First off
This review is aimed at people who are in a situation similar to mine, and can't spend to much on an m9700.
I've ordered it from Alienware Germany (all European orders are handled in Ireland, i believe) and they have been excellent in dealing with my order.
The specs on my machine are not at all impressive compared to the configs i've seen around here, but still this thing is one hell of a performer.
Timeline
- Ordered on the 31st of August
- Hit Phase 3 on the 12th of September (explaination below*)
- Hit Phase 5 on the 28th September
- Hit Phase 20 on the 29th of September
- Delivered to my house on the 3rd of October and i was not home.
- Re-delivered on the 4th of October and i was home!
* The reason why it took so long to reach Phase 3 was because Alienware wants to check if the order information matches the creditcard information, incase of International orders. They do this to prevent fraud.
I live in Holland and here we have very strict privacy laws. Therefor, our creditcard company was not allowed to send our information to Alienware.
This created a bit of a dilemma. I contacted Alienware and we solved it. The reason it took 2 weeks was because i was out of town.
Specs
Processor: AMD Turion 64 ML-40 2.2GHz
RAM: 1GB of RAM
Screen: WUXGA 1920x1200 screen
Video-card: Single Nvidia Go 7900GS w/ 256MB
Hard Drive: 5400 RPM 80GB drive
I had a 2000 euro budget, hence why it isn't a bit more beefy.
Arrival
DHL came for a second try today at 10:30PM and handed me a very, very big brown box.
The accesory box, containing software, documentations and the all important Alienware t-shirt.
After taking out the accesory box and the protecting carton, i for the first time in my life, saw a true black Alienware box in person. And boy i was excited. This was containing the beast.
Look closely and see how well it is packed. There where pieces of foam all around the alienware box. They where all atleast 3 inches thick. An earthquake won't even harm your laptop in such a package.
There it is. The big box. Opening it for the first time and i'm greeted with the back of the laptop. The first thing i see is a DVI port.
I put it onto the box and just stood there for a few minutes looking at it. I was saying 'I'm not worthy' several times. It was good
.
I didn't order any extra's so there's not alot going on here, but hey, The laptop is what i want. I didn't open the 3rd box yet so no powerbrick or cables are displayed here.
Booted up and installing Starwars: Empire At War
That about ends the unboxing ritual.
Performance
I booted it up and it was fast! I didn't do a benchmark on it yet because the download is taking forever for some reason, while other downloads such as FSX are going at 745 KB/s.
I immediatly grabbed my favorite game, Starwars: Empire At War, and installed it.
I previously had a desktop with an AMD Athlon 2800 and an Nvidia Geforce 4 4400 Ti, just to give you an idea how big the upgrade actually is.
I was amazed. I maxed out everything and i saw details i thought never existed.
I also installed Photoshop CS2 on it and it's nice and snappy.
Gaming
Alot of you must be wondering how my single GPU, 2.2GHz Turion and WUXGA screen perform in games.
Well, i can tell you it's awesome.
So far i've played some good-oldies and a bunch of latest generation games on them and they all perform really well.
The games i have installed are:
- Battlefield 1942
- Battlefield 2
- Battlefield 2142 demo
- Company Of Heroes demo
- FIFA 06
- Flight Simulator 2004 Century of Flight
- Flight Simulator X demo
- Halo
- Need For Speed Most Wanted
- Starwars: Empire At War
- Starwars: Republic Commando
- Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (a good oldie!)
With the exception of Flight Simulator X i can run all games on high to maxed out settings and the m9700 will eat them all for lunch.
As i said Flight Simulator X can't run smoothly on highest settings, but if you have seen FSX you will know why.
Battlefield 2142 runs great on maximum settings which really did suprise me, though the demo crashed twice, so i don't know if the demo is to be blamed or the m9700.
Company Of Heroes on high settings works great (not all maxed out though).
My conclusion is the m9700 with SLI graphics really isn't required to give you an awesome gaming experience, and several professional reviews have concluded that the single 7900GS in some cases outperformed SLI. You might want to go with SLI if you want everything maxed out in the latest games.
For me? I will upgrade to 2GB RAM soon (since Battlefield games suck up RAM) and in the future to SLI perhaps, but for now, i'm really happy with the m9700's gaming performance.
Speakers
I've heard some things about the speakers including the vibrations of the woofer issue. I have the ' issue' although i find it far less annoying then some members here said. I didn't try to solve it yet because i don't feel the need.
Audio is in my opinion great. It's great for gaming and i guess for DVD watching. It's okay for listening to MP3's but if you plan on listening for hours, you might want to grab a good set of speakers.
Screen
The screen is drop-dead gorgeous. The colors are brilliant. Brightness is perfect and its very crisp. Viewing angles are good. I could clearly read the display from any angle. The glossy layer is ... glossy but not annoying.
Trackpad
The trackpad is nice and sensetive although i have to agree with C|Net about the trackpad being a bit of a pain to use because of the drag.
No worries. It's very sensetive and it responds to the slightest of touch so the drag will be much less. I do use my G7 Laser mouse though because its great for gaming and it's just so darned comfy
.
The scroll pad on the side is great. I never had a laptop before with this feature and i find myself using it all the time now.
Keyboard and touch strip
The keyboard is full sized. Only the function keys are half the normal size but that's no big deal. I like the addition of a 10 key number pad.
The touch strip is really a cool gadget. Like the trackpad, it's really sensetive and the slightest of touches will trigger it. I like to use the Media controls for WMP.
Exterior
Overall the exterior is great. It's litterly an out of this world design. The lid looks cool and the glowing alienhead shows people your laptop means bussiness. I like it. The paintjob is glossy, smooth, and just beautiful. Compare it to the paintjob of a sports car...
Heat
I played Battlefield 1942 and Starwars: Empire At War for a few hours on it and it didn't get hot/warm at all. It stayed nearly as cool as it does when its cold and off. This maybe because i have only 1 GPU and one Harddrive, though.
The exhaust vent does exhaust warm air.
Cons
I find the laptop a bit heavy, but not as heavy as i expected. It's not something you want to carry for too long (i go to the gym!).
It's no problem to have it on your lap though.
As said above, the trackpad's drag is a bit annoying at first but i got used to it and now i find it nice in use.
The CD/DVD drive in front is not really a problem but when you have it on your lap you might accidentally press the eject button.
Those where the bad sides i found. To those interested in this laptop. Don't let them scare you off. They are not nearly as bad as i might make them sound
.
Conclusion
The Alienware Aurora m9700 is more then i expected. It's amazing.
Alienware has been great in handling with the small issues i had with payment. Great support and i got replies to emails i sent within hours.
I truely recommend this m9700 and i'm sure i will shop again at Alienware!
Like the review? Rep points
.
Update: 6/10/06
New pictures!
These are not scaled down and they are quite big so beware.
Keyboard closeup. Not the sharpest but check out how glossy/glassy the black around the screen is.
BOOM. Headshot!
Nice and glossy, the paintjob
.
They are family now. Dell Axim x51v and the Alienware Aurora m9700
Update 2
Just did a benchmark with 3DMark05.
My 3DMark03 score is 13088
.
More pictures? Just ask
