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First Look

Alienware M17 Laptop

By Justin Robinson
16:06 Jan 29, 2009 | 12 Comments
Tags: Alienware | M17 | Laptop
Alienware M17 Laptop
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The Alienware M17 laptop, complete with Crossfired 3870's!

We've come to know Alienware as a slightly pricey, but very high quality lappy manufacturer, turning out similarly-named laptops in a cavalcade of shapes and configs.

This particular one we were sent garnered our interest when we learned that it has not only one, but two 3870 cards in Crossfire. Coupled with a P8400 at 2.26GHz and 3GB of 1066MHz RAM, this is a pretty solid spec.

Naturally with twice the graphical grunt in there, the temperatures get pretty toasty and hit 83 degrees at load. One thing that won't get toasty is you - we ran our benchmarks with that heat right on our laps, and felt nothing more than if it were idling.

The cooling system in this lappy is quite amazing for a gaming system and managed to impress us. Not only that, but the performance we're seeing from it is the highest we've recorded yet - just check out the screencap below to see.

However, all that performance comes packaged along with a massive pricetag - we configured it at a whopping $5,644.23 through their online store, and that's including a $250 rebate that's going on now.

Also included is a lot of Alienware goodies, though we're still not sure that they really sweeten the deal too much. Check out an upcoming issue for the full review, the gallery for more pics, and the bottom of the page for performance results!

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Product Info
Supplier:
Price when reviewed:
AUD$5644.23
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12 Comments
index680i
Jan 29, 2009 6:08 PM
Nice. Good pictures taken by the way. Your getting better at review mate. :)
index680i
Jan 29, 2009 6:12 PM
Man them shots are nice. Must be a nice Lappy to use.
V1RUS
Jan 29, 2009 7:34 PM
i agree excellent shots and yes from previous experince Alienware laptops are teh shit lol
Fat_Bodybuilder
Jan 29, 2009 8:16 PM
"Some" of the shots were good, IMHO some of them should have been done, as you don't have a complete white background. ie: 135616,alienware-m17-laptop.aspx/2 and 135616,alienware-m17-laptop.aspx/4

Certainly looks like powerful beast to me, I heard frunj is including one is a prize for anyone who beats him in an arm wrestle. >_>

emccat
Jan 29, 2009 11:20 PM
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm pure awesomeness mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm edible plastic mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Truckasauras
Jan 30, 2009 8:56 AM
I just can't get over the price. Could you imagine the desktop you could bild for that much? You could wipe of Melbourne's power grid single handedly with something that powerful.
omega
Jan 30, 2009 10:07 AM
Im not sure about having the DVD at the front. If you're using a Laptop cooler/stand that has a 'lip' to stop it sliding off the front you wont be able to open the drive. Maybe not that much of a problem (how often would you change a CD/DVD and need the extra laptop cooling) but if you're also using the stand for a better angle again ur stuffed.
Jeruselem
Jan 30, 2009 10:28 AM
At that price, they should have tried to put a HD4870x2 in it :D
omega
Jan 30, 2009 11:01 AM
I hope in the full review we get to see the Internal cooling method (hint hint...)
LordBug
Jan 30, 2009 1:24 PM
Some good photos, some really bad ones.

Do you guys run them through Photoshop at all?
TheFrunj
Jan 30, 2009 3:08 PM
LB, yes some photos were bad, but it was a matte and terribly misbehaving laptop, and I didn't have a lot of time to get it done. Most times they'll behave for me, this one was only playing nice when it needed to reflect light, not when I didn't need it to.

-JR
LordBug
Jan 30, 2009 3:34 PM
Well that's just not good enough!
:P

I kid, I kid.

Was more asking about whether you run them through Photoshop, or any other image processing app, so you could tweak the whitebalance/exposure a bit, which would help photos such as #2 & 3.


Though if you want to entitle me as "Whinger of photographic quality", I'll happily pop up when I can ;P
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