Alienware M17x 17-inch Desktop Replacement Laptop PC

Jul 13 2009 - Alienware certainly has made a desktop replacement system that is capable of high levels of performance with the new M17x. While the base system has much more in common with a typical 17-inch laptop, Alienware offers a large number of performance enhancements including RAID drive configurations and SLI graphics. The included hybrid graphics is also useful for scaling power usage. The downside is that this is an extremely large and very heavy laptop that dwarves most 17-inch laptops, even gaming specific ones.

Jul 13 2009 - Alienware's M17x laptop is a very large system that is designed more for performance than portability. Even though it only has a 17-inch display, the system is very thick, closer in size and weight of laptops featuring 18.4-inch displays. Having said that, much of the size is there to properly handle the extra performance options available for the system including dual hard drives for RAID and multiple graphics processors for SLI graphics. The version reviewed however does not include these and is priced at a much more reasonable $1799.

The Alienware M17x has a very unique and different case that is worth mentioning. It uses an anodized aluminum that gives it a very sturdy and sleek look. Rather than soft edges, the design is very angular that gives it very distinctive look. The design is also very well suited to the high performance components ensuring that they get properly cooled when under heavy load.

As mentioned above, performance can be extremely strong if the system is tricked out with a variety of upgrades. The base system is much more subdued although it does perform quite well. The Core 2 Duo P8600 processor is fairly common in this segment but at least they use DDR3 memory for added memory bandwidth. Just don't expect earth shattering performance at this level as similar performance can be found for less.

The big feature are the graphics. The 17-inch base display uses a fairly low 1440x900 resolution which some may not mind but it is lower than many similarly priced 17-inch laptops. The graphics are better though thanks to a hybrid system that uses an integrated GeForce 9400M while is standard use and a GeForce GTX 260M 1GB graphics core when needed for 3D applications. SLI versions would be even faster, but this is sufficient for the lower resolution display.