Alienware. The mere mention of the name is enough to draw gasps of admiration, looks of envy, whoops of delight and other extreme reactions from gamers worldwide. Since 1996, the Alienware brand has been synonymous with top-of-the-line PC gaming all over the world. If you weren’t playing on Alienware, you weren’t a part of gaming’s elite, the select few who could experience PC gaming in all its high-resolution, light blooming, anti-aliased glory.
In 2006, PC manufacturing major Dell bought the Florida based company, and made Alienware their premier gaming line, replacing their own XPS range. Three years later, the M17x, the ‘most powerful gaming laptop in the universe’ was launched as the first Dell-Alienware branded product.
And now, it’s in India. And we got a chance to take it for a spin, lucky us. Here’s what we found.
One look at the M17x, and even the casual observer will instantly know that this is no ordinary laptop. In fact, calling it a laptop is a little misleading. There’s no way you can keep this 5.5 kg monster on your lap for anything more than a few minutes. This is firmly in the ‘desktop replacement’ category.
Make no mistake — this laptop packs some serious hardware. Our review piece was running on Intel Core2 Quad Q900 , but you could also go with the Core2 Extreme Quad for even greater power. We had 4GB of DDR3 (optional 8GB available) and a 320 GB HDD.
The M17x packs nothing short of the most awesome graphics ever seen on a laptop, period. Our review piece was running dual nVidia GeForce GTX 260 1 GB GDDR3 cards on SLI, but the true hardcore can upgrade to the GTX 280. The M17x actually has an integrated 9400M graphics chip that you can switch to when doing wimpy things like surfing the net or looking at pictures of your loved ones, to save power. Folks, the integrated graphics card on this machine is better than that you find on most laptops today. It’s THAT awesome. All this graphics muscle comes to life on the brilliant 17-inch Wide UXGA 1920 x 1200 display.
Okay, here’s the part of the review that most of you probably skipped to. It runs Crysis at almost maxed-out detail and anti-aliasing, at 1680 by 1050, at 60 fps. So you can stop reading now.
Or you can choose to continue and learn that we also tested Dawn of War 2, Supreme Commander and STALKER. All these games ran on full detail at 1920 by 1200, without breaking a sweat. The RTS titles, when zoomed in, look like battle scenes from animation films. It’s truly jaw-dropping stuff. In fact, after a few hours with the M17x, my PS3 games started looking like Nintendo64 titles.
It’s also fairly future-proof: it will run all your games maxed out, at least for another two or three years.
The Alienware M17x is unquestionably a luxury product. It’s not something you buy for value (you could build a comparable desktop for less than half the price), it’s something you buy for sheer indulgence. It’s that Hummer that you know you can’t afford (unless your name is Ambani) but are sorely tempted to save up for and buy just to impress the ladies.
If you’re looking for the ultimate gaming experience on a laptop, and don’t mind dropping Rs. 1.38 lakhs or more, look no further. The rest of us can hope that Dell introduces the Alienware desktops in India sooner than later.