You are browsing within the review sections of our forums. Content within these sections reflect consumer opinions of laptops. Our admins take the best and most objective laptop reviews and index them here to create a distinct selection of quality reviews with averaged overall ratings. Many of these reviews have benchmarks attached to them which allows for users to compare their laptop's performance with others, and ultimately enables us to provide a sortable list which at a glance show the fastest laptops amongst a variety of applications (gaming, video editing, web browsing, etc...). Help us build a better laptop database by submitting your laptop review.

Before I start the review, in some of the pics you'll notice the blue AW background. One of the people on the forum made it and I can't find the post again, but the desktop looks awesome and thanks a bunch (if someone has a link to the post, I'd like it)! Sorry some of the pics are blurry. Also, I don't know a lot of technical stuff about computers, so this is gonna be a straight forward review.

Ordering and Phases
I order my machine online from the AW website and it was fairly straightforward and easy to use. I received my Area51m-5500 on February 3rd. It was ordered on December 16th and arrived about 2 weeks late. Financing screwed up with some verification stuff, but it was all fixed. Everyone I talked to (except 1 lady) was overly friendly. Alienware-Steve helped fixed the situation as well.

Shipping
The computer shipped on Monday and was received by Thursday from Fed-Ex. I wasn't at home and didn't sign for it, but they dropped it off at my apartments office.

Finally Here
It arrived in a bigger AW box, with a little AW box on the inside. It was very well packaged. There was foam securing the smaller box, then foam securing the computer. All of it wrapped neatly in plastic.

The Computer
I finally took it out of its plastic and was amazed. It's sleek, not too big, but big enough. My friends were in awe. I was kinda worried before I turned it on because of some of the things I've read on this site, but I turned it on and it fired right up. The Alieneyes were glowing nicely. It is not that loud of a computer, I was kinda surprised. It's about as loud as my Sony, even though it blows it out of the water with performance and everything else. The only performance tests I have done with it is play Half life 2 maxed out and it looked beautiful. I've also played some FFXI online and FarCry with it, it handle them with no problem. My friends were most impressed with the screen. It's crystal clear, kinda hard to tell in my pictures that I took...I'm not a photographer. The keyhoard is nice, plenty big enough for me. All the controls are easily accessible. This laptop has 4 speakers and while they aren't super, they are above what you would expect from any other laptop.

Complaints
The only complaints I have is the one rude lady I talked to, she pissed me off so bad I asked her if I could cancel the order. It was over something they had mixed up in my verification and she told me they didn't even start building it after waiting 30 days (which was a lie, no one else knew what she was talking about). You can read about it in my "Angry Customer Post". Anyways, everyone else I talked to was great. Another problem I am having is with the Alienguise. Sometimes when I have it applied it will freeze my computer if I right click....any suggestions? No big deal. The waiting for it was the toughest part. Also, I ordered it with the internal wireless, it's not super strong, but I had a couple wireless cards around, so I installed a Motorola and I get a good signal.

Final Remarks
Would I buy from AW again? Yeah, I really like the look, feel, and performance of this computer. So, I'd definately buy from AW again, barring something major doesn't happen. I know it's not the 7700, but this one is perfect for me. If you all have any questions about it feel free to ask.

Specs
Saucer Silver-15.4 inch
3.4 Pentium 4 w/hyperthreading
Nvidia Go5700 128bit
60GB 7200RPM Hitachi Hard drive
1 GB pc-3200 at 400mHz
DVD-RW/CD-RW
Alien Re-Spawn
Came with the remote control, t-shirt, my lil alienware card, binder, sweet mouse pad, telephone cord, etc.

Oh yeah, Aurora---I didn't have a roll of duct tape to stick next to the computer in the pics so you'd believe me that I actually got an AW. But, you'll notice my duct tape wallet in some of the pics next to the comp. As close as I could get to duct tape.

Here are the Pics I took>>>>

http://imagehost.biz/ims/album.php?u_id=7625OBNGZ

sorry for the size of the images. (and I still have the piece of plastic covering my screen. Why? cuz i can)

good for you man...welcome to the family

Thanks, glad to be here!

Excellente'!

hey, duct tape wallet works!! Its a unique idea someone had. ok ok..I believe you! Ive only been following your phase insanity for how long now?!?>

Duct Tape Wallet:
http://imagehost.biz/ims/pic.php?u=7625OBNGZ&i=232331

ImOnAPlain51's 5500 Recieved!!
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=62041

great review, enjoy your new baby

Yeah, I appreciate your patience with me...haha. It was definately worth the wait. Thanks for all the help you guys have given. The duct tape idea can get rid of the "posers".

Good stats...hopefully it works sans problems for you. Enjoy it.