Yeah, so I just bought the Alienware m11x less than four months ago and wrote about it here. But in that time the Alienware has become my ‘everything’ laptop – gaming, email, backup for work, and on and on. The ability to run top end games like Alpha Protocol at maximum settings easily for > 2 hours on a single charge, combined with > 8 hour battery life using power saving mode and the integrated graphics has been a real change in how I do things. The ability to switch graphics modes easily has allowed me to manage my power usage in a way I’ve never done before.
But the one thing that lagged was the processor. A fairly average Core 2 Duo SU7300 performed reasonably well, but definitely lagged compared to my Macbook Pro … or my wife’s nifty new Core i5 Sony.
Now Alienware is upping the ante: based on the initial success and general feedback that they had a great product with an anemic processor, the m11x now comes with a Core i5 or i7 processor.
Checking out the pricing, I could configure the m11x with a Core i5 processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, 2GB RAM, and a 160GB 5400RPM drive for $949. Adding on the Core i7, upping the RAM to 4GB, the disk to 500GB and adding Bluetooth totaled up to just over $1300. The maximum price I could manage was just under $2200, and included adding 8GB or RAM, a 256GB SSD, and Windows 7 Ultimate.
That seems like a ton of cash for a ‘uber-netbook’, but considering that three months ago the top configuration (Core 2Duo, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD, Bluetooth, Win 7 Home) was > $1200 … the cost increment to grab the reasonable i7 configuration is not too bad.
When I get mine in and play with it a bit (expected ship date is currently early July according to the Dell site) I will let you know what it is like.
Source: Alienware Insider Email
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