My quest for the most comprehensive review of the M3450 is far from done. HD Tach 3 and H2Benchw benchmarks coming soon.

First things first -

This is my system:

I ordered Windows XP Home and then updated to XP Pro.

Ordering:

Customizing:
Alienware's ordering system was really straight forward, I liked it. I loved how easy it was to customize and mess with parts instantly changing the price which followed you as you scrolled down.

The price was also a great deal. It came to a total of $1,279 and I got everything I wanted except a 7,200 RPM HDD, but I couldn't afford to go over $1,300 right now, so I couldn't get the 100GB 7,200 RPM which was another $180. No complaint here though, I wish the 80GB could have been 7,200 RPM, but this was a restriction I put on myself. I can always upgrade later.

Final Step - Billing:
The only problem I ran into had nothing to do with Alienware. When Alienware tried to finish verifying my credit card it brought me to my credit union's credit card verification site. For some reason my bank rejected my information when I filled out the form, and again, and then a third time.

As you might know, you usually get three tries with something like this and then you get completly rejected. Well, I was booted off the bank's site and back to the Alienware shop where I last clicked "Next". I was confused and upset so I clicked the new "Pay Now" button I saw and it said my purchase was finalized, I got my order number and an e-mail.

Overall:
5/5

Alienware Customer Service:

Billing:
I was able to contact customer service even on Labor Day (Ya, ya, they might be out-sourced and that's why, but they were very helpful). I wanted to check if my payment had truly been received. The call took me a total of about 10 minutes, I got bumped to Phase 3 and told I would enter Phase 4 and 5 Tuesday afternoon.

General:
The information I received in the following days while my system was being built was always accurate and never had the ring of a BS answer tailored to simply please the customer.

Both on the phone and via e-mail I received accurate and prompt replies without any BS thrown in.

Overall:
5/5

Phases:

Billing (1-3):
I ordered on September 2nd, Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and moved into Phase 3 on the 4th, that Monday/Labor Day.

Pre-Production and Production (4-8):
Alienware had all the parts I had requested, and just like I was told (See Customer Service - Billing above), my laptop entered Phase 4 and then quickly entered 5 Tuesday morning, September 5th. I moved to Phase 7 that night.

Shipping (9 and 10):
On September 6th I moved to Phase 8 in the morning and near the end of the work day I was in Phase 9 and then 10. FedEx picked up my laptop at 6:33PM after Alienware sent them the information at 5:51PM.

Summary:
I'm very happy with how quickly I moved through the phases. This is what I expected and it's what I got. Production was finished quick-like and once it entered shipping they got FedEx to pick it up promptly.

Overall:
5/5

FedEx Shipping:

Initial Travel and Tracking:
I ordered FedEx Home Delivery, so it left Alienware in Miami at 6:33PM and went all night to the FedEx distribution cneter in Orlando. Unfortunately, this is where my tracking number became useless.

I live in Michigan, so it's a long drive and since it's Home Delivery it comes straight to the distribution center in my city (or near it if you don't live by one). The driver doesn't check in until s/he reaches their destination, so I watched and waited for it to show up.

Delivery and FedEx Customer Service:
I called FedEx twice when I got anxious wondering where my laptop was. I wouldn't have called again, but I forgot to ask if I could schedule a delivery time after 11AM since I'd be gone from 9:30-11 the morning it was scheduled for delivery.

I mention this because when I called back my phone number and name was recognized by their system, so the operator already had all my information and could answer my questions easily.

I was told it would arrive Tuesday for sure because they guatantee 1-5 business days on Ground delivery and always meet their estimated delivery dates. This could be just in theory, but they met those standards so I have no complaints.

However, because I used Home Delivery and not a more expensive service offered by FedEx I could not schedule a time for the driver to deliver, but if you miss it you can have them re-deliver that same day by calling a number they leave, meet the driver to pick it up or go to the FedEx location, and re-deliver the next day. Of course you never take that last option, wait another day? Don't think so.

Overall:
4/5*

*I used "Home Delivery" which is much less 'interactive' you could say, but I'm still veyr satisifed.


The Laptop!:

Everything inside


As you can see from the pictures the laptop came in two boxes with the laptop itself suspended between two pieces of foam. Included was the driver and software CDs, the Alienware setup guide explaining how to work and use everything, and the Owner's Folder with my Alienware Owner Card. The folder also contained the CDs with a booklet explaining everything included. The laptop was covered by a plastic lining and inside of a plastic bag.

The Famous Box Tape

The Inside Box

Inside the Inside Box

All the Boxes


I'll review each individual piece.

The Case:



It's sleek, it's smooth, I love the finish on this thing. It's as smooth as the hood of my car. The paint job shines and looks very nice. The famous alien head and Alienware name are my favorite part. They don't appear to glow when the laptop is off because they don't really look like they're lighted at all, but damn, what an effect. The rubber grips are very nice and complete the very unique look.

The Back

All Lit Up


The quick launch keys, power keys and touchpad keys are made of polished, machined metal giving the overall appearance a nice look. The input jacks are nice, they have a strong hold on anything you plug in while not requiring any force to push them in.

Right Side

Front

Left Side + My Cat's Tail


There is no lid lock. This was an odd thing, but I do like it. Once the lid is about 1/2 inch away from being fully closed it kind of "locks" and shuts itself. To open it you just pull it open.

Update: One thing I noticed is the case seems to have magnets where the lid shuts, 2 pairs of magnets each with 1 in the lid and 1 in the base. I noticed this because I set the laptop up in front of my monitor at work one day and the monitor was on. I saw 2 spots appear on the monitor behind the top two corners of the lid. This seems to be how the lid shuts itself and stays shut.

5/5

The Screen:
This came with a plastic cover over it to protect it. I really liked that, it was a nice touch. It's incredibly clear and glossy. Not much else I can say about it, it's just really nice.

Update: Truly a nice screen. I've actually received complaints about it while at work. The picture quality makes watching DVDs and editing pictures on the laptop much more enjoyable than my old laptop. With other screens I'm almost surprised everytime I printed a picture and it was so much clearer on paper than on the screen, not the case anymore.

5/5

The Webcam:
I love free stuff and this was a great addition. I've actually never used a webcam at all, but the picture is clear and sharp, I can't imagine it could be much better. It's built in right above the LCD surrounded by a ring of machined metal giving it a nice look.

5/5

The Keyboard and Touchpad:
I've seen people say the touchpad is way too sensitive, but it find it to be just great. Definitely a leap forward from myold laptop. I had the sensitivity raised on my old laptop's touchpad, so maybe I'm just used to it.

Update: After using the touchpad for a little over a month I kept noticing touchy performance from the touchpad when running certain software. I reinstalled drivers, reseated the touchpad cable and it kept occuring. The mouse pointer would "stick" the the scroll bar when scrolling and the screen would scroll out of my control in 1 line chunks. It would stay scrolling and stuck until I clicked on the scroll bar. After some research I found the Elantech touchpad drivers are the problem. This occure din OpenOffice and Firefox. Found out Elantech drivers don't play nice wth any non-Microsoft apps.

The touchpad now works great. I uninstalled the Elantech drivers and installed Synaptic touchpad drivers. Problem solved! The Windows XP generic drivers also worked great. I didn't lose any special features either, just all the bugs Elantech offers.

I've also seen people say the keyboard is spongy, but I love it. I don't think it feels "spongy", but it is pretty sensitive. It's great! My old laptop's keyboard was always ignoring keystrokes requiring me to backtrack and fix all sorts of "typos". A simple press and the keyboard picks it up with ease.

5/5

The Speakers:
The sound seemed just fine when I started her up for the first time. A little low, but the sound settings were about at the minimum to make them just audible enough for me to notice them. I'm still downloading drivers and doing my usual routine, so I'll check the speakers out with some music and gaming soon.

So far,
5/5

The Wireless Card:
I had a much older version of the wireless card in my old laptop and I must say this one is incredible in comparison. It picked up wireless hotspots accross the street! Immidiately after Windows started it detected my router along with 5 other hotspots from accross the street, in other apartment buildings and my neighbors. I'm very impressed and the wireless speed is great.

I ran SiSoft's SANDRA and tested the internet connection at my office with the Sntia Intel minicard and I was very pleased with the results. The test came back with 374KB/s data bandwidth and 13ms data latency. Here's the graph:



Then back at my apartment my Belkin54g router kicked those results in the ass with 1544KB/s data bandwidth and 2ms data latency:



5/5

The Battery:
Update: So far the battery has lasted an average of 3 hours and 2-2.5 hours if I'm gaming for a good portion of the charge. The Core 2 Duo processor does an awesome job of conserving the battery charge with the dynamic switching power setting. Even on Max Performance it still does a great job.

I ran SiSoft's SANDRA to test the power management of the Core 2 Duo against the Pentium M and Core Duos, here's what I got:





The Power Supply:
My old power supply was heavy and truly earned the nickname "The Brick", but this is definitely no brick. It's lightwight and only slightly larger than my PSP charger "brick". It fits securely into the jack to power and charge the laptop, unlike my old laptop and my girlfriend's which seemed to constantly slide out just enough to kick back to battery power. I like it.

5/5

The CD/DVD Burner:
The drive is fairly sensitive, if you bump the button it pops open, but that's not a huge problem. It seems to be that way with all laptop CD/DVD drives I've seen. When the laptop is sitting on a flat surface like a desk nothing can really bump it, so it's only a slight inconvenience at times.

I ran SiSoft's SANDRA to test how quickly the CD/DVD Burner combo read media and here's what I got:





The average read speed came out to 22.4 to 24x depending on the media. The average was 22.5x reading Windows XP Pro and game discs.

5/5

My General Opinion:
I love this thing. It's one awesome powerhouse in a small package. This thing is lightning fast. Right out of the box I could see I made a great choice, the Sentia will be all I need and more. I was a little confused when it didn't power up right away, then I realized the power button needed to be held down for a second, not just pushed. Seems weird, but I really liked that. My old laptop would sometimes go dead in the case between classes because something bumped the power button when I closed the lid.

It runs silent and cool. I've left it on since I took it out oft he box and it's not even warm, I haven't even heard a fan kick on. Now I haven't run anything too intense on it yet, just downloading drivers and installing some software like Visual Studio '05, but so far I wouldn't even know the laptop is on if the lid was closed (Ya, ok, the glowing ALienware head and name would be a giveaway, but you see my point).

You'd think I work for Alienware with all these 5/5's, but I just can't find a single problem here. The Sentia m3450 is a true powerhouse and a fine choice for anyone looking for a balance between power and portability.

I plan to run 3DMark 05 and 06 just for fun and I'll post the results. I'll be doing more tests and having more fun, I'll post results or answer any questions

5/5
Benchmarks:
3DMark 06:
I ran 3DMark06 under Dynamic Switching and here's what I got:



And under Max Performance:


It's more important to note the processor score here. 3DMark weighs a lot of its score on graphics processing power and the Intel GMA 950 integrated can't handle what 3DMark06 throws at it, but the processor sure can

Super Pi:
Time to calculate Pi to 2 Million Digits on Dynamic Switching: 1 minute 19 seconds
Time to calculate Pi to 2 Million Digits on Max Performance: 1 minute 9 seconds



PCMark05:
I ran PCMark05 under Dynamic Switching and here's what I got:



And under Max Performance:



HDTach 3.0:
This test benchmarks the hard drive's read and write speed. I will post a full benchmark with both read and write tests when I receive a registration code to enable the write test. Here are the current read results:



I received similar results under both Dynamic Switching and Max Performance power settings. The max result I received was an average of 31.9MB/s read speed.

Once I have a fully registered HDTach I will post my write test results.

Update:
One night I was typing up notes and coding in Visual Studio 2005 and my playlist ended. Oddly enough this was probably the first time in two months of using the Sentia that I was using it in a truly quiet area and I was assaulted by this senseless beeping/meeping noise and strange buzzing. My first thought was my motherboard was dieing some awful death for some unknown reason.

I had no way to know how long this had been happening. I attributed a similar noise I would hear during class to the semiloud PCs the rest of the students were using. First thing I did was put my ear to the keyboard to write down the BIOS code, but this seemed to be senseless noise with no pattern and the weird sort of "bzz" soud in between long beeps really worried me.

Long story short: I run many tests ( Seagate SeaTools, Check disk, Spyware/Virus tools, ect) and disable startup programs, but no effect. I call Alienware and they wanted me to send it in for testing, but that wasn't at all convenient for my needs. I asked for help here on NBF and Alienware-Steve contacted me. I pieced together a 1-1-2-1 code ("Get CPU Type") and he hooked me up with a technician who would walk me through the BIOS update from 1.00.01AL (the version my Sentia was shipped with) to 1.00.02AL, a version that supposedly added support for Core 2 Duo processors. The walk through was for the sake of my warranty.

Conclusion: The beeping stopped immidiately and I swear the machine runs even better than before. It was just an issue of Alienware sending out a system with an out of date BIOS that didn't fully support the processor.

I suppose that would be upsetting, but this is what truly impressed me. I received a phone call while at work from a Florida number yesterday (a few days after the BIOS flash), but because it was an unknown number and I was on a call for work I let it go to voicemail. One of the customer service managers left me a voicemail asking me how my system was performing after the flash and if I had any questions or concerns about the system. My voicemail cut him off, so I didn't get his full number and the caller ID just had Alienware's general office number. It didn't end there though.

Then today I received yet another call from the same guy as a follow-up to the voicemail. He asked me how the system was performing, was their anymore more noises, did I believe the system had slowed down, and then closed my ticket when I gave him the A-OK that all was well.

Thanks Alienware-Steve and the Techs and Reps at Alienware :thumbsup:

Bump, I updated it with a review of the laptop now that I actually have it in my hands

Posting pics ASAP! Taking them off the camera now and uploading them.

sweet making me very excited about getting mine!

P.S. i don't think they outsource since they were closed down during Fernando (wasn't that the name of the florida tornado?).

Ok it is 348am Michigan time - I am still up hitting refresh on the fedex page hoping to see mine on truck for delivery today a day early (Wednesday).

If I see pics of one more 3450 I can't be responsible for what happens to any fedex drivers I may see today especially if I am lucky and it arrives a day sooner than estimated, that guy better be ready for a flash and sign/grab, ill try to get him on film hehe...

You wont see that message till about 5-6 AM probably lol.
Hope it gets there for ya today though

Guerrilla: Where are the pictures!?? >.>

Nice review though.

Thanks for the feedback!

Added pics and a 3DMark03 score

I think the pics turned out alright, I don't have the greatest digital camera. I'll probably retake the side, front and back shots and label the ports later.

FTLOSM: Just like Wiss said, it'll probably show up in Toledo early morning of the day it's supposed to arrive and then near you a few hours later. After that it'll be on a truck and should show later that day. Good Luck!

Well it is 943am now and still no change on the fedex website under status of my current order, it still shows estimated date as tomorrow and last status leaving orlando on the 9th ....

So I guess my hopes of it arriving a day early are shot

Bill

Hi everyone, and many thanks to Guerrilla for this great review!

I intend to buy an m3450 soon, but first I have one little thing to ask to the lucky owners of this PC:
How customizable is the notebook once you have bought it?

What I mean is: Is it easy to change the original components? Especially, is there an easy access the memory and the hard drive? Do you just need to remove one or two screws, or is it more complicated? Is the CPU also accessible (and why not the motherboard?).
I'm mostly interested by adding more memory later on, and having a larger hard drive in case I need it...

If it is not too difficult, and if you have some spare time, would you mind posting a few pics of the memory and hard drive compartments?

Thanks a lot in advance...

Ackeron

still not unuf pictures!!!

I too am curious on the memory location of the 3450, I plan on swapping out the stock 512 with 2 gig's worth shortly after I get the laptop (it is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow btw).

Thanks to anyone that can snap a picture or knows where the memory is located, also anyone have specs on what company/brand Alienware uses in these 3450's?

Here is a picture of the exposed underside of the m3450:

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/a...887875&p_olh=0

They use elpida (i.e., www.elpida.com) chips for the two 256MB RAM sticks that were contained within my notebook. They might use other types for larger memory sizes. Other folks who bought their laptops with the higher memory configuration from Alienware will need to let us know. Memory installation involved removing four screws, removing the 256MB modules, and then installing each 1GB module into their respective places. It took about 10 minutes.

The hard drive can removed as the following pictures detail:

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/a...714660&p_olh=0

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/a...714661&p_olh=0

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/a...714662&p_olh=0

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Thanks a LOT!

Plus, you've helped me locate the webpage which explains how to change the HD.

--> http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/a...i=&p_topview=1

The Sentia comes with a whole booklet with diagrams of what screws to take out and where they are for upgrading the RAM, CD/DVD drive and HDDs.

Noldo: I got my Sentia with 1GB RAM, I'll check to see if the 512 sticks are any different than the 256 sticks.

Arch: More pics coming soon

Ah this is sweet to see the "guts" of things thank you, I can't wait to get mine tomorrow hopefully as long as the horse gets watered tonight by fedex so he can make the final steps of the trip to my house.

It has to be coming by horse and cart because it is taking a full week to travel 20 hours drive-time...

Allright then, I think I'll buy mine today or tomorrow!
I'll just wait for Guerrilla's pics to ensure that I can upgrade my 512 Mo RAM to 2 Go...