These two were
no secret, but Alienware hosted a press event this morning to finally confirm its
Area-51 m15x and m17x laptops. While Alienware design is still a bit of a love it or hate it affair, it's clear that some thought has gone into these two, and there's finally an option to get replace the standard Alienware ribbing on the lid for smooth one. The m17x is obviously the primary powerhouse here, configurable with dual NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX graphics cards, a Blu-ray burner, Core 2 Extreme processor, dual hard drives and a 1080p 17-inch LCD. Special Alienware touches include LEDs galore -- the keyboard, sides and lid all can be lit up in your choice of color, selected by software. Alienware is also tossing in a hot-swappable drive bay for swapping in a third hard drive or extra optical drive. The m15x is of course is doing its darnedest to pack this kind of gaming power into a 15-inch form factor, but the surprising thing is that it nearly does. The laptop runs a single 8800M GTX card, includes a hot swap bay to boost storage or add an extra battery, and includes all those lighting doohickies of its big brother. We're pretty impressed with the size and form factors, and while we can't quite get into Alienware's design taste, it's certainly a step in the right direction.
posted Nov 19th 2007 2:51PM
Grotesque
A press event for laptops, seriously? If they're going to go through this much trouble, why not have them running next to their competition doing tasks like video encoding, gaming, Photoshopping... Show the true reason why people would want to buy these over an Acer.
On a side note, you can buy a Sager notebook with a quad core processor, 3 hard drives, 2 video cards and a 17" HD screen for $400 less than this dual core equivalent.
With all those backlit keys and extra HDDs, they might as well just not include a battery at all. You'll have to keep it plugged in 95% of the time anyway so what's the point? That being said, I wouldn't mind having one for gaming. My MacBook doesn't get its game on very well.
Well, portable gaming is the point.
well you can use the expansion bays to add more battery...
Cripe... turn one damned light on in the room and the gloss on that pig will blind you. Who comes up with this crap and worse yet... who actually BUYS it??
I like the power, but it looks like it was designed for a rich 12 year old geek.
er... it is
Dual 8800 video cards in a laptop - $1200
Triple 64GB Samsung SSD Drives - $1200
Built in Blueray Burner - $300
Buying a $5000+ 10 lb laptop with 45 minute runtime - priceless.
These are taking too many design cues from that ugly XPS laptop(I don't remember the model, but I think it had red lights, fins, pinstripes and a spoiler or something).
In general though, I've always really loved the look of Alienware machines. Sure, they have a wild look, but they do it well and keep it understated.
I think that you would be hard-pressed to find a laptop that keeps its design less understated than this one.
They don't have the specs on their site yet. Are you sure the LCD's are a full 1080p? Most laptops at this size only display 1680x1050 pixels max...just short of a full 1080p.
my 3-year old Dell Inspiron 8600 has a 1920x1200 display and it had a Mobility Radeon 9600. 4 pixel shaders (as I recall) FTW.
Macbook Pro, FTW.
$5,000 for 60.0fps.
wow. laptop porn.
any chance of these making it into a 15" laptop?
m15x is the 15.4
I own a m9700 and I'm about to own a new m15x. The design is awesome, and for those complaining about battery life... It's not about battery life, were not using our Alienware machines to work on spreadsheets in the airport, were bringing them to LAN's and other places other then our own houses (BTW, most people who own an Alienware do own houses and spend much of their time around electricity because they can afford to pay for it).
I bought mine because I wanted you all to hate me.
Anyone know where I can find the wallpaper they used in http://www.engadget.com/photos/hands-on-with-alienwares-area-51-m15x-and-m17x-laptops-2/498277/? It's the one with the white screen and an alien behind it with his hand on the screen.
That background is actually one of Alienware's screen savers found on their website.
It is not a wallpaper at all it is a screen saver you can download from the Alienware website. I own a Alienware Area-51 M7700 17" screen Max Resolution 1920x1200 Nvidia M7900 256 RAM 2 HDD's RAID 1 Pentium 4 3.8GB Hyper Threaded. Yes it runs Very hot thats why there are four(4) fans.
Yeah, well, I think these laptops look incredible.
I LOVE the backlit keyboard and have been practically crying out for this forever. Why on earth aren't all keyboards backlit these days? It seems Dell, Alienware, and Apple are the only companies that offer it.
I slso love the finish on these systems - I actually like my laptops to look good, too, not just perform well. Each to his own, but these systems look like they have custom paintjobs worthy of an automobile. To all who don't like the glossy finishes: Fine by me. Keep your ugly computers.
The only thing I don't like about the m17x: no HD-DVD drive. I wish companies would stop choosing sides and just offer both flavors. If I'm invested in HD-DVD, then what good does a Blu-ray drive do me? Companies need to offer both, and let the CUSTOMER decide.
I was looking at the design more, and I have to say, I'm shocked that several of you think this design is so ugly. If you think it's ugly, then I can't figure out what you'd think looks nice.
They're offering two styles (for the top lid of the laptop): Skullcap (which looks like the Alien ribs) and Ripley (which is just a smooth surface with what looks like a soft crease down the middle). Along with the Ripley design, the m17x has one of the cleanest looking designs I've ever seen on a PC laptop - reminds me a lot of a MacBook Pro in terms of the smooth, clean lines. Go here: http://www.alienware.com/intro_pages/m17x_m15x.aspx - and look at the m17x gallery. It's not that I care about differing opinions - I honestly don't - it's just that it's completely perplexing to me how someone could think that particular system is offensive to the eye. Please provide me with an example (of a PC laptop) that you think looks good (or better than this).
Taking that gallery (that I provided a link to) into consideration, along with the Ripley lid, the beautifully clean blue backlit keyboard, and coupling that with a glossy black paintjob, you'd have to be absolutely NUTS to think that wouldn't look good. Again, each to his own, but it just seems that some of you would never be pleased with what anyone came up with. Either that, or you're simply more attracted to designs that are drab.
I have to agree with Z,,
If you don't think this is pretty you have to be NUTS
This is the most beautifull laptops i have ever seen,, and i have allways loved the "ribs" on alienware's laptops and would hate to see this go,,,
The keyboard is just so beautifully made,, i might even set this laptop as my background, even though i know i will never buy one because the concept of a gaming laptop is nuts in itself...
If only alienware offered a work-laptop with this design i would pay the difference between this and an equally good (yet ugly) laptop like a DELL XPS...
PRICES??? depends on price wether or not they suck more.
Mii!