Every once in a while a system comes through our offices that obliterates the gaming performance scores of those that preceded it. Currently, that notebook is the Alienware Area-51 m17x, an overachieving beast that sliced through most games without a hitch. We love its matte black design, customizable glowing features, and killer gaming scores. If you’re pinching pennies, you may not dig its $2,199 starting price. And you may have to sell your car to buy the configuration we tested—a whopping $5,598. While the m17x’ blazing speeds got our adrenaline pumping, its flaws gave us pause.
Design
The m17x, aptly named for its 17-inch glossy display, features a full and comfortable keyboard with backlighting and a large, smooth touchpad that sits flush with the palm surface and is discernible only by a backlit square outline. The lid felt a bit chintzy, though; it doesn’t feel very sturdy and has a bit of a bounce to it. The m17x boasts a full number pad, a feature the m15x does not offer.
However, like its smaller brethren, above the keyboard the m17x offers the same touch-responsive keys for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Alienware’s AlienFX Command Center, Stealth Mode, and volume. The power button is a silver alien head with glowing eyes. The area around its gorgeous high-definition 1920 x 1200 display is a sleek, glossy black. You’ll also find a 2-megapixel camera and two microphones for videoconferencing.
On the left are the power jack, headphone/microphone jacks, optical audio, S-video, an HDTV Tuner, audio out, three USB 2.0 ports, and a Smart Bay for swapping drives. The right side of the m17x has a 7-in-1 memory card reader, an additional USB port, HDMI, FireWire A/B ports, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, and a security lock slot. The Smart Bay lets you easily switch out the m17x’ optical drive for an extra six-cell battery ($150) or a second hard drive (120GB to 500GB Smart Bay drives are available for up to $400). Or you can choose a 128GB solid state drive (a $550 upgrade) as the main drive.
Personalization
Alienware makes customizing the m17x easy. One of our favorite tweaks lets you change the color of the backlighting on the lid’s alien head, the buttons on the deck, the touchpad border, and the logo below the display.
You can choose from ten colors (or white and black) for the Alienware Command Center, blend them into each other, and create themes for applications and activities. For example, you can have the power button turn red when the m17x is plugged in and blue when it’s not, or set the keyboard to flash yellow every time a new e-mail comes in. Alienware plans to extend this feature to games, allowing a designated area to flash red every time you die, or green every time you grab an ammo box in your favorite game.
The customizing features aren’t limited to aesthetics, either. The AlienFusion power controls let you create custom energy profiles or choose one of the three basics: balanced, high performance, or power saver.
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