First, there's the Dell M15x, even though it’s good for gaming in terms of resolution, speed as well as graphic cards, but lugging around a big gaming book on your lap is no easy feat, meaning, your legs may break anytime due to the weight of M15x. However, the people at Dell, applaud for their innovation, decided to create a smaller gaming notebook, which comes in the size of a netbook instead, but, gaming on a netbook? Don't think any gamers in their decent mind would agree to that, but then, let's give credit to the innovation Dell had put in.
The M11x is not as small as a standard netbook, or as big in size as a notebook, it's somewhere in-between the two. With the lid closed the M11x is 32.7mm thick and 215mm long by 287mm wide with a weight of 1.99kg, which when you compare an Asus Eee PC 1101HA netbook with a similar 11.6’ display, is 286mm x 196mm x 35.5mm and weighs 1.4kg. M11x will be tout as cross between a netbook and gaming notebook.
As like the M15x, the design of M11x is simply futuristic. Let’s start with the power button. The shape of an alien head surrounded by light and the captivating large Alienware logo, you can’t help but be amaze by the little touches Dell puts in. Also, the lights around the keys on the keyboard and headlights on the front, the large Alien head on the rear of the screen and is always surrounded by an eerie white light, all of these lights can be customized through an easy to use interface to display any colour wanted. All these are mostly found on mostly on large gaming PC and now appear on a portable computer, with an 11.6’ screen that fills with bright colours and images.
Next, is the graphical power of the Alienware M11x. This is simply its outstanding feature, where I guess the great portion of our money went to. With an Intel 1.3Ghz SU7300 Core 2 Duo chip, an Nvidia GeForce GT335M discrete GPU with 1GB of GDDR memory, this lethal combination is good both for playing quite a fair bit of collection of games up to 30 frames per second on the GT335M and for switching over to the basic Intel graphics adaptor for less demanding tasks with prolonged battery life when needed. Gaming was indeed a joy on the M11x, and works exactly like renown home game console when we use the same set of games to play. We even plug the M11X to our 40’ LCD screen via HDMI and was surprised that it produced good quality solution. This device is capable to handle most of the games we installed, outstanding!
As for ports, M11x actually has quite a decent range provided. You have both the VGA and HDMI sockets, along with the rarely included Displayport socket. The usual range of memory cards are supported by a built-in reader, three USB sockets. What it really lack of is an optical drive. Most gamers like us would installed games via CD and without an optical drive, it somehow causes some inconvenience, and we have to installed our games via external CD. Most of us would know that without the CD in the drive, some of the game are unable to run due to anti-piracy measures. Given that this is a potable gaming device, lugging the M11x as well as the external drive just does not seems right.
Power! Most gaming laptop are very power hungry. The M11x is powered by an 8-cell, non-removable battery and is under a backing plate on the base of the computer, which can be accessed if push comes to shove with a screwdriver. Incidentally, the base also houses the exhaust fans and speakers, both of which become muted and blocked if placed on cushioning or bedding, which probably isn't the best place for the M11x to be used. When we exploit the M11x with full graphic cards running on our games, it lasted almost 3 hours. If we use it on a normal day to day usage of surfing, the M11x actually last close to 5 hours, amazing indeed, given the high specs of this potable computer.
Conclusion, besides the lack of optical drive, the overall feel and design of M11x is not too bad, but I won't buy it, as spending S$1,699 on this, I could get a very high specs desk top and blast my games away, who knows, I might even get surround sound or 3D with it, that is, if you are a true gamer.
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