It has been almost a year since we have had an Alienware laptop at the store, as we had found the offered models not exciting enough after Dell had bought Alienware. When the M15x was launched last March 2008 we knew we had to take a get what was touted as “the most powerful 15inch laptop ever created”. When a friend offered to hand carry a laptop from the US last April 2008, we knew what we wanted – an Alienware. We configured our Alienware Area-51 m15x with one goal, that to produce the meanest gaming laptop. In typical Alienware business fashion our configured model was delayed, our friend had already visited the US and returned to Manila and the laptop was still not delivered. We thought we had lost our Alien. To make a long story short, it took 6months for the “Alien” to land in the Philippines, but upon getting a first hand experience of the system, the experience alone made all the trouble worthwhile. Say hello to the new Area-51 m15x from Alienware, legendary for mixing mobility with extreme performance.



When you desire for an elaborate high-end gaming notebooks, there is one name that always comes to mind, - Alienware. For years Alienware has been successfully cramming hot, powerful components into the tiny confines of a laptop through their range of gaming-focused “boutique” notebooks. Alienware has been producing machines that cater to gamers and enthusiasts desires, coupling some of the industry's most radical designs with top of the line PC hardware. You could easily spend thousands of dollars in one Alienware, an idea which has not always appealed to the enthusiast crowd, but as proof of how viable Alienware's business is, it was acquired by PC manufacturing Dell in 2006, about ten years after its foundation. Now that company is owned by the PC giant Dell with its own XPS range of gaming laptops, the Area-51 m15x must be one unique laptop to be deserving of the brand Alienware.



With the exception of the iconic glowing alien head, the 7-pound, 14.6 x 10.7 x 1.3-inch m15x doesn’t look like Alienware’s older rigs, gone is the ribbed look of previous Alienware models. Instead, this system sports Alienware’s new Ripley design, featuring a sleek and sturdy silver magnesium alloy frame. This new lid is in glossy silver finish, with a seam starting from the bottom to two-thirds up the lid, where it's broken by the ambiguous alien head. We like the new subtle look - it doesn't try too hard to impress, it just sits there in a confident and menacing manner giving a subtle impression of the power that lies within, just waiting to be unleashed.

When you turn the laptop on by pressing the alien-head power button, a series of lights burst into life including backlighting on the lid’s alien head, the keyboard, the buttons on the deck, the touchpad border, and the logo below the display. There’s even a light that runs down the entire border of the display called “pipeline”. The novelty is that this 'AlienFX' lighting, is customizable, you can choose from ten colors (or white and black), blend them into each other, and create themes for applications and activities. For instance, the keyboard can be lit up in blue, while the touchpad glows in red. The lights aren't just there for decorative effect. They can do useful things, too, like you can have the power button turn red when the m15x is plugged in and blue when it’s not, or even flash a different colour when your inbox receives a new email, or change hue when the battery has fully recharged. The backlit keyboard is especially cool, and it's good for accurate typing in low-light situations.



Alienware is one of the few companies to offer the 45nm Core2 Duo processor T9300 mobile processor with 2.5Ghz processor speed, industry first 6mb L2 Cache, and 800Mhz front side bus. The Core2 Duo T9300 is part of the “Penryn” processors and benefit from enhancements to the Intel® Core™ microarchitecture and also Intel's industry-leading 45nm Hi-k process technology with its hafnium-based high-K + metal gate transistor design. These two techonologies results in higher performance and more energy-efficient processors. This high clock rate processor with extra cache allows it to power through almost any task thrown at it. For more information regarding Penryn you may follow the link <click here>



The T9300 as powerful as it is, is not the highest configuration available for the Alienware M15x. The top of the line processor is Intel’s Core 2 Extreme X9000 with its 2.8GHz clock speed and 44W thermal design point (TDP) - 9W higher than regular Core 2 Duos. We did not choose this processor because of concerns on Heat and power efficiency. For energy efficiency we configured this unit with a 1Gb Intel Turbo Cache Memory designed to accelerate data transfer speeds. This Intel Turbo Memory (1GB) is a new primary PC component, along with the CPU, chipset, and system memory. It caches large amounts of frequently used data for faster access by the processor. Data is temporarily stored on the Intel Turbo memory instead of the hard drive and this decreases the need for hard-disk accesses, saving both time and power, which equates to increased performance and energy efficiency. For more information about Intel’s Ready Boost technology <click here>

Perhaps the next if not the most important component in a gaming laptop is the GPU. For gaming in particular it's not the CPU that's the limiting factor in performance in most games, but rather the GPU. This Area-51 m15x is quipped with the Most Powerful GPU on a 15.4” Mobile Platform, the an NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800M GTX with 512MB of dedicated graphics memory. It features a core clock running at 500MHz and a 1,250MHz shader clock with 16X full-screen anti-aliasing capabilities. NVIDIA armed the GeForce 8800M GTX with some of the most advanced graphics technology imaginable this is clearly shown on the 3D Mark benchmark score of 29,6653D Marks, the highest we have ever tested on a laptop! Even the former top dog in the ranking, the Dell XPS M1530, has to content itself with the second place far behind the m15x.



Scoring well on benchmark test is great, of course, but the real challenge for a gaming laptop is to see how it handles new, demanding games that tax even high-end desktop PCs. We leave it to experts to undertake the gaming benchmarks like that of Laptop magazine who publish their results – “the m15x even bested its 17-inch brother, the m9750. With settings maxed out at 1024 x 768, it scored 168 frames per second on our F.E.A.R. benchmark and 189 fps on autodetect at the same resolution. By comparison, the m9750 held the previous high score of 161 fps on autodetect. On Call of Duty 4 set to optimum system settings, we saw an average of 111 fps, a true testament to the m15x’s gaming prowess.<click here>



What makes the m15x unique is that it is a full pledge gaming laptop on a 15.4”Widescreen body. The smaller screen doesn't mean a lower resolution. In fact, this m15x boasts an ultrasharp 1,920-by-1,200 ultra high native resolution, which is the same found in the highest-end 17-inch systems. The WUXGA resolution means the same amount of information is seen on a 17inch compared to the 15.4” format. The screen supports the full 1080p format for watching Blu-ray, or any high-definition movie for that matter, and makes graphics on games really pop. We specifically configured this unit with a Matte display which is “rare” since multimedia notebooks often are offered with glossy display. It is impressive that Alienware went against the common trend, and offers their high end display with an eye friendly surface. Because it lacks a glossy finish, contrast feels subjectively poorer. On the upside, matte display is not prone to reflection appearing on the screen and is easier on the eyes for long period of time.

Although mobility is a 2nd priority for a gaming notebook, the the Alienware m15x is actually capable of decent battery life thanks to its unique feature to switch from the nvidia 8800M GTX to integrated graphics. Switching between the two graphics options, or what Alienware calls "BinaryGFX" which is initiated by pressing the Fn and F8 keys and then rebooting. The m15x also has a Stealth Mode that throttles down power usage and switches graphics into integrated mode to save battery life, without a reboot. To launch Stealth mode, you simply click the speedometer-looking button on the deck. As evidence of the efficiency of Alienware’s power management, battery lifetime under load with dedicated graphics card (BatteryEater classic test) is only 77 minutes. With Stealth Mode activated, the m15x runs for 124 minutes with integrated graphics card, and is thus able to show a complete movie with average length. Even better is the result in the practical WLAN test (integrated graphics,energy saving mode, brightness level 6 out of 7), with a battery life of 170 minutes.



Completing the feature offering include a 2.0 Megapixel webcam above the LCD display. For wireless communication both Intel Draft N wireless and Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR are offered. For connectivity a 4-in-1 memory card reader, 9-pin FireWire 800 port, 54mm ExpressCard, and HDMI output. It must be noted that, Alienware ditches the usual (if largely unused) VGA-out and S-Video laptop outputs for a single HDMI output.

As additional wow factor we have configured with a Dual Layer Blu-ray Disc Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW). Plainly stated Blu-ray is like the advancement from VCD to DVD, and you already know the improvement in quality. This new format uses a blue-violet laser instead, hence the name Blu-ray. Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity combined with the use of advanced video and audio codecs will offer consumers an unprecedented High Definition entertainment experience. For more information about Blu-ray <click here>

When it comes to a gaming laptop, design is as important as being top dog in terms of performance. The Alienware Area-51 m15x beautifully balances these two concerns, and made the 6month wait worth all the anxiety. Pairing the lightning-fast Core2Duo T9300 processor with the fastest mobile GPU in the 512MB 8800m GTX video card and 4 GB of RAM results to a very quick, very satisfying laptop experience, which is often reserved for larger notebooks, or even mid-range desktops. No other 15.4-inch system can match this systems’ performance. Alienware makes with the Area-51 m15x a big step forward in the compact gaming segment. Somebody who is looking for high performance among 15.4" multimedia notebooks will quickly notice a distinct lack of competition for the m15x, it is simply the best! The Empire Strikes Back!

Our Buying Tips:
1. Select Three(3) Laptop that fits the requirement and the budget
2. Visit the store
3. Sit Down and compare the laptops side-by-side. Nothing like actual comparison.
4. View if the Display meets expectations... check dead pixels also
5. Check if Audio is Acceptable.
6. Check Battery Life
7. Inquire about the Warranty Policy


8. Take a Deep Breath and decide.

"Paying for what you can Experience and Buying from a Shop is for Your Peace of Mind... Units available for immediate purchase".