just bought a new Alienware laptop
 

very excited and thought I'd share...
should get it within a couple of weeks

16.1'' UltraXGA 1600x1200
Pent 4 3Ghz 800Mhz FSB w/HT
512 MB DDR PC2700 (expandable to 2048)
60 GB 7200 Hitachi w. 8Mb cache
2x1x8 DVD-RW/ 16x10x24 CD-RW

TV/S-video out
3x USB 2.0 1x Firewire
3in1 media card reader
Dual infrared ports w. remote
4x speakers
(W)35.05cm x (D)28.95cm x (H)4.09cm
3.4Kg

Alienware's UK site


can't f**kin' waithttp://www.alienware.co.uk/Images/Pr...m_new_back.jpg

What video card?

And how much? (If you don't mind saying.)

Very nice machine by the way. Should be great.

I have a few friends that bought these. Very expensive. They paid around 4 grand for it. I'm pretty sure dell has a computer with very similar components. Be sure to look around before spending your hard earned money. Unless your rich.

The vid card is the NVIDIA FX go5600 with 128MB DDR

and I got it all for £2154 (my boss kindly agreed to buy it for me!!!) - even so I don't think that is a bad price.
I checked out dell, similar specs... more expensive and I am bored/fed up with Dell's lousy support.

hot damn, thats a fast specced up machine....you're boss must either be crazy/loaded/or in love with u to buy u that! lucky guy!

:eek: *drool* Is he hiring?

There are very few laptops so far that have the 800mhz and even fewer with the high end graphics cards and that is really what you are paying for.

Possible companies:
Hypersonic PC
Eurocom
Voodoo PC
and of course alienware.

As an aside, Jerry Manderine you might have wanted to check out these companies before you bought or at least have read some reviews. Alienware is a nice computer, but the Ati 9600 mobility graphics card marked much higher than the Nvida go5600. Also eurocom and hypersonic are shipping with PC3200 ram instead of PC 2700.

checked out voodoo and eurocom before I bought it... the main issue was location. Alienware have a UK branch and any backup/support that needs doing won't involve me shipping my machine back to the states...i.e. big time/hassle

as far as video goes... I love the idea of -

The redesigned Area-51m is the first gaming notebook to offer user-upgradeable graphics. Configure the Area-51m with the latest NVIDIA or ATI graphics card today and upgrade it down the road

Yeah, I they just added the Ati card to the US site. I figured it would be on the UK one too, but apparently they haven't added it there yet. :(

i'd check on what exactly they mean by 'upgradeable' they told me that too for the previous version, technically it is upgradeable, but i have to change the main board, lower half of the case and psu. since the 9600 wasn't compatible with the 'upgrade'

its wierd that alienware shipped a new laptop with the same name, the last one was an area 51m too.

I wanted dvi but i dont think the new area 51m supports it, the sagers/cleveos do, in fact i think they are dvi only.

What's the battery life on that thing? Looks pretty nice.

Be my friend and buy another one for me :D

very very nice...

IIRC, shitty. They're using part's for 'real' PCs shrunk down.. Notice it's a P4 and not a P4-M .. no speedstepping and the orig P4 gets hotter.

I personally wouldn't buy these unless I JUST wanted to play games, but last time I played with a laptop built like this it ran very hot and the battery life blowed.

I sold my Dell i8200 awhile ago, best laptop I've ever used.

What are you gonig to be using this laptop for? Unless its for gaming (which I doubt, because your boss bought it for you), there are probably some better machines to get. You have to remember when buying a laptop, its different from buying a desktop machine. You have to worry about Battery life, heat produced, weight, size, etc.

Because this laptop uses parts meant for Desktops, as meff said, its probably going to have a very very low battery life. It will probably also get very very hot, which literally could burn you if you left it on your lap.

But yea, the specs on it are nice, and alienware has well made products, but im not sure if it should actually be considered a laptop :/

i get about 2 hours of use on mine, it can take two batteries to double the life.

remember laptops arent all about running from batteries, they are also about being able to pick up and move elsewhere in a few minutes, very useful for contract programmers such as myself.

that said i ended up with 3, the sager/alienware, a hp ze5185 and a tr2a vaio, depending on what i have to do i usually end up taking the 12 lb monster since its got a real serial port, and ive been unable to find an add on serial port via usb or pcmcia that actually works the same.

yes it gets real hot, its noisy , but its fast, for serious software development its a must.

so cool, I want to get one too!

that's great man, congratulations!

that laptop gives me a stiffy

Thats kind of disturbing

you lucky sob, well have fun :D you know what hes going to use it for, *points at titty bord* yea you get the idea;)

Sounds nice. Beats the pants off of my Powerbook, but I didn't buy it to play games though. Congrats

could do without a pent but overall it looks like it is going to be a good machine. make sure you take of her or aliens will take it back.

stats are nice but how about some bechmarks like aquamark ?

very nice, i just wish alienware has laptops out when i was in the market buying mine.

It's amazing they can pack such a powerful machine into such a small case. Alienware though...bet it cost you an arm and a leg.

alienware is all eye candy. beware of the non-mobile cpus they still use

oh, and beware of the 10+ pounds they weigh

Excellent buy! I got mine a little over a year ago and I'm VERY happy with it. You wont be dissapointed!!



SLM3

nice specs on the laptop... are they still using Sager laptops in there cases?

Yes Snakebyt.

They aren't acutally Sagers. Sager and Alienware have their laptops made by Clevo.

I have a 8887 series Sager made to replace my desktop for gaming. Other than it weighing about 12 pounds and blasting damned hot air out of it's exhaust I'm very satisfied. However beefy your laptop is though, some games just dont run well on laptop architecture and mobile GPUs and processors.

alienware apparently no longer uses clevo bits, the new models from sager and alienware seem quite different, though it might just be a new clevo line

they both buy parts and put them together in different ways which you can see in the different configs, same as any computer maker does

i hear you on the heat jervis, someone put a cold can of coke next to my 8887 a few days ago, it didnt stay cold long

You said 2154...with a weird symbol.

How much is that in american money? lol

That's a British pound I believe and it comes out to ~3000$ if I remember correctly.

Oh..not too bad

Thankyou Jervis

All I can say is wow... but I do a lot at home, so i'd rather spend 3k on a desktop with a prommy mach 1, and oc it to hell, but hey thats just me. *Goes to Jerry's boss looking for work*

Thanks for all the responses... thought you guys were due an update...
Alienware have decided to go with the ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 with 128MB DDR instead of the go5600 - and because I pre-ordered they are upgrading for free... so no complaints there.

I work for a film production company as their IT manager/in house video editor/web designer etc... i.e. the tech guy. So my machine will be desk based most of the time, but I do need to be able to relocate quicky, without rebooting, and could have to setup anywhere we happen to be shooting (normaly a studio in London). I probably won't be using it for too many games (well, maybe one or two) - it will need to double as a mobile Avid system (hence the power). Otherwise it will just run your regular office software/photoshop/flash etc.

The weight isn't an issue (trust me I can cope - but thanks for your concerns!), I'm told it is 9-10lbs - and the three underside fans reportedly do a great (and surprisingly quiet) job of cooling it down.

I should get it delivered sometime next week, and can't wait. Benchmarks posted when I get it (and have checked the Titty board).

Wow, nice one. I like the desktops 2.

I was going to go w/ about the same specs except smaller screen 14.1, P4 3.2Ghz, 512 MB, ATI 128MB, and DVD/CD writer instead of DVD writer, was wondering if it is going to have overheating problems, since I would probably use it for games and music.