Hi all,

I think this is the first review of the Sentia m3450 on notebookforums.com. I say "I think" because I haven't seen one...doesn't mean there aren't any, just that I haven't seen any. But I digress...

First some photos:
The box


I got a kick out of the tape on the outside of the box...now THAT'S theft deterrence!


Inside the box


The box inside the box


Inside the box inside the box


The stuff inside the box inside the box


The box inside the box inside the box


The stuff inside the box inside the box inside the box


More of the stuff inside the box inside the box inside the box


The reason we're all here


Closeup


Opening the lid


Keyboard - definitely not 'spongy'


Back (a little blurry...sorry!)


Left side


Right side


First boot...look how clean that desktop is (no bloatware!)


Glowing alien head and logo (a bit blurry)


Lights out


Lights out - closeup (green spectrum really overpowers...this looks blue to the human eye)


Side-by-side comparison to my old laptop - Dell Inspiron 6000


I'm extremely happy with my m3450. My old laptop, seen in the last photo, is a Dell Inspiron 6000, which is juuuuust a little big (for me, anyway) to be a 'true' laptop. She weighs in at a bit over 6 lbs., has a 15.4" screen, runs very, very hot and loud, and is basically just a beast to lug around (it barely fits in my Targus backpack). The I6000 also has just 1GB of RAM and a 5400 RPM hard disk, which just isn't a good combination. I find that XP swaps pages almost constantly to the slow hard disk.

The Sentia, on the other hand, is a really great form factor, in my opinion. I won't buy another machine for portable use that has a screen bigger than 14"...that's just a good, manageable, luggable size for me.

First impressions:
OK, this baby has no lid lock. Huh? Yeah, that's right, no lid lock. About 1/2" before being fully closed, the lid hinge kind of "locks" and pulls itself shut. Weird, but I can live with it.

The keys seem to be a little bigger than on my Inspiron, making it feel almost like a full size keyboard. Maybe it's just my smallish fingers, but the keys just feel "meatier" and more solid. Some posters in my earlier thread about the m3450 mentioned a "spongy" feel to the keys that others had reported. I don't think they feel spongy at all. The period key (.) has been giving me a little bit of trouble, not wanting to actuate with a light touch from my right ring finger. Not sure what to do about that, especially if I'm typing fast.

The touch pad is pretty sensitive, and after a full day of use, I found that my cursor would jump unexpectedly to another location on my screen if my thumb brushed the pad while I was typing. A little fiddling with the touchpad settings revealed an option to disable the touchpad while typing. That took care of the problem.

I'm more of a business user (software developer) than a gamer, so I haven't even attempted to play any games on this machine. I can tell you that the screen is clear and bright, with some glare due to the high-gloss coating the screen ships with. Max resolution is 1280x768 (widescreen) which is just fine for my needs.

The webcam provides a nice crisp, clear image @ 640x480, and works well with Skype and Windows Movie Maker (the only apps I tried it with).

She runs surprisingly quiet, and I have not had any issues with excessive heat. I did use it on my lap for about 2 hours this evening and it felt comfortable. By contrast, my Inspiron would almost burn my thigh, even through pants, and would almost constantly run its fans.

Performance-wise, I'd say the Core Duo processor (2Ghz T2500) is a real rocket. Again, I'm not a gamer, but I can bring my Inspiron to its knees by running 2 or 3 instances of Visual Studio 2005, Outlook, Word, maybe SQL Management Studio and a couple of utilities simultaneously. The m3450 handles this workload with ease, due in part to the 2GB of 667Mhz RAM and the 7200 RPM hard disk.

One of the best "features" (and part of the reason why I was willing to pay a premium for Alienware) was the lack of pre-installed "crapware" that most PC manufacturers insist on shipping with their machines. The m3450 was clean as a whistle when she arrived, with only 3 preinstalled apps on board: a video capture utility, Nero Express and Cyberlink PowerDVD. The desktop had a couple of shortcuts, one to AlienGUIse Theme Manager (which, curiosly, would produce a dialog box with 6 question marks upon launching) and the other to an xml file containing configuration info and checklists produced during the build process. A nice clean machine right out of the box!

Overall I'm very pleased with my new machine. The order/build/ship process took a lot longer than I expected (34 days from order to delivery), but I'm glad I waited it out. The Sentia m3450 is a nicely built little workhorse of a machine that will suit any business user or student well.

I hope this review was helpful. Please feel free to ask any specific questions about the m3450.

John