Jamasters Ultimate Review V2.0

[jamaster14]

Vital Statistics:
W: 13.8"
D: 11.4"
H: 1.6"

Weight ~8lbs.
Screen: 16.1"

I/O: 1 firewire, 3 USB, 1 ps/2, 1 printer, 1 s-video, 1 VGA, 1 mic, 1 audio out, 1 memory card reader(MMC, SD,MS PRO), 1 PCMCIA, 1 infrared, 1 10/100, 1 56k/v90

Peripherals: AW Carrying Case, Smartbay Second Hard Drive, Smartbay 4X DVD+RW, Lithium Ion Battery, AC Power Source, Antec Laptop Cooler(not included w/ the 51m), Netgear 802.11g Wireless network card(not included), Netgear 802.11g WAP(not included).

Software & OS: XP Pro, Nero Burning software, Alien Adrenaline(powerstrip), DVD X Copy(not included w/ 51m), Mozilla (not included)


The Phase Game: Not sure i can describe it but i know you all know how it feels. From my experience, on the 30-day wait period the phases go as follows:

phase 1-3(order processing) 1 -2 days
phase 4-6(waiting on queue) 8-12 days
phase 7-11(building) 1-5 days
phase 12-14(shipping) 1-3 days

Its kinda of tough... having a 4000 dollar toy but you cant play with it for 30 days. believe me its worth the wait,... you come home, the fedex guy comes and you have an ear to ear smille... as soon as it was delivered the first thing i remeber is how much lighter the box was than i anticipated. i open the box and all the goodies were packed nicely... laptop, games, usb key, tv tuner, t-shirt, kingston lock ect... its pretty overwelming to have all this stuff... The experience of just recieving the alienware is rewarding all in itself, you automatically feel like part of an elite group, i'd compare it to owning a bently.

Accessories:
Lock: the lock is pretty good for the money. i got the key lock, the connection to the laptop itself is very sturdy; it also comes with a nice mounting bracket so you can screw it in to something solid. i put it on my desk... won't deter a superthief, but the avg. joe is gonna have to carry my whole desk out to steal my 51m
Pic:
ESPN:


T-Shirt: Pretty cool looking shirt, kinda large but should shrink in the laundry... went with the standard black, not much to say here...
Pic:

Mouse/Mousepad: The mouse is pretty sweet... matches the laptop color pretty well... its very accurate and the response is good, works on pretty much any surface smoothly, including my leg. The mouse pad is one of my favorite features,... seems simple but the thing is nice... it has this little clip that holds the mouse wire in place so its not all over the place, which is key since the usb ports are on the right making everything kinda clumped up with the wiring.
Pic:

Remote Control/Usb drive: The remote control kicks major arse! You can program it with any application, the only thing is it needs to have hot keys(i.e. cntl+s to save) it can control 4 different applications, i have it set to my TV tuner, Realplayer, DVD player and Mozilla.... it works great with realplayer... you can switch tracks easy, adjust volume, the whole 9. a great feature, especially if you dont have a stereo like me. The usb drive is pretty self explanitory, it has the alienware logo and havent had any issues wit it, works flawless....

in addition you can Boot from the usb drive(by setting "removable device" in the boot menu of the BIOS), which is a plus with no floppy drive.
Pic:

Manuals: You get a very nice little Alienware Binder to keep all your documentation in order. your invoice, some benchmark results and all your software/drivers. also a nice little Alienware "owners card" which just has all the support info on it, credit card sized to fit in your wallet. put together nicely, most companies you get the packing slip and thats it...
Pic:

Cooling pad: doesnt come with it but the antec cooling pad is a must for this laptop. the thing works great, even without the fan it provides a nice surface to sit on your lap and allow ventilation from the bottom. keeps the laptop very cool. very quiet!
Pic:

Wireless: didnt go with the built in cause i heard it was crap so i went with the netgear 802.11g card... what can i say the thing is a beast. im yet to get signal strength lower than "excellent" and im always between 48-54 Mbps. can get reception outside my building (im on teh 3rd floor).
Pic:

WinTv PVR(Tv Tuner): Well i already knew what i was getting with the haupagge PVR. The thing works like a champ, again no problems installing the usb device, it found all 125 channels and they all come in at the same quality i get on my TV. the picture is flawless and there is no ghosting or skipping at all. picture is kinda blurred up close but when standing from nromal tv watching distance(even for a small screen for TV) it is great. The PVR also has MPEG2 encoder which allows you to record and pause live TV. it has a scheduler built in so you can set times to tape stuff(i.e monday at 8pm) the recordings are great quailty, but take alot of space. 5.4 GB for 1 hour. this is where that second hard drive comes in BIG! thats an additonal 80 GB! a must buy if you get the TV Tuner! you can hold 14 hours of live peicture perfect quality TV on that secondhard drive! just like a tivo!
Pics: TV Tuner:
ESPN:
TNT:
Recording Scheduler:

Laptop Notes:

The laptop is a work of art, it is truly a beutiful machine. The laptop is extremely quiet...hell the damn powersource makes more noise than the laptop! The thing is a walking port replicator.... TV out, S-video, usb, firewire, memory card reader, pcmcia, paralell, serieal, ps/2. The screen is gorgeous, the 16.1" had no washout at all, the ghosting is near non exsistent, you have to be really looking for it to even notice. the keyboard is pretty nice, kind of transperant, i have no problem with any of the key locations, the fn/control thing is kind of annoying but laptop users are used to it. the mouse pad is pretty nice, the scroll feature is really handy if you can master it, if not you can kinda get annoyed by it. the DVD burner works great. 35 mintues to make a copy. onyl had problems with ULEAD, but made copies with no problem with Nero and dvd x copy xpress. the second hard drive sint hot swapable but ive had no problems with that at all either, it is recognized by the laptop automatically.

The battery gets decent life for the intese apps and hardware running 2 hours or so, 1 hour and a half of gaming.

Laptop Images:
Top:
Bottom:
left:
Right:
Screen:
My 2 favorite possesion, college degree and 51m:

Dual Boot Set-up:
After getting over the initial feeling of having the laptop arrive it was time to set the puppy up... i dual booted it with linux(slackware) and xp pro... since you cant have the second hard drive and cd drive in at the same time this got kind fo tricky... i had to boot from the network and download the slackware files to a small windows partition on the 2nd HDD. i then mounted that and installed linux onto the 2nd hdd from a drive on that same hdd! and it worked wonderfully!

now i ahve 2 OS' runnng like champs on my beast.
Pics:
Dual Boot:
Slackware booting:
linux in action:


Gaming:
Okay Okay i know what your thinking "hey i ain't got time for the jibber jabber" lets see some gaming!

ask and ye shall recieve!

here are the goodies i got with the laptop:


I had no trouble installing any of these, none of the "cant authenticate errors" Call of duty got popped inf irst, played great, no skipping, great graphics, no ghosting:
picd:



Age of mythology was up next, again flawless, this is a great game i highly suggest you try it out, very addicting, i could get away after hours of gaming if finally stopped... here are some pics of it in action...




Halo.... this is the only thing that gave me trouble... graphics kinda of blocky,,,,.... played very fast and smooth but graphics were quite right.. but i didnt mess with any options so that could be it... here are some pics:




Next it was emulation time...this meant 2 things ...

1) time to break out the gravis game pad pro... i.e. the best darn emulator joypad known to man:

2) tiem to get out the classics...

i wont beat around the bush here, all i'll say is they all played flawless... nos kips, graphics 100% accurate to their console+Tv counterparts... here we go ina quick rundown:

NES:
tyson-
zelda-

snes:
supermario wolrd-

Genesis:
nhl 93-

n64:
mariokart-


gameboy advanced:
Metroid fushion-

whew! i hope i didnt leave anything out... to sum things up this is a great laptop and a great experience... there really sint anything this laptop cant do...

hell just in the first day i:
dual booted windows and linux, played nes, super nes, genesis, n64, gameboy 3 pc games, watched tv on the lappie, recorded 2 tv shows, watcha DVd, copied a dvd, burned a DVD, copied video from a camcorded via the firewire ports, surfed the itnernet wireless...

The picture is awesome, the sounds is pretty good for a laptop too!

all this with NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER at incredible speeds...

the machine is a beast, but runs as smooth as silk. i cant possibly say enough about this notebook.

Ratings (out of 10):
speed: 10
screen: 9
Sound: 8
Noise: 10
Heat: 8
Battery Life: 7
Gaming: 12.5
DVD: 10
DVD burn: 9
Usb ports: 10
firewire: 10
Wireless: n/a
pcmcia wireless: 10
smartbay: 10
remote controll: 11
mouse: 8
keyboard: 8
opticall mouse: 9
Mousepad: 10
Laptop Carry Case: 6
geez did i miss anything?

oh yeah overall experience a perfect 10

Conclusion:
You pretty much are getting what you are paying for with this laptop. It is a desktop replacement anda gaming machine and it performs at the expected levels. My expecations were through the roof and unreaosnable, but the 51m still managed to meet those expactations. I give this laptop my full endorsement!

a full 5 Rating!

[kwick7]

that is an awesome review, great job!!!

I am curious about one thing though. I see you are playing some great old school gaming there (nhl sega genesis, great choice!!!), would you be able to tell me where you got your n64 rom? Those are the only ones I have trouble finding (and I do have the games I want to get roms for, honestly!) Perhaps you could pm me?

Great job!

[jamaster14]

Originally Posted by kwick7

that is an awesome review, great job!!!

I am curious about one thing though. I see you are playing some great old school gaming there (nhl sega genesis, great choice!!!), would you be able to tell me where you got your n64 rom? Those are the only ones I have trouble finding (and I do have the games I want to get roms for, honestly!) Perhaps you could pm me?

Great job!

yeah the N64 roms are VERY tough to come by....

i got the mariokart rom for a site a while ago, but that site has recently been shut down, the other i got on kazaa last year.

you cand ownload them from my site, but id suggest you wait a bit until i resolve my server issues... my apache seems to halt evey 30 seconds kill any kind of donwload from my server..

all ym emulaton stuff is here:
http://masterson.myftp.org/files/emulation

on a side note if anyone has wwf raw or wwf wrestlemania 2k for n64 id love to get a hold of those!

[kwick7]

hahhaha its funny you should say that... i am looking for any of the old AKI games.... wwf wrestlemania, no mercy, wcw vs nwo world tour, wcw revenge.....

without a doubt the best wrestling games, ever. cant find them though.

[booga]

Hurts my eyes to see the laptop lid down on the hard floor like that.

[jamaster14]

Originally Posted by booga

Hurts my eyes to see the laptop lid down on the hard floor like that.

do you think im crazy?

there is a small dish towel underneath it.

[Craig]

jamaster,

Excellent review my friend! Worthy of a Sticky! Thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough job. Informative and well documented with pics. You're truly an asset to this forum!

Thanks again

-Craig

[Whitefire818]

omg can I have your laptop haha j/k. I really do want it though great review I wanna go pull out my parents credit cards and BLAM get a new AW.

[jamaster14]

Originally Posted by Craig

jamaster,

Excellent review my friend! Worthy of a Sticky! Thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough job. Informative and well documented with pics. You're truly an asset to this forum!

Thanks again

-Craig

Yes my first sticky!

thansk craig, glad i could help out...especialyl for those in the early phases

[FriedToast]

Goddangit, Jamaster, y'make me want to reconsider buying an AW But darn it, I really want 2 HDs and the use of my optical drive (as well as having +/- instead of just + on the DVD drive). What can I say? I'm a picky sonofa!#$%

Ah, well, maybe someday...

[jamaster14]

Originally Posted by FriedToast

Goddangit, Jamaster, y'make me want to reconsider buying an AW But darn it, I really want 2 HDs and the use of my optical drive (as well as having +/- instead of just + on the DVD drive). What can I say? I'm a picky sonofa!#$%

Ah, well, maybe someday...

yeha i know the feeling, that was my only beef as well... i dont really mind not having a +/- burner since i have oen in my desktop.

but the 2 HDD's and optical drive isnt as bad as i thought it would be... i dont use the CD-rom drive unless im gaming or bruning a CD, in both cases iwouldnt need the second HDD anyhow...

plus i have a 128MB usb key for input while the 2 hard drives are in....

so basically you can have 2 hardrives in, still have a decent size input(up to 256 with a usb key) AND you can still boot from the usb key!

not too bad.... no cd rom drife and still managed to dual-boot the puppy.

and if you want to game and do stuff ot the second hard drive you can always make virtual drives iwth nero

[jamaster14]

Originally Posted by Whitefire818

omg can I have your laptop haha j/k. I really do want it though great review I wanna go pull out my parents credit cards and BLAM get a new AW.

i know the feeling, maybe you can finance it? 80-100$a month, you can ahve someone co-apply for the financing?

[Drew]

Quite possibly the BEST review ever. Great job man. And your system is a replica of mine.

[jamaster14]

Originally Posted by Drew

Quite possibly the BEST review ever. Great job man. And your system is a replica of mine.

Hey thanks drew... i've been adding to it sicne ig ot the sticky... dont want toleave anything out,... ill have picks fo the carrying case, some resolution comarisons, and the second hdd/dvd removable swap stuff.

[Braingoo]

Wow this is a great review lokos even better now all your pics are working!