Right, first of all this review is after just over 1 month of use, and its been some pretty intensive use. I dont have any pic's, you all know what it looks like hehe.
If you cant be arsed to read the whole thing, in short : IT ROCKS
Delivery : granted it took a while to get through production, Alienware rejected a whole batch of cases from thier supplier as the paint job wasent up to standard, therefore resulting in a pretty long wait for a new load. Allthough when it turned up it was exactly when CS said it would be and it was well packaged and everything was well protected inside the box.
Setup : nice and easy, Alienware shipped it with Windows already setup for my area (correct timezone, language selection etc). You are provided with an HTML doc on your desktop, it provides more detailed info on the parts and drivers etc as well as the results of Alienwares benchmarks (out of the box 3D05 was 10,834).
Initial reaction : bugger, its big innit? and heavy, but surprisingly slim. Not too portable, and as I stated the battery live is rubbish but finding a wall socket isnt that difficult, and when run on batteries you cannot use the full power of the GPU's and I have yet to use it on batteries since the battery test. I should imagine this is because if you did the battery would die in minutes.
Looks and feel : sweet, the paintjob is good and the case is finished very well. The whole thing feels solid and well made, the lid does creak a bit when opening and does feel a bit thin but it still feels strong. I should think alienware were trying to cut down on wieght when they designed the lid, but still its no problem to be honest as it locks tight when shut and stays solid when open.
Performance : Storming. It just wont struggle no matter what I throw at it and believe me I tried to make it struggle, even oblivion with all the LOD replacement textures installed, with all settings turned up to max the game will allow, and some turned up higher than that through the GPU console it still breezes through it. Even the battlefield engine looks good on this machine, infact BF2 looks amazing and I havent had any laggy jerkyness at all (BF players will know what I mean).
Display, and sound : The screen is awesome, crystal clear, really sharp images and no ghosting. The camera built in to the top of the screen gives a good picture/video. The inbuilt speakers are good, but by no means amazing. They are great for listening to music, the inbuilt SRS-WOW is a cool feature but for serious gaming they could be better, having said that the Creative PCMCIA rocks, this was supplied from Alienware and I bought a £40 set of 5.1 speakers form ebuyer and it sounds good.
Other: The keyboard is good, easy to type on, I do agree with other mALX owners (i believe 357 said this in his review as well as some others) : the center of the keyboard does feel a bit hollow. Touchpad is smart and accurate, it can get in the way whilst typing but it can also be disabled. Wireless is pretty good, I get much better reception than my mates laptops.
Running/Cooling : The only part of the laptop that gets warm is the Turion. The GPU's have yet to get warm enough to make it possible to feel it through the case. The cooling works well, e.g the second you stop working the Turion and its allowed to return to idle the temperature comes back down quickly and it has yet to get hot enough to cause me concern. The fans can be a bit loud when all of them are going flat out but then again so are my speakers so I dont notice it
So I am pretty pleased with my Alienware, I did have some moments (after waiting 2 months) where i started to belive all the 'ZOMG DONT BUY ALIENWARE' threads, but I'm glad i didnt cancel my order. This laptop is a piece of class, I have yet to have any problems with it at all. Granted its not that mobile but I did buy it as a desktop replacement. No matter what I ask it to do it just pees all over it.
I also tried a bit of O/C'ing once i was confident it was stabe at stock clocks. I pushed the Turion to 2.65 from 2.4 and also did some tweaks with the PCI bus and bus speeds and updated some drivers. Got the 3D05 from 10834 to 11800 (cant remember the exact number). The turion did start to run warmer but i have made a custom cool pad for it (can find one to fit it premade). It ran well and was error free, it made Oblivion even smoother and generally decreased load times etc, but I run everything but Oblivion at stock speeds as it makes little difference.
Bad Points : A bugger to keep clean, makes me stay up till 4am playing BF2142, its a bit loud when all fans are going, not very portable and short battery live. But then again it is a desktop replacement and none of this bothers me to be honest
Good Points : Everything else, plus it looks sexeh
If you cant be arsed to read the whole thing, in short : IT ROCKS
Delivery : granted it took a while to get through production, Alienware rejected a whole batch of cases from thier supplier as the paint job wasent up to standard, therefore resulting in a pretty long wait for a new load. Allthough when it turned up it was exactly when CS said it would be and it was well packaged and everything was well protected inside the box.
Setup : nice and easy, Alienware shipped it with Windows already setup for my area (correct timezone, language selection etc). You are provided with an HTML doc on your desktop, it provides more detailed info on the parts and drivers etc as well as the results of Alienwares benchmarks (out of the box 3D05 was 10,834).
Initial reaction : bugger, its big innit? and heavy, but surprisingly slim. Not too portable, and as I stated the battery live is rubbish but finding a wall socket isnt that difficult, and when run on batteries you cannot use the full power of the GPU's and I have yet to use it on batteries since the battery test. I should imagine this is because if you did the battery would die in minutes.
Looks and feel : sweet, the paintjob is good and the case is finished very well. The whole thing feels solid and well made, the lid does creak a bit when opening and does feel a bit thin but it still feels strong. I should think alienware were trying to cut down on wieght when they designed the lid, but still its no problem to be honest as it locks tight when shut and stays solid when open.
Performance : Storming. It just wont struggle no matter what I throw at it and believe me I tried to make it struggle, even oblivion with all the LOD replacement textures installed, with all settings turned up to max the game will allow, and some turned up higher than that through the GPU console it still breezes through it. Even the battlefield engine looks good on this machine, infact BF2 looks amazing and I havent had any laggy jerkyness at all (BF players will know what I mean).
Display, and sound : The screen is awesome, crystal clear, really sharp images and no ghosting. The camera built in to the top of the screen gives a good picture/video. The inbuilt speakers are good, but by no means amazing. They are great for listening to music, the inbuilt SRS-WOW is a cool feature but for serious gaming they could be better, having said that the Creative PCMCIA rocks, this was supplied from Alienware and I bought a £40 set of 5.1 speakers form ebuyer and it sounds good.
Other: The keyboard is good, easy to type on, I do agree with other mALX owners (i believe 357 said this in his review as well as some others) : the center of the keyboard does feel a bit hollow. Touchpad is smart and accurate, it can get in the way whilst typing but it can also be disabled. Wireless is pretty good, I get much better reception than my mates laptops.
Running/Cooling : The only part of the laptop that gets warm is the Turion. The GPU's have yet to get warm enough to make it possible to feel it through the case. The cooling works well, e.g the second you stop working the Turion and its allowed to return to idle the temperature comes back down quickly and it has yet to get hot enough to cause me concern. The fans can be a bit loud when all of them are going flat out but then again so are my speakers so I dont notice it
So I am pretty pleased with my Alienware, I did have some moments (after waiting 2 months) where i started to belive all the 'ZOMG DONT BUY ALIENWARE' threads, but I'm glad i didnt cancel my order. This laptop is a piece of class, I have yet to have any problems with it at all. Granted its not that mobile but I did buy it as a desktop replacement. No matter what I ask it to do it just pees all over it.
I also tried a bit of O/C'ing once i was confident it was stabe at stock clocks. I pushed the Turion to 2.65 from 2.4 and also did some tweaks with the PCI bus and bus speeds and updated some drivers. Got the 3D05 from 10834 to 11800 (cant remember the exact number). The turion did start to run warmer but i have made a custom cool pad for it (can find one to fit it premade). It ran well and was error free, it made Oblivion even smoother and generally decreased load times etc, but I run everything but Oblivion at stock speeds as it makes little difference.
Bad Points : A bugger to keep clean, makes me stay up till 4am playing BF2142, its a bit loud when all fans are going, not very portable and short battery live. But then again it is a desktop replacement and none of this bothers me to be honest
Good Points : Everything else, plus it looks sexeh
