Alienware Area-51 m15x review

Alienware is well known for cramming insanely powerful hardware into wacky-looking laptops, and the Area-51 m15x continues the tradition. It's the fastest laptop we've seen in Shopper's labs and made mincemeat of our benchmarks.

The stunning overall score of 231 in our application benchmarks makes Dell's XPS M1730 (What's New, Shopper 242) and M1530 (What's New, Shopper 243) seem slow by comparison, scoring 180 and 170 respectively. This is thanks to the Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000, the first mobile Extreme processor we've seen. It's hugely expensive, though - a £543 upgrade from the base 1.8GHz T7100 processor.

The 512MB GeForce Go 8800M GTX is similarly the fastest graphics card we've seen in a laptop and is a £301 upgrade from an 8600M GT. If your top priority is frame rates, you'll be impressed that it managed 57fps in Call of Duty 2 at 1,280x1,024 with 4x anti-aliasing and 8x anisotropic filtering. It also happily ran Crysis at resolutions below 1,600x1,200 with high quality settings.

The 15.4in screen has a matt finish, which will please those who dislike glossy screens, but its 1,920x1,200 resolution is too high at this size. Fortunately you can opt for a 1,440x900 screen and save £180 in the process.

Beyond the two headline components, however, things are a little disappointing. The 160GB hard disk is meagre at this price; you can upgrade, of course, and even add a second hard disk in place of the DVD writer, but it all costs more. Upgrading the DVD writer to a Blu-ray reader will set you back £181, for example.

None of this would make you feel out of pocket if it weren't for the poor build quality. Even if you opt for the minimum specification, which costs £949 including VAT, the creaky plastic case is unacceptable. Compared to a MacBook Pro, the m15x simply doesn't exude the same quality feel. The only saving grace is the well-designed, backlit keyboard.

The battery lasted just over two hours in our light-usage test. Combine this with the m15x's bulky dimensions and shoulder-breaking 3.6kg weight, and it isn't suited to gaming on the move. At least you can disable the 8800M GTX and revert to the integrated Intel X3100 processor, which extends battery life to three hours and 45 minutes.

It's also worth noting the single year of collect-and-return warranty, which is also expensive to upgrade.

Given its flaws, and the fact that you could buy an equally powerful PC for half the price, we simply can't recommend the Area-51 m15x.

Author: Jim Martin