know more...

[McPhee]

Nice one. That's basically all I needed to know. The gaming aspect is basically for if I'm bored on the train or whatever, stuff like Portal or Team Fortress definitely beats iPhone gaming Eye candy isn't all that important to me in a portable, I just wanted an idea of what would run (and it seems like it can take a fair bit! ).

[McPhee]

I'm actually thinking about picking up an M11x now. After all of the moaning about price I've decided it's not too bad. We actually get a better deal than the yanks. With discount codes it's £786.85 for the C2D model, which includes VAT, delivery, bluetooth, a 320GB 7200RPM, 1066MHz DDR3 RAM and the Alienware TacX mouse. To get that lot in the States (with 800MHz RAM instead, since 1066 isn't available to them) it's $1093 (£735.90) plus the relevant Sales Tax and then delivery. Albeit I haven't used any discount codes on the US site, but it still doesn't look quite so bad.

As far as the machine goes, I have my doubts. I can get a 13" Acer Timeline with a similar spec (without the 330M, so the Intel IGP is the only graphics) for £350. I'm essentially spending £400 to play games on the go. It seems a little... sad.

Then I read stuff like this;

Without doubt one of the best laptops we have tested... if not the best. Not only that, it’s right up there as one of the best products we have ever tested, in any category.

And I'm back to wanting again

[Covenant]

I'm actually thinking about picking up an M11x now.

You'll have to let us know how you get on, I was seriously considering this but ended up with the Acer Ferrari instead. My main reasons were 1) Weight (the M11x is 50% as heavy again), 2) Size (again 50% thicker) and 3) Cost (£380 vs. £750).

But you do end up with a much more power netbook (especially if you clock the CPU up to 1.73Ghz - single screen in BIOS) with decent GFX and I hear the screen is pretty good.

As far as the machine goes, I have my doubts. I can get a 13" Acer Timeline with a similar spec (without the 330M, so the Intel IGP is the only graphics) for £350. I'm essentially spending £400 to play games on the go. It seems a little... sad.

...true, but you wouldn't be the first!!

[Covenant]

I'm actually thinking about picking up an M11x now. After all of the moaning about price I've decided it's not too bad. We actually get a better deal than the yanks.

Just had a play with one in Gatwick airport, there's one on display at the Curry's digital. Have to say, a very nice machine.

In comparison to the acer ferrari I would say the screen on the M11x looked really good, - viewing angles and contrast were excellent, and probably a decent step up from the acer screen... would have been nice to have my acer it there to compare directly. I suspect I would have been quite disappoint with my screen after having seen the Alienware one though.

Overall machine looked nice actually, not as geeky as I thought it would look and the matt black finish definitely gives it a nice quality feel. It's definitely more chunky then the acer, and the 9cell battery probably goes some way to explaining the additional weight... but as an 11.6 inch laptop it still has a smaller footprint then an A4 pad so definitely very portable.

Keyboard was okay... it didn't feel like full size keys though, not sure if it's just me... and some of the keys (including the curser!) have been made narrower to fit the form factor. I'm sure you'd get used to it very quickly, but I noticed it when I was bashing a few keys. I think it's backlit though, so that is an advantage if you plan on using it bed for example.

Biggest downside I guess, which hasn't really changed, is that you could buy two acer's for the same price. Though if you're willing to spend the extra, it is better machine and can properly play games without having to gimp them by turning all the gfx settings down. I'm just wondering whether they will update the CPU to a newer i3 or i5 at some point though.

I wonder how much I can get for my Acer Ferrari... if I decide I want a new toy...

[McPhee]

Cheers for the comparison I've used the Ferrari and thought the screen was all right, so it's interesting to hear your comments on the M11x's screen (which I'd heard was disappointing, but I'm beginning to suspect that's "disappointing by £750-£1000 laptop ideals").

I get my bonus at the end of next week which means I can buy any time from then. Tempted to wait another month though. As usual there's something just around the corner This time it's the Asus N82JV (14" with Core i series processors and a GT335M with Optimus technology) and the Acer TimelineX 3820T (13" with Core i series processors and ATi 5650m switchable graphics). If they're a reasonable price I'll be seriously tempted to go with one of those instead.

[Covenant]

I get my bonus at the end of next week which means I can buy any time from then. Tempted to wait another month though. As usual there's something just around the corner This time it's the Asus N82JV (14" with Core i series processors and a GT335M with Optimus technology) and the Acer TimelineX 3820T (13" with Core i series processors and ATi 5650m switchable graphics). If they're a reasonable price I'll be seriously tempted to go with one of those instead.

Slightly different beast to the Ferrari One / M11x as there'll be a noticeable step up in terms of size / weight moving to a 13/14" notebook with DVD (as oppose to an 11" and no optical drive). Might be a non-issue for you, but for me I just wanted something tiny I could throw in my sidebag when was a way from home, for a 13/14" you'd want a proper laptop bag I think. It just depends how you plan on using it.

The Asus N82JV definitely looks quite appealing... would be good to know when it'll be available to buy and how much. Found the following though:
http://www.kuantokusta.pt/1/88017/Asus-N82JV-VX038V

On a side note, the Acer DynaVivid Graphics Dock Mobility Radeon HD 4670 - 1 GB is finally available to purchase, found a few places in Europe that will have them in stock from early May. The question is, do I spend 190euros (+P&P) on a piece of hardware purely to let me play games better on my netbook (which will need to be plugged in to use - kind of defeating the purpose of a netbook!) when I have a perfectly good quad-core desktop gaming system already stood next to me!!
http://www.connected24.de/product_in...ucts_id=133421

[McPhee]

I'm getting the M11x, just waiting for it to go back on special offer. Saw one in John Lewis at the weekend and it's awesome! The keyboard isn't great and the screen is very glossy, but it looks fantastic, feels well made and is exactly the right size/shape for carrying around.

You're bang on with the Acer and the Asus, just too big. It was just the i5 processors tempting me, the M11x is very CPU-limited and it really struggles with CPU-bound games (like GTAIV).

[aeonf242]

I'm getting the M11x, just waiting for it to go back on special offer. Saw one in John Lewis at the weekend and it's awesome! The keyboard isn't great and the screen is very glossy, but it looks fantastic, feels well made and is exactly the right size/shape for carrying around.

You're bang on with the Acer and the Asus, just too big. It was just the i5 processors tempting me, the M11x is very CPU-limited and it really struggles with CPU-bound games (like GTAIV).

Did you buy one? :-)

[Covenant]

Did you buy one? :-)

Was wondering the same thing!

McPhee - we want your first impressions!

[McPhee]

I did, bought one off someone on another forum. DOA. Trying to get my money back at the moment. Nice looking machine though. Keyboard is a bit crappy but that was my only complaint with the machine aesthetically.

[aeonf242]

I saw one this morning and wasn't that impressed by the Keyboard, very flimsey and cheap feel.....

[Rob_B]

According to a HUKD-er the Ferrari is going down to £199 @ Tesco from tomorrow....http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/68182...e-laptop-199-9

Plus enter TDX-CCB2 for £10 off a £100 spend.