- Joined
- Apr 23, 2001
Foreword :
When looking for a new 15 inch laptop with a bit of power one of the options you have to consider is the products from Alienware.
This review is a honest perspective of the Alienware Area 51 m15 x which I have recently purchased. I intend to cover all aspects from what made me decide upon the purchase through to delivery, first impressions, ownership and eventually benchmarks under windows vista, windows 7 and Linux.
The images used are lower quality where possible to be respectful to people not on fast connections
Alienware Area 51 m15x
The truth be told there was no technical reason for choosing Alienware it was simply interest and curiosity I had heard a great deal about Alienware and thought I would take a look at them.
Alienware are also now owned by Dell as such being the owner of a current generation Dell XPS laptop I can directly compare my experiences and see if they are truly independent or operate in the same manner.
The discussion resulted in my transaction being rejected.
I appreciate and value the need for security however rather than rejecting the payment I would have appreciated Alienware or my credit card company, putting the payment and goods on hold and calling me to see if I had actually made the purchase before taking any action.
The result was that my purchase was cancelled and I had to call Alienware on Monday to get them to reprocess the order as by the time I had finished with the credit card company Alienware sales had all departed for the weekend.
A quick phone call on Monday resolved the issue and the order was processed.
For this reason if your buying a product from Alienware I would advise calling them.
WUXGA High definition screen 1920x1200
Intel Core2 Duo T9500 (6mb cache - 800mhz FSB)
8GB PC2-5300 SO-DIMM
Nvidia 8700-GT 512 MB
Intel High Definition Audio
Samsung RBA MLC 256GB 2.5" SSD
Blueray Disk Burner (Smart Bay)
Intel Pro Wireless 4965AGN (a/b/g/n)
6 Cell Li-on Battery
9 Cell Li-on Battery
160 GB 7200 rpm Hard Disk (Smart Bay)
Battery (Smart Bay)
2.5 mega pixel webcam
Alien FX keyboard
I this was the following content, the laptop itself which was nicely wrapped and protected by suspending it in polystyrene and a branded box containing the goodies and extras
The box of goodies contained the three battery packs, the smart bay hard disk, the charger, the leather embossed manual, restore DVD's, CD's and a wide selection of Alienware clothing, mouse mats and other things. All items were nicely packaged in an abundance of bubble wrap
Slowly the products came from the box, one item which specifically impressed me was the documentation, which was provided in an embossed leather binder which contained, all the disks for my Laptop including data recovery CD's , restore CD's and DVD's along with all the software on my Laptop.
This laptop did not ship with trial versions of applications and software everything was full version and I got the disks as well, the kit even had a driver CD.
The documentation itself was outstanding and it was great to see everything in one place as it should. Other product manufacturers could learn a lot from this and should stop giving us paper CD envelopes.
Eventually the moment I had been waiting for arrived, the Alienware laptop was unpacked
When looking for a new 15 inch laptop with a bit of power one of the options you have to consider is the products from Alienware.
This review is a honest perspective of the Alienware Area 51 m15 x which I have recently purchased. I intend to cover all aspects from what made me decide upon the purchase through to delivery, first impressions, ownership and eventually benchmarks under windows vista, windows 7 and Linux.
The images used are lower quality where possible to be respectful to people not on fast connections
Alienware Area 51 m15x
- Why Alienware
The truth be told there was no technical reason for choosing Alienware it was simply interest and curiosity I had heard a great deal about Alienware and thought I would take a look at them.
Alienware are also now owned by Dell as such being the owner of a current generation Dell XPS laptop I can directly compare my experiences and see if they are truly independent or operate in the same manner.
- Purchasing
The discussion resulted in my transaction being rejected.
I appreciate and value the need for security however rather than rejecting the payment I would have appreciated Alienware or my credit card company, putting the payment and goods on hold and calling me to see if I had actually made the purchase before taking any action.
The result was that my purchase was cancelled and I had to call Alienware on Monday to get them to reprocess the order as by the time I had finished with the credit card company Alienware sales had all departed for the weekend.
A quick phone call on Monday resolved the issue and the order was processed.
For this reason if your buying a product from Alienware I would advise calling them.
- Specifications
WUXGA High definition screen 1920x1200
Intel Core2 Duo T9500 (6mb cache - 800mhz FSB)
8GB PC2-5300 SO-DIMM
Nvidia 8700-GT 512 MB
Intel High Definition Audio
Samsung RBA MLC 256GB 2.5" SSD
Blueray Disk Burner (Smart Bay)
Intel Pro Wireless 4965AGN (a/b/g/n)
6 Cell Li-on Battery
9 Cell Li-on Battery
160 GB 7200 rpm Hard Disk (Smart Bay)
Battery (Smart Bay)
2.5 mega pixel webcam
Alien FX keyboard
- Delivery
I this was the following content, the laptop itself which was nicely wrapped and protected by suspending it in polystyrene and a branded box containing the goodies and extras
The box of goodies contained the three battery packs, the smart bay hard disk, the charger, the leather embossed manual, restore DVD's, CD's and a wide selection of Alienware clothing, mouse mats and other things. All items were nicely packaged in an abundance of bubble wrap
Slowly the products came from the box, one item which specifically impressed me was the documentation, which was provided in an embossed leather binder which contained, all the disks for my Laptop including data recovery CD's , restore CD's and DVD's along with all the software on my Laptop.
This laptop did not ship with trial versions of applications and software everything was full version and I got the disks as well, the kit even had a driver CD.
The documentation itself was outstanding and it was great to see everything in one place as it should. Other product manufacturers could learn a lot from this and should stop giving us paper CD envelopes.
Eventually the moment I had been waiting for arrived, the Alienware laptop was unpacked
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