Alienware's Sentia m3200 business-minded laptop reviewed
"Business-minded" and "affordably-priced" are not two terms you think of when it comes to boutique gaming rig manufacturer Alienware, so when they announced the 12-inch Sentia m3200 notebook with integrated graphics and a sub-$1,500 price, we were eager to see how it performed. ArsTechnica has a, um, thorough look at this new ultraportable, and seem to come out generally impressed though not overly enthusiastic, as this model does have a few severe drawbacks. Overall, the system's 2.0GHz Pentium M fares decently for most non-cycle hungry tasks such as web browsing, basic multimedia, and Photoshop, but the built-in Intel graphics chip means that 3D CAD work or post-2004 games are pretty much out of the question. Also getting knocks were the ~3 hour battery life, limited vertical viewing angle on the LCD, and sub-par Media Center replacement, the bootless, Linux-based PowerCinema multimedia suite. Still, if you want a light notebook and won't be straying too far from a power outlet, the m3200 seems like a pretty good option, and is also one of the cheapest ways to sport that attention-getting, blazing-blue alien head for livening up stuffy board meetings.
