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Alienware offers Area-51 m5550 "Quick Ship" laptop
While Dell is still having trouble shipping one of its most desirable laptops, its subsidiary Alienware looks to be having no such troubles with its Area-51 m5550 laptop, and it's now offering a new "Quick Ship" version that it's promising to get to you even sooner. While you won't be able to configure it to your heart's content like other Alienware systems, your impatience will still net you a pretty well-equipped system, including a 15.4-inch display, a T7200 Core 2 Duo processor, ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 graphics, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and an 8x dual layer CD-RW/DVD±RW burner. If that'll do, you can get your order in now for $1,599, which includes a 48-hour shipping guarantee.
Alienware offers SSD for the m9750, m9700, and m5550
Alienware, certainly no stranger to the high-end spec game, has further upped the ante with a recent announcement touting SSD options for three of its laptops -- the Area-51 m9750, m550, and the Aurora m9700. The gamer-centric PC manufacturer is now making the solid-state choice available as a single 32GB SSD, or a 64GB SSD RAID 0 dual configuration. In addition, the 32GB option can be coupled with a 200GB hard drive for added secondary storage. The new drives should increase battery life for the power-hungry laptops, while running faster and stabilizing your extra-important game saves and frag videos. The drives are available now, running in price from $500 for the 32GB single option, to $920 for the RAID set-up.
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.
Alienware adds Core 2 Duo to Area-51, Sentia laptops
The folks at Alienware haven't really made their trade on budget price-points, but their new line of Core 2 Duo laptops has some of the best pricing we've seen for the new processor. Of course, to score the 17-inch m5750 for it's base price of $1,399 you'll have to settle for the 1.66GHz T5500 Core 2 Duo, a 60GB HDD, 512MB of RAM and a CD-RW / DVD ROM combo drive, but the specs only go up from there, and all m5750 configurations include an ATI Radeon Mobility X1800 card with 256MB of memory. The other laptops feature similarly weak base configurations, but even better prices. The 15.4-inch Area-51 m5550 starts at $899, while the 14.1-inch Sentia m3450 hits $849. All three models have the full range of Core 2 Duo chips available to them, from the T5500 to the 2.33GHz T7600, other than the Sentia which omits the middling T5600. The laptops are due to ship in the first half of September.Read - Area-51 m5750Read - Area-51 m5550Read - Sentia m3450
Alienware's m3450, m5550, and m5750 go Core Duo
They had to go Core Duo sometime, so why not now? Looks like Alienware's updated their laptop lineup with three new machines that run right up the spectrum of portable product offerings. The new Sentia m3450, replacement to the m3400, is your basic 14.1-inch widescreen Centrino Duo 5.5-pounder, integrated graphics, and options for the usual gear (7200 RPM drives, Bluetooth, etc.); the 15.4-inch Area-51 m5550, successor to the m5500 also appears to be more of the same, though this time, of course, equipped with Core Duo Mobile (and integrated graphics, as far as we can tell); and, of course, their 17-inch powerhouse m5700 go the Core Duo upgrade and the m5750 monicker and, you guessed it, that new dual core Intel chip. Expect prices between $1,100 to upwards of a couple of grand, depending on your machine and options; games not included, and probably shouldn't be considered for your regular Alienware shoppers looking to snag a rig with some graphics horsepower. [Thanks, gimmeadollr] Read - m3450 Read - m5550 Read - m5750
