It's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My m3200 review.

Yesterday my Sentia m3200 arrived. I will give a few initial impressions and then update with pics when I have more time.

First, my wife insists that the new computer be named "Buffy" mostly to piss me off because she is jealous being stuck with a Dell 6000. After a few hours, I have decided that this laptop will henceforth be called "Leeloo" because it is a cute alien that kicks butt!!!



Visually, this is a great laptop. I was worried about the Xeno Grey color, as the pictures I have seen have had a wide range of lighting so I imagined it as more metallic than it actually is. The color is quiet enough that I can pull this out at meetings but distinct enough to stand out, especially with the loglow coming from the back. The smoked plastic keyboard is nice, makes me wish they had backlit it like the high-end Macs.

At first boot, I was not happy with the screen. Looked a bit fuzzy. I soon found that it had been set to 1024x768 resolution. Changing the display to the native 1280x800 cleared everything up nicely. The color is great, contrast ratio is exceptional for a laptop, and images are crisp. I put in "Akira" to check the DVD playback, and found it to be awesome for movies. Sound is also exceptional for a machine this small, much better than my wife's 15.4 laptop. However, I found the image to be much better with full Windows running than with the Linux DVD playback option.

So far, I have just played around with a few programs while I get everything set the way I want it. It has done well running MS Office, and I have started putting it through some number-crunching with SPSS. Both work great, faster than my Dell desktop with a 1.8 Pentium. Photoshop looks very good: images are sharp, cleaning and adjusting some 5 megapixel images went quickly. Today I'll set up color profiles for the screen and see how it looks.

While the wait was a PITA, I am very happy with my little Alien. I do wish AW had been more responsive to my emails (I just got a reply today to an email sent over a week ago despite their promise to "respond in 24 hours"), but the system is well worth the wait.



Oops, almost forgot to put in the specs:

m3200, 12.1 WXGA 1280x800
2x512 MB memory
80GB 5400rpm hard drive
Dual-layer DVD burner
Intel 750 processor, 1.86 GHz
1 year warrenty

I haven't tried a battery test yet. A few minutes of DVD playback knocked it down to 87%. I plan on unplugging it while I do my usual tasks: working on my disseration in Word and running Winamp for noise. Will post how long that lasts tomorrow.

Later that day:

Here is a quick test of the battery life. I simply used my laptop as I usually do. I had Word open, and played some MP3s with Winamp (eMusic downloads, VBR encoded). Sound played through headphones at moderate volume. WiFi off.

12:45 pm: 100% battery
1:00 pm: 92% battery
1:15 pm: 83% battery
1:30 pm: 75% battery
1:45 pm: 66% battery

So about a third of the battery in an hour under my normal use, or about 3 hours max on a single charge. I'll try playing a DVD on the Linux boot option to see how long it will run.

More Details and Pics

Wow, a few days with this notebook have been great! I thought I'd give a few more impressions of this notebook compared to my other two portables: a Dell Latitude CPi and an IBM 5140.

The Dell Latitude CPi was purchsed by my employer shortly after I started working at Arkansas State University in 1998. At the time it was a cutting edge system: 300 MHz PII processor, 64 MB RAM [since upgraded to maximum of 256 MB], 12" screen with an 800x600 resolution. It has one USB 1 port, VGA out, and a hot-swapable bay that can host a CD-ROM, LS120 drive, or second battery. I have also adapted a combo drive to fit, but the video memory will not allow DVD playback. WiFi, Ethernet, and modem are via the cardbus adapter.



The Dell has a firmer keyboard, and a slightly better layout. My biggest learning curve is the location of the Control and Function keys, which are reversed on the Alienware. The Dell also fits in some larger arrow keys and more function keys in about the same space. The two computers are almost the same size, with the Dell having about 1/2 inch more depth but considerably more weight, partly because I tend to carry it with both batteries loaded. Even with the combo drive instead of the extended battery, I save over a pound with the Alienware.



The IBM 5140 is a bit more cumbersome. This 1982 model sports massive storage thanks to its two 750 KB floppy drives-one for the OS and one for storage. Battery life is nonexistant, as replacement batteries exceed the value off this computer by a factor of two. The monochrome screen fits about 8 lines of text. Modem and printer options were available, but I have yet to purchase tem. There is no USB port, no CD-ROM, and few ports, but a screen out is available for an IBM monitor. The keyboard action is almost like a desktop, and has full-sized keys. No windows key, however.



And finally, two shots of the logo, and a size comparison of the Alienware m3200 and Leonardo, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle:

The color appears to be molded into the plastic, not a surface paint. Should hold up well. I have only had it a few days, but it has no marks on it yet, and wipes clean easily.

Yes, my wife had an HP that had spots where her palms rested on the surface, and the paint on the doors for the memory and CPU flaked off from the heat. Looked terrible in no time. My Dell, on the other had, looks good after 7 years of hard use.

One more thing to love about the m3200:

The screen is bright and sharp. I have used other laptops with high resolution screens, and had trouble reading type even on 15.4 widescreens at the same resolution as the Sentia. Text looks better on this laptop than on any of my desktop computers. The clearview surface and the good contrast ratio make small text readable on this laptop despite the size of the screen. Only drawback is that dust shows on the screen, so keep a cleaning cloth on hand.