Alienware M11x

[ProPain]

Couldn't find the thread that went OT on the gaming rigs.

Anyways, Alienware M11x review on IGN (http://uk.gear.ign.com/articles/110/1109725p1.html)

[grahamiam]

Anandtech did a very thorough review of the first version vs the new version as well.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3808/alienware-m11x-r2

[grahamiam]

If I was in Europe, I'd also look at the Acer 3820TG. Bigger screen, comparable graphics and battery life, lighter.

[Shabbaman]

That m11x is pretty sweet, even without the i5/i7 upgrade. And then it'll cost you only 700 euro's, which isn't absurdly expensive. Still, the i5 upgrade seems like a must if you want to be ready for the future. If you plan to recycle it within two years: you can play any current game on (at least) mid settings. And it's alienware (read: fucking awesome), drool. But this really is only interesting for people that play first person shooters (or flight sims), because there's no real reason for such a graphics card if you play TBS games. If you want a laptop to play civ5, I wouldn't buy this one.

If I was in Europe, I'd also look at the Acer 3820TG. Bigger screen, comparable graphics and battery life, lighter.

Somehow the HD5470 (http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5470.23698.0.html) performs worse than the GT335M (http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-335M.24060.0.html). I'm not sure what to make of it, I'd say both cards are comparable. Benchmarks never lie ;)

[grahamiam]

There's a varient of the 3820TG with the ATI HD 5650, which is almost identical or a bit better than the GT335M.

[Matrix]

I lack a serious amount of http://straland.com/images/smilies/cash.gif to even discuss this.

[Shabbaman]

I lack a good excuse to discuss this. If you buy a laptop like that you'd better go to lanparties. And I don't.

[akots]

My personal experience with Acer (and Gateway) laptops is not encouraging. They look OK on paper but usually have cheap components on the inside and are very-very slow. Since I would most likely need mobile computing due to recent developments at work, I am contemplating some modest investment into a laptop because the nice university notebook I have will be left behind.

Asus U30Jc (http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/asus-u30jc-a1/4505-3121_7-34043767.html)(A1 and other models in this series) looks quite nice. For the price of $900, it has somewhat bigger screen than Alienware (13' vs 11'), has DVD drive, similar NVidia card, it doing at least as good or slightly better on most of the tests, and has very decent battery with 8 hours of regular use. And it is not much heavier (less than a pound heavier) and has world wide warranty. Not that stylish though but I really don't care.

[ProPain]

My personal experience with Acer laptops is not encouraging.

Same here, I will never, ever in my life by an Acer again. And I advise anybody else thoroughly not to do so either. Their warranty system is utter crap.

[akots]

Same thing for HP, warranty is not covering anything apart from defects in parts. And it is not world wide, cannot fix anywhere, only in the US. Have to pay for shipping as well at least one way and insurance. A friend of mine had to pay $60 to ship an HP laptop from Houston to a Houston-area factory for changing broken DVD drive which can be bought on ebay for $45 and replaced within 2 minutes, don't even need a screwdriver for that. Yet "official" listed HP price for that drive was around $300. The laptop itself was under $700.

The main thing that concerns me with Alienware is reported poor display quality (low to medium contrast) and Dell's very average reliability. Even if there is a known and acknowledged defect with their machines, they are not obliged to fix it and are certainly not even trying. We have a group of a dozen Vostro 200 bought as a bulk for students and none of them can read or write DVDs despite having a DVD burner. They do read/write CDs just fine. The defect was recorded by Dell's technician and put on hold. Still there after a year and a half. Two machines had defective hard drives and one had defective motherboard. Must admit, these were promptly replaced. Not within 24 hours like the warranty says but within about a week. They did not have the parts in stock and small print says that if that is the case, they have more time to fix the defects.

[Matrix]

I lack a good excuse to discuss this. If you buy a laptop like that you'd better go to lanparties. And I don't.
But you do! I was there, I saw you! :p

[Shabbaman]

Well, there should be at least 50 nerds present to call it a proper lanparty ;)