Gaming just got alienated with the performance of this gaming Laptop.
Alienware is known for its exceeding performance in gaming equipment with the injection of the latest technology into a highly customised device. Alienware is Dells gaming brand of accessories and gaming grade computers. This Gaming Laptop is designed tp provide the most immerse mobile gaming experience in the universe and the question is does it live up to these expectations?
So what's under the hood of this spacecraft? The alienware m17xr3 has the 2nd generation i7-2720M processor which will give you the ability to perform in the latest games. The laptop that was received had the latest mobile graphics card from ATI, the 6970M which will bypass the base benchmarks of any new releases. If I was to ever purchase another product from Alienware I wouldn't chose ATI due to their poor driver support and performance prepared to nVidia. It does come down to personal preferences but when you want to be playing at your peak on games the last thing you want is a graphics card driver underperforming or giving you undesirable lag.
The m17xR3 has 8 GB of memory which increases overall performance and enables your computer to run more applications at the same time. This will help with making sure that you never get chocked on performance due to hidden programs or the operating system hogging too much memory. The laptop comes standard with Windows 7 Home premium and a 1.5 TB Hard drive that allows you to store all your needed files, media and games. If this isn't enough to satisfy your gaming needs you can always go overboard with upgrading to 16GB of ram or dual raid SSD's if you want to go past the extreme.
The laptop looks amazing and the screen helps maximise this. The m17xR3 gives you the ultimate viewing experience on a 17" monitor. When the laptop arrived I was star struck with the presentation and how huge the laptop screen looked. The screen does help with providing you with an awesome gaming environment but there's a big negative with it. The alienware laptop emphasises on its portability but the glare you get off the screen is pretty horrid, making this laptop only good for inside gameplay. This isn't saying that you can't take it outside and game in the sun but it makes it rather irritating as you will miss critical moments due to the screens reflection. If you're only looking at inside gaming and travelling then this shouldn't be a problem and rather a benefit since the screen is really easy to clean.
So how big is the laptop? The dimensions on the laptop differ when you choose the different models but the base model is nearly 17" wide 12" long and depending on what side you look at it the height varies around 1.5" to 2". This is quite a high laptop in my experiences. When I was thoroughly testing I found it rather high from a traditional keyboard which meant getting used to the inbuilt keyboard was difficult. It's still reasonable to use but what I ended up doing is connecting my old Microsoft Sidewinder keyboard up. The sides of the Alien machine provide a lot of different connectivity options for all your technological add-ons. The laptop gives you the option of 5 USB ports (2x 3.0, 1 eSATA combination USB and 2x 2.0) that give you the option of connecting everything you need to. There are several display port options which provide VGA and HDMI connections if you're someone who likes to hook up to the big screen or if the 17" model is just not big enough for you. There is also several other ports which include your headset and microphone ports, Media card reader, Gigabyt Ethernet conections and DVD drive. There are no ports in the back of the Laptop except for the powersupply jack which allows for the best ventilation.
Having the best equipment jammed into a laptop means that you will be surprised at the weight of the Alienware m17xR3. This laptop should not be taken "lightly" as it weighs in at over 5kg depending on what you add to your setup. For a uni student like myself I found it rather a burden to travel with when walking to tutorial's as it limits your ability to travel around quickly between areas. After a day of travelling with it, it definitely confirmed that this isn't really an easy to lug around laptop. For those of you are constantly on the move this will mean that you will have a extra possible 6kg in the bag on top of books, notes and stationary. If you're just going from home and to the office it should be good solution for gaming on the go.
My gaming experience was proudly brought to you by GameSpotAU providing the latest and greatest gaming information and Alienware on the M17xR3 where Annihilation is at the hand of the player. Thanks for reading the review any comments feel free to ask! Also stay tuned as i reveal the performance aspects of the Gaming Laptop.
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