Alienware Aurora m9700

 

Fantastic had this machine 6 months and can honestly say have had no bother with it. Plays games better than most desktops and keeps up with the rest which is outstanding for a laptop.

Heat issues not a problem so long as you leave amble room (4inches) behind the machine.
UK tech support very good....
Just can't believe how well this machine has performed, going to buy my new desktop off them.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Alienware-Aurora-M9700-Notebook/dp/B0066BN2A2

ok guys, this is the moment.....here it is!!!!:
there will be more pics uploaded but this is it for now. )the screen looks dirty but it is the cam'








and some extra's:





i have got a laptop lock and 1gb from aleinware to but i dont have pics from that and i just bought a laptop light.


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ordering: A++
Shipping: A++
Costumer service: A++
The laptop itself: A++
i can only say: this is a frealing awsome laptop!
specs:
2 gb of internal memory
1gb of grafic memory
2x 160gb
and more stuff but thiat is the most important. i have maxed out everything.
the only thing is that the power brick is pretty big. but that doesnt bother me i dont have to sleep with it...lol
price: 3800 euro
i can only say: this is a frealing awsome laptop! (again)

My Alienware Review By Leyla.

March 11, 2007 - March 22, 2007.

The Beginning.

I didn't know what made me buy an Alienware laptop, but it all started with me being at the Gamestop.com site until the AW ad caught my eye. I simply clicked on it and I was taken to the AW site, all the flash animation of the banner and the pics of their signature computers lured me into buying it. After all, I remembered that I did in fact wanted a laptop for so long, and I believe it is time now to buy one. Despite the price, I'm eager to buy it. I did remember I wanted a fast gaming computer, and this is my one and only chance to be able to buy one from a company that they so claim to say "The Ultimate Gaming System."

What made me buy the M9700 is the quote "Best Gaming Notebook." I shrugged and say "Why not?" And then I immediately jumped into the Customization page and did my thing. I don't remember what I chose, but most of them were Alienware "Recommended". After finishing what I needed to do, I paid for the laptop, which skyrocketed to over $3,000.00, and then I waited.

Phrases and M9700's Maiden Voyage:


The phrases went pretty well, the only sudden heartbreak was when the phrase jumped back to 2. Till then, I deleted all of my emails containing the order number, thinking that "Great, I will never be able to have this laptop. Might as well leave it at that." But that was a stupid move on my part. I expected a phone call from the reps there about my payment, but after days of no calls, I suddenly recieved an email from AW about payment confirmation. I jumped for joy. I later emailed the reps at AW about my comp's phrase status, and to my relief, the phrase has done a mega leap to number 5. Over joyed with happiness, I let AW finish their job on my lappy, and when the emails arrived that they have been shipped, I was excited. My laptop has finally set sail to its final destination - my home. <3

Shipping and Delivery

Fedex was a mega hassle. They've become the next USPS in terms of tracking systems (then again, so did UPS with my other non-AW related packages). It was not until March 21st, extremely late, about 10-11 p.m. or so, that they've finally updated. I was urged to check it constantly days before. Even though I know, it would never update. I even bothered to contact the reps there about it, but they were not much help. Although it was quite relieving to hear that my laptop will be delivering to my house "by the end of the day."

Luckily, it didn't quite ship at the end of the afternoon, rather, sometime early-mid afternoon or so. Just 5 minutes before 3 pm. I waited impatiently for my laptop to come, and when I saw Fedex Ground drive into my hairpin-shaped driveway, I sprinted down the stairs and out of the door. The truck had some trouble trying to drive into my small driveway, but nothing too serious. I signed my name on their... little device thingy, and was handed over a heavy box and two small ones on top of it. I then proceeded to make my way back home. Although it was a bit of trouble trying to open the door, I managed to make it back to my room.

The Merchandise

Besides the obvious lappy, I got the usual stuff that comes with the laptop inside the black box (t-shirt, leather binder with user manuals, cd's etc). I was impressed at the organization of the items in there and how beautiful it looks. I also got a Ozma Headphone (I wanted this for sometime too), a logitec mouse, some flash drives, usb cable, and a norton antivirus program. To name a few. I had the backpack for a 2-3 years already, so I didn't need to buy one.

NOTE: I apologize for the flash.















The Computer

This baby's big! The size of my older brother's laptop is nothing compared to AW's large laptop. It's pretty heavy too. I laughed to myself thinking that I would probably not be able to take it to school due to the weight of it (that is, combined with my binders and books altogether), but I didn't mind. I didn't play with it too much when I first opened the boxes up, but as of the moment, I've seen no errors or huge problems with the computer that'll make me have to send it back for "repairs". not even a dead pixel.

I installed my mouse and cd into the laptop, as well as transferring some files from my dad's ol' seagate circular-shaped flash drive. I've managed to get the laptop working without it getting too warm, and thanks to many of the users here, I've felt better knowing that my laptop is perfectly normal despite the heat. I realized that the laptop needed some room to blow the hot air out, and it's fine now.

Windows Vista is nice. I don't see why it's so bad... I like it.





>.>;; Yeah, I have that plastic thingy on the screen, sorry about that. I left it on there because I don't want to risk scratching the screen.

AW gets their sim-mers on.

Some Sims screenies. Note that Dante is using an Alienware PC. Perhaps one of the many reasons why I wanted one for my own.



Vergil... eating pizza.




Leila and Sims 2

It runs very smoothly. There's a slight lag in neighborhood mode but it's no big deal. The loadtimes are much better than before, although bigger lots with tons of content inside tend to take little longer than smaller lots. But no big deal though. I am happy to see that I can finally play Sims without anymore worry about waiting years and years for it to load. I will test this laptop's awesomeness with later PC games in the future.

Leila's "bed."

I've specially cleaned out a part of my night stand to place my laptop on when it's not in use. Mind you, my action figures (and FFVII highwind model) are also on display. Um, and due to the ridiculously small size of my room (it's about the size of a dorm room, but don't let that confuse you. I'm living in a house), and the enormous size of my bedroom furniture, I had to use my nightstand as my uh.. computer setup. It's so ugly that I refuse to take even a picture of my hideous PC. So you will just take some pics of where my laptop rests, instead.






Other Stuff:

If you haven't read my "The End of the Day" thread, I mentioned that I didn't keep track of my computer specs, so I deeply apologize for this. The reason why I didn't do it is because, I thought I didn't need it. But I regretted it, deeply. I'm sorry, everybody. I would have done so if I knew about this site sooner before I made my purchase. I'm just surprised at how well my compy is. I hope it doesn't kick me in the face and throw a tantrum on me later on though.


Afterthoughts:

I love my new baby girl. I've yet to fully explore the rest of my laptop soon and hopefully get used to navigating around the desktop, as well. But from what I've experienced so far, has definitely been 100% satisfactory. Alienware has impressed me and their customer service (although I've barely spoke to them) has been pretty good. I was happy that they've managed to tell me that my payment has gone through successfully, and sent me a good working laptop. I wish for the day I will buy a PC from them someday, although I won't for quite some time. I am happy with my second alienware purchase and will again, someday consider on buying from them again. But for now, this laptop will be good enough.

THE PROS AND CONS:

Pros:
+ Gorgeous laptop. Graphics and quality of the comp is superb. Speed from the loading screen to the desktop is a plus.
+ Vista is nice, reminds me a lot of the Apple Desktop screen I use at my digital photography class at school.
+ Organizing folders is easy, also it is easier to keep the desktop clean too. A lot better than older Windows (not counting XP of course.)
+ Playing PC games in here felt like a breath of fresh air to me (thank god)


Cons:

- Battery life is not so good. I fully charged it for several hours and while I was installing my games, the lappy suddenly shuts itself off. A little mad, I connected the cable to charge the laptop, and got a bunch of warning/error messages from the laptop that I didn't get a chance to read fully, but when I got back to the windows desktop, I continued to where I was. Assuring myself it was just the battery that did that sudden shut off. So I'm keeping the cable that charges the laptop on for now on.

Other:
- Winrar is a lot different in here than in Win2000, I wasn't sure if it was actually installed or not (since I didn't see an icon anywhere). But when I opened up a winrar file that I had transferred from my flash drive in my pc, Winrar actually opened it up. Ok, cool. Although a desktop icon would have been nice though.

- C-Drive fills up pretty fast. It is 1 gig in there if I remember, but I also notice it was a bit filled up when I first opened the laptop. I have to keep an eye on this just so I won't take up the space. Otherwise, I might have to switch it with my 100gig drive. Or something.


Overall: 10/10. I love it.

[End of Review]

I hope you enjoyed this review, as I did my best. I will try my best to answer your questions, so.... post away!
:mumbles: I need photoshop CS2. The full version. Oh god. Damn prices. :mumbles:
Have a great weekend. <3

Specs:

m9700- Cyborg Green
AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile ML44 2.4GHz 800MHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache
2GB Dual Channel Patriot DDR SO-DIMM at 400MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Alienware® NVIDIA® Mobile SLi Chipset
Dual 512MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS - SLI Enabled
120GB 1.5GB/s ATA 5,400RPM w/ 8MB Cache
17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview Technology
8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo
Internal 802.11b/g WiFi Card w/ Airgo MIMO Technology

The starting deal:

I purchased a m7700 9/26/2005 and I fell in love with Alienware. Needless to say, after three GPU replacements, two hard drive replacements, a motherboard replacement, a full replacement of panels and much more Alienware decided to give me a full refund for my purchase 12/21/06 after footing the repair bill themselves of 1,873.78. I spoke with Marco in critical issues, this was the man Alex himself placed in charge of my situation after Alex received my email with detailed descriptions of my problems.


The switch:

Marco in critical issues made my new computer switch very painless. I was to return my m7700 with a prepaid shipping label and wait until the machine was reverse-inventoried by Alienware. After the reverse-inventory of my m7700 they would start the build on the new m9700 that Marco had suggested to me that I purchase for the replacement.


The build or phase game:

The phase game only took a week. I was surprised when Marco had told me that while they were reverse-inventorying my m7700 they had started the build process on my new m9700. This worked out perfectly. Because of this my new m9700 was shipped the same day they confirmed the inventory of the m7700.


The box:

Oh boy! When I pulled the handle of the black box out of the shipping box I smiled so big. This was the day I was waiting for! I opened the box and found another box with another alienhead on it that contained all the extras. In the extras box was the nice leather planner with the installation CD's and system CD's. In another case was the Alienware Respawn DVD. I also was fortunate enough to receive the mobile bonus pack with my purchase and I got a second power adapter and a very cool Logitec G5 laser mouse. Also inside that box was my white Alienware T-shirt and the very awesome Alienware FUNC gaming mousepad. I liked the fact that the G5 was inside the original box as it would be at any retailer, it just goes to show Alienware's policy on non-proprietorship of hardware and software.


First Boot:

Wow, how fast was that. The machine booted almost instantly and I continued to enter my user information to complete the windows installation. The system was ready to get online and play games without having to upgrade any drivers or software. The first thing I did was enable SLI with the Nvidia control panel.


Software:

I was impressed by the minimal software that I received with the system. I looked around and found that Alienware only shipped the system with AlienGUIs, PowerDVD, BisonCAM, SoundMAX, Stardock, and Nero. I noticed a “Install Shield Updater” and I uninstalled that right away because it would make pop-ups whenever it felt like it (Being a gamer I cannot have that!).

My Software:

I made sure to install:
Spybot Search & Destroy
Notebook Hardware Controller
Firefox 2.0
FLV Player
VLC Media Player
Winamp
AVG Free
UPS Software from Cyberpower (900AV)
Eusing Free Registry Cleaner

My Games:

Guildwars
Diablo II
Unreal 2004
FEAR
BF2

My 3D Mark Scores:

3DMark05:

My Overall Experience:

I was very happy with the experience that I had. Marco made this painless for me. I do not contact just anyone at Alienware anymore, no matter the situation I go straight to Marco. I was without a computer for only a week during the switch, but I was really out of a computer for almost a month if I include the repair time with the m7700. I was very pleased with the decision to replace my machine with a new one. Marco explained to me that the majority of the reason for the refund was the fact that Alienware is fully aware that the m7700 models were built with low-end hardware because of contracts that other larger companies had with the high-end hardware manufactures. The fact that Alienware was purchased by DELL made it possible to create the m9700 with high-end hardware and made it possible for Alienware to have resources to the high-end manufactures hardware.

Would I do it again:

Yes, I love Alienware machines and the support that FEW give at the company. Like I said, I can deal with Alienware as long as I can deal with Marco, he really made my experience worth it.

Notes:

If I can add any information to make this more useful please let me know!

Update 02/03/08:

Holy crap, I have had this machine for like a year now? I'm not sure.. but anyhow. I leave it plugged in 24/7 running, no sleep and it has never had any problems. I love this machine. I have not had to call TS for any reason. Very good machine. Would recommend this machine to anyone.

I was looking for a laptop in the $1500 to $2000 range the was great at gamming. Some of the models I looked at were the ASUS A8js and F3jm, Alienware and Dell XPS series. The Asus systems looked nice but i couldnt customize the setup and I was also a little worried about trying to get a extended warrenty. The Dell models were not too bad but on some of the systems defaulted to high end items and out of my budget.
I really loved the look of the Alienware machines and I wanted the m9700 with SLI pretty bad so I kept watch on the prices. I didnt receive the money I was waiting on to buy the system till late december so I missed out on the free SLI upgrades they were offering before christmas but just after christmas they dropped the base price to $1549 (its back up to $1799 now with $200 in free items i dont reallly need)

With my configuration I went a little over my budget ($2368 after shipping and taxes)

here are the picts everyones been waiting for

























I first opened the box at work and didnt have my camera with me. My boss was quite impressed with it and the packaging. I was quite supprised by the size of it...I didnt expect it to be so huge! but it has grown on me and doenst seem so big now. the screen is very nice with no dead pixels. I havent had much time to play with it yet as I have been loading everything on it that I want ( and I also came down with a very bad cold the same day i got the system ) but i was able to run 3dmark 05 and 06 here are the results

3dmark 05


3dmark06


not bad seeing how I got the slowest of the processors available and only 512MB Ram
I plan on upgrading the ram in a month or 2 and add a second HD for storrage.

I will update this as I get a chance to play with it a bit more.

It has been a few weeks since I recieved my Saucer Silver m9700 and I'm just now realizing how amazing this computer really is.

My first intention towards purchasing this computer was to play games on it and still be able to lug it around with a lot more ease than a desktop. It has in every way, shape, form, and gratification lived up to the reviews and praises from the people here on NBF. I thank you all for the ability to gladly hand over a few grand for something that seems like it should cost a whole lot more.

I've got another laptop at my disposal and I do mean disposal. It takes the brunt of my online searching and stupid nonsense downloads of music and photochopping leaving the AW for what it was made for (gaming). And I do have to say it does it without breaking a single drop of sweat on it's more than asthetically admirable brow. I cannot put into words at how uber sweet this laptop looks in comparison to many of the hum ho boring run of the mill laps out there, my toshiba included. The workmanship is stellar without a single creek or cracking noise aroused when lifting the screen mount from it's locked position. Even the cd/dvd drive feels solid when opened. When carrying it to another spot in my house or to a LAN event I don't feel like I'm carrying some fragile piece of ancient tribal pottery that would break at the slightest hand gesture. It is just quite simply a very solid machine.

+ points of personal interest:
Full (Fn) keboard. Something I really really wanted given that I hate using the way up number keys in regards to finally having a full keypad.

I don't use the touchpad much which having it the same color as the rest of the case makes it very nice on the eyes and not distracting.

I like the set-up of usb ports due to my comp. desk array which gives me the ability to easily spread things out without getting a bunch of cords in a ratsnest.

SLI Dual Graphics Cards. Not to mention that the single GPU set-up works marvelous most of the time and scores great in the 3dMark challenges. But the mere fact that there are games specifically aimed at taking advantage of the multi-gpu platforms gives me goosebumps especially when seeing them in action with all the settings maxed out.

Did you hear something? I'll admit that the m9700 does produce fan banter. However given the fact that there are 2 fans working to keep 2 gpu's cool and a cpu, I must admit it is a very quiet beast. Almost like a slumbering dragon until it wakes up and gives chase during a long sitting of F.E.A.R. or Far Cry and the fans crank out forge like heat.

Can I brag? I could and I don't think any of you would disagree. However I didn't purchase this to brag. No I purchased it to feel free. It has allowed me to not have to worry about system requirements when looking at the lastest RPG or RTS that I just have to play. It has given me the freedom to look forward to upgrading the puny 2ghz processor to the 2.4ghz once my 1 year warranty is up. It also gives me the satisfaction of playing a game at full when the memory of Tribes online @ 14k dial-up was everything I thought I ever needed 10+ years ago on a Pentium 2 266mhz processor with only 2gigs of HD space and a 100mb Zipdrive was the sweetest thing on the block.

Random stew. 3dMark 05 score out of box was a scant 6293 however AW sent it with the SLI showing enabled yet it was not and I had to reboot to get a score of 8692. I then discovered it was sent with surprisingly the Turion 1.0.0.0 Driver. Haven't a clue about that. So updated and then recieved an 8790. For 3dMark 06 I got a 5061 in SLI. I did once use the Nvidia nView to oc and got a 9947 in 05, but I don't really feel like pushing it any further especially since I only have 1.5gigs of ram and the 2ghz chip.

All in all I've found this computer to be easy to use. Simple to update and find new drivers. It is just amazing what it is capable of and I'm looking forward to many many months of use and abuse out of it.

Congrats to all the other m9700 owners. You've got one wicked sweet pc in a sleek sexy package.

First, I'd like to thank the following folks at AW:

Assembler Initials: RR

Tester Initials: AI

You made an OUTSTANDING product and I'm an EXTREMELY
satisfied customer.

Now...to the short and sweet review.

I ordered my lappy on 4 Oct and it shipped on 16 Oct, reaching
my home in Los Angeles on Saturday, 21 October 2006 @ 1145am.
I've had it for almost a week and all I have to say is this
thing ROCKS!!!!!!! Pics can be found HERE.

What I got:

Conspiracy Blue
Aurora m9700
AMD Turion™64 Mobile ML44 2.4GHz 800MHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache
Genuine Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2
17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview Technology
2GB Dual Channel DDR SO-DIMM at 400MHz - 2 x 1024MB
60GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 5,400 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache (have a 500GB Western Digital MyBook Ext HD )
8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW & 24X CD-RW
Dual 512MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS - SLI Enabled
Internal 802.11b/g WiFi Card
Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem
Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit

These are my stock benchmarks (below) as run by the good
folks at AW.

3DMark 2005
Burn-In/Benchmarks
Doom 3 97.0 fps

3DMark Score: 9,847.00 3DMarks

GT1 - Return To Proxycon: 37.39 FPS

GT2 - Firefly Forest: 29.66 FPS

GT3 - Canyon Flight: 55.09 FPS

CPU Tests

CPU Score: 4,448.00 CPUMarks

CPU Test 1: 2.23 FPS

CPU Test 2: 3.94 FPS

I actually ran 3DMark05 on the laptop when I got
it and I scored over 10K, but I didn't do a screen shot before
I started loading up my programs/games. The screen shots you
see are 3DMark05 & 3DMark06 with all the stuff loaded on my lappy.

I have the following main games/programs loaded:

1. F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon)
2. Half-Life 1 & 2 Game of the Year Edition
[includes Counter-Strike: Source;
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch; and Half-Life: Source]
3. Doom 3
4. Quake 1 - 4
5. Risk II
6. Return to Castle Wolfenstein
7. Soldier of Fortune
8. Steganos Security Suite SE--good stuff for encryption
9. Office XP
10. Norton AV Corporate Edition v10.1
11. Various DVD ripping/editing programs
12. Flash Professional 8
13. FrontPage
14. Dreamweaver 8
15. Photoshop
16. Zone Alarm Professional

This is my first experience owning an AW and I look forward
to being a long term customer. Excellent product!

~Stephanie

INTRO: This is my third Alienware system - my first was the Aurora 7500 desktop that is going strong after almost two years. I then followed that with the 15.4" m5500 when they first became available...it's a great notebook, but I got hooked on the m9700 after reading all the positive comments. Here's a shot of my first two systems:




At first, I was not interested in the m9700 because it didn't have the latest dual core processor. But, after careful consideration of why I wanted the system, I realized this was not really an issue. My m9700 will be used primarily for gaming, and perhaps some Photoshop work. I'm not a big multi-tasker, and I knew from my experience with the desktop FX-55 that the AMD CPU could handle running iTunes while surfing and downloading...and that has certainly proved to be the case. I rationalized the need for an extreme gaming notebook because my husband has taken over the desktop for his Photoshop work - but the truth is, I was intrigued with the m9700 and wanted to see if it was really as good as Hammerhead said it was


Ordering Process: Ordered the system through the website, with no need for human (or Alien) contact, and it went smoothly. Moved to Phase 3 within a day, and to Phase 10 by Day 7 - and the system arrived on Day 9, beating the ETA by about 4 days. I know all orders don't go this quickly, but the m9700's do seem to be moving at a good pace.

I ordered the following specs:

Color: Cyborg Green
CPU: Turion ML-44 2.4GHz
GPU: SLI - 512MB 7900GS x 2
HD: Raid 0 - 160GB 5400 RPM x 2
RAM: 2 GB (2 x 1 GB)
LCD: WXGA+ 1440x900 resolution
Airgo MIMO wireless card
Windows XP Media Edition

I maxed out everything except the display, as I imagine this will be a system I'll keep for a few years. I wanted the WXGA+ display instead of the WUXGA because I've had a 17" notebook with 1920x1200 res before, and just got annoyed at the very small text size. My eyes aren't that great in my old age, and it was a pain to scale up text on websites and games.

I had to wait a couple of weeks to actually open my Alienware box, because I'm currently living in Australia, and only travel to my home in Florida a few times a year. I arrived in South Florida after 26 fun hours of airplane time, and found this waiting for me:





First Impressions: "Crikey!!!! This thing is GREEN, and it is a very bright green. It's a metallic paint, and it's beautiful. A bright green computer certainly won't be to everyone's taste...I picked it because it is a retro Alienware color, and I was ready for something different. I was torn between this and the Saucer Silver, as it would have been a great match to my desktop - but I won't be using them in the same room anyway.











The build quality is excellent, even better than my m5500 which I thought was very well built. The finish on the m9700 is exceptional, from the way the paint looks, to the rubber grips, trim on the LCD, and ports. Very happy with the way it looks!!



It IS a Laptop: Okay - after deciding I hadn't made a terrible mistake by ordering slime green, I spent some time playing with the m9700...using it on my lap to see if that was going to be a workable option. Yes, it's bigger and heavier than the m5500, but it doesn't feel all that big or heavy...It seems lighter than the Dell XPS 2 I had before, even though it weighs about the same. I've used it almost exclusively on my lap, and it's no problem at all. It's important to place something like a book or board underneath it, both to keep the airflow going, and because it can get warm on the bottom. But most of the heat is near the rear of the computer where the hot air flows out. I've never even noticed any warmth on the palmrest or touchpad. I'm quite impressed with how the system handles the heat that must be generated, given everything this beast is packing.

Here are some more pics to give you an idea of how it looks from a few different angles:











While it is definitely thicker than the average 15" notebook, it's not too bad. This shot shows it in comparison to a MacBook:





The Display: I need to get some better pics of the display, but I am VERY HAPPY with my choice to go with the WXGA+ option. Text is just the right size - and even though this is primarily a gaming machine, I use it for general web surfing and email. This pic gives you an idea of how readable the text size is (better pic coming):





1440x900 also works great for me for games. No doubt, this system can handle most of today's games at a higher resolution, but I find 1440x900 works well, and I just don't notice much difference in detail compared to running games at a higher resolution. But,that's just me - and I think the WUXGA option may be best for most people.

Here's a screenshot from Prey:





Gaming Performance: Awesome is an overused word, but there's no other way to describe how the m9700 handles games. Other than the usual frustrations of configuring widescreen format for some of the games (and this isn't an issue with the m9700, but the irritating lack of widescreen support in some of today's games), I've had nothing but a good time while testing out gaming on the m9700. I've played Prey from start to finish, and it was a decent game, made even better by the smooth gameplay and great graphics. There is no problem running any of the games I've tried so far at max settings, which shouldn't be a surprise.





DVDs look good as well. So far, I'm using the Cyberlink PowerDVD player provided with the system. Windows Media Player is not behaving properly right now - I think I may need to disable SLI to run it, but so far haven't bothered, as the Cyberlink program works fine.





Benchmarks: Not much to say here...the benchmarks look great, I'm getting close to the same scores I get with the desktop. Here are my 3DMark05 and '06 scores:







Other Goodies: The m9700 comes with a built in camera...so far I haven't done much with it, but the video quality looks good. I've used the card reader to transfer photos from my digital camera, and it works as expected. Some have reported issues with sound, but mine works just fine...it has the best sound I've heard on a notebook.



I ordered a few items to go with my m9700: the new Revolution wireless mouse (notebook version) works great. It's smaller than a regular mouse, but not as small as some notebook versions. The dongle is small, and there is a convenient storage spot in the mouse, so less chance to lose it.





Also picked up a 4GB OCZ flash drive from Newegg for $79.99...can't believe how much the price has come down on these handy little guys:





I already had a case for a 17" notebook, and the Booq messenger bag provides good protection for the m9700. I won't be using the m9700 much on the go, but this case makes it easy to pack it up. It has an outside pocket for the charger, and there's still room for a few magazines and other papers.








Conclusion: Obviously, I'm very happy with my purchase. This computer performs as advertised. The Turion CPU is plenty fast for my needs, and the SLI performance is trouble free. Thank you, Alienware, for offering this fun setup, and for bringing back notebook Colors!

I'd also like to say a special thank you to for his helpful and enthusiastic posts about his m9700, as well as his patience in answering all my questions!

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

After a waiting time of two months, I've finally received my Aurora m9700
Alienware offers me the SENNHEISER Headphone for the late. My configuration is
the next one (sorry it's in french but everyone will understand I think):

1] Aurora™ m9700

Moniteurs: Écran LCD panoramique 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) avec Webcam et Clearview
Système d’exploitation: Microsoft® Windows® XP Edition Familiale avec SP2
Garanties: 3 ans AlienCare - Aller et Retour Atelier avec Hotline Gratuite 24h/24-7j/7
Processeur: AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile ML44 2,4 GHz, 1 Mo de Cache L2, 800 MHz FSB
Mémoire: 2 Go DDR SO-DIMM bicanal à 400 MHz (2 x 1024 Mo)
Carte vidéo: Double carte graphique NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS - 256 Mo - équipé de la technologie SLI
Disque dur système: Performance Extrême - RAID 0 - 200 Go (2 x 100 Go) 7200 tr/mn SATA
Lecteur optique: Graveur DVD+/-RW 8x Double Couche avec logiciels
Carte son: High-Definition Audio avec son 7.1 surround
Clavier: Clavier pour portable - Français
Cartes mère: Jeu de composant Alienware® NVIDIA® Mobile SLi
Communication: Adaptateur 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet et modem 56K V.92
Carte de réseau sans fil: Carte mini-PCI WiFi intégrée 802.11b/g
Batterie principale: Batterie Lithium-Ion Smart pour Alienware® Aurora m9700
Sac à dos pour Notebook: Sac à dos Alienware® Odyssey
Bluetooth: Appareil Bluetooth® integré
Security Locks: Câble Antivol Targus avec fermeture par combinaison
Batterie Supplémentaire: Batterie additionnelle Lithium-Ion Smart pour Alienware® Aurora m9700
Logiciels sécurité: Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro - Français
AlienInspection: AlienInspection - intégration et inspection exclusives - €99 d’économie - Gratuit !
T-Shirt gratuit: T-Shirt Alienware® - Noir - XL
Gratuit ! Métamorphose de votre bureau: Exclusif : AlienGUIse Theme Manager

Photos speak better than me (even if the quality isn't so good) :





After opening :





After the first power on :









First Impressions :

*OMG!, it's my first laptop computer and generally I don't like this kind of computer
because of the lack of power and high resolution... but I find this one really amazing!!
The booting time is really short and the Turion is easy to configure with NHC v2.0, it
permits to put it at 800Mhz and block it at this frequence (I wasn't able to do that
before I install this software). This last one permits equally to use the Nvidia
PowerMizer more quickly than the normal way. I tried to encode movies for my psp and the
time seems to be the same than with my AMD 4000+ sure it isn't a dual core but it's enough
for me and for playing game.







*This computer seems really well built, the resolution of the screen is enormous
and really practical when you have to use the desktop (you can put a lot of files on it,
open internet pages and launch software etc...)





*One of the first thing I've tested is the hard drive, I was anxious about the
performance because normally on the laptop... but this score strucked me :

It is really near of my desktop computer, with raid0 too !!!!


*The keyboard is good and large. The sensitive shortcuts for internet, and
music or video player are really pleasent to use. The touchpad is original and not so
difficult to use.





*The next thing I test is the GPUs and after the installation of the AMD
Turion Driver 1.3.2 I obtain this :



Before I was near the 9900.
I tested game like FEAR, DOOM3, PREY, CONDEMNED etc... and the graphical power is here,
I play at high resolutions with max details and I use filters like FFSA, Anisotropic...
BUT the memory stick could have been better for a computer like this. In F.E.A.R. for
exemple when the computer has to read quick in the RAM to load textures I have bad lags...
I had exactly the same problem with my desktop computer before I bought my CRUCIAL memory stick.
I'm waiting for other advice about this, pepsirules2k of the forum has just ordered CRUCIAL
memory stick with better timmings (3-3-3 against 3-4-4 for the origin ones)
You can follow this post here : http://www.notebookforums.com/thread172740.html


*The sound of this laptop seems really good to me even if everybody says the opposite.
The small woofer is small of course lol but it works really well (put the Rock mode in the
equalizer, it's the best configuration I think)
You can read my advice about the "buzzing keyboard" thing here : http://www.notebookforums.com/thread175137.html


*Wifi and bluetooth works realy well, nothing else to say


*Temperatures are really high, near 85°C for the GPUs and I saw 82°C for the CPU!!
I was a little anxious about this but it seems to be the same for the other. I'm trying
to build a laptop cooler currently, I will inform you if I can finish it.


*The battery life is really short, I knew that but not a this point!! In disabling
the SLI, downclocking the GPUs near 75Mhz, and the turion near 500Mhz with 0.6V (with Systool),
down the brightness IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to have more than 2hrs!! and I remember that someone in this
forum was near the 2.9 hrs with his m9700, perhaps he hadn't raid? So if someone could
explain me how this is possible, it would be sympathetic.


*The bag is PERFECT, you can put the computer and all the accessories with it like the headphone,
an external Hard Drive, a mouse... and it seems really solid.




*The head phone has a good sound even if I would prefered headphone with "cable" :




Finally I'm really happy, and even if it's expensive I think it's a good choice for people who
needs a transportable computer with power, storage and graphical power. Perhaps the memory stick could
has been better but it is not a big problem...
Sorry for my english again