m9700
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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.
Dell and Alienware stuff new 250GB HDDs into laptops
Oh, so 160GB just isn't good enough for you, huh? Dell and Alienware (who seem to be all about this beefy storage thing) are stuffing new 250GB 2.5-inch hard drives into a few of their laptops, an industry first. You can even stick a pair of them into the Alienware m9700 and Dell XPS M2010, for a full 500GB of breathing room. The best news is that all that storage won't break the bank -- relatively speaking, of course -- since the m9700 configures with the 5,400RPM, 8MB buffer, 1.5GB/s SATA drive for the same price as a 7,200RPM 160 gigger, at $300 above the standard 80GB config. No word on who's supplying the part, since Fujitsu's 250 and 300GB drives run at 4,200RPM, but it's available now.
Alienware bumps its m9700 with colors and some mightySLI juice
Sure, SLI laptops are a dime a dozen these days, but Alienware's Aurora m9700 is one of the few 17-inch SLI lappies around, and it just got a severe performance boost in the form of dual nVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS graphics cards with 512MB of memory apiece. In celebration of the new juicy spec, Alienware is throwing down two new colors: Conspiracy Blue and Cyborg Green, for $100 extra. It doesn't look like many other specs have budged, the processors still top out at a 2.4GHz AMD Turion 64 processor, and there are options for MIMO networking and a TV tuner, along with the standard Bluetooth and gigabit Ethernet. Prices start at $1700, and the dual 512MB graphics will bump that price up to $2300. Everything should be shipping by the 11th.[Via laptoping]
Alienware Aurora m9700 laptop reviewed
Hot Hardware had the envious position of being able to test out one of Alienware's latest gaming laptops, the SLI-enabled Aurora m9700. As you would expect, the system performed really well, thanks to the dual NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS 256MB graphics cards, AMD Turion64 ML-44 processor (2.4GHz), NVIDIA nForce4 chipset, and 2GB RAM. Suprisingly, they found the battery fared pretty well, getting more than 120 minutes -- not a lot compared to most laptops, but look at what's in the thing. They also liked the big 17-inch WUXGA 1920 x 1200 display, but did find that the glossy coating can hinder more than help due to its reflectivity. It's also, obviously, really big and heavy (8.5 pounds), but we're guessing anyone actually considering this system won't be put off much by that. Price starts at a reasonable $1,999, but to get it loaded similar to their review unit will run you more like $3,600.
Alienware's SLI-enabled 19-inch mALX and 17-inch m9700 laptops
Alienware unveiled two new SLI-enabled gaming laptops today, one 19-incher with a slick color-shifting paint job, and another that may be the first 17-inch notebook on the market with two graphics cards. As far as features go, both machines sport almost identical specs to the other SLI models we've seen: XP-powered AMD Turion 64 processor, two 256MB nVidia GeForce Go 7900 GTX cards, anywhere from 512MB to 2GB of RAM, WiFi (Bluetooth optional), 4-in-1 card reader, and your choice of hard and optical drives. Available for preorder immediately, the 19-inch mALX starts at $4,500 ($500 less than Voodoo's similar Envy u:909) while the 17-inch m9700 (pictured after the break) goes for $2,000 and up.
