Alienware's Core 2 Duo m5550 laptop reviewed
PC Magazine has posted a review of Alienware's high spec Area-51 m5550 laptop, which is loaded up with a top-end 2.33GHz T7600 Core 2 Duo processor, a 1280 by 768 pixel 15.4-inch display, 2GB of RAM, a 100GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g, and a GeForce Go 7600 with 256MB of VRAM. This configuration will set you back $2,799 (with the processor costing $700 alone), but you do get a lot of bang for your buck: in fact, the reviewer said that the T7600 in the m5550 produced some of the fastest numbers he'd seen "from any notebook." Unfortunately the same can't be said for the machine's battery life, which lasted just under 2 hours, nor the graphics performance, which was good, but no match for the GeForce Go 7900GTX in Dell's gaming dedicated XPS M1710 laptop. The heat output was also noticeably high, hitting 114 Farenheit despite the fans being on. Ultimately, whether or not you decide to go for this machine depends on how much you want / need the 2.33GHz T7600: it's all about weighing up the T7600's performance against a longer battery life, a fuller wallet, and the most important thing of all, prettier thighs.
