I am very undecided about to get this laptop or not

[Ultra Jugulator]

Hi,

I was checking out the www.alienware.com site and I was really like the laptop Area 51 m7700. I made a configuration like this:

Product Detail

[1] Area-51® m7700

Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 670 Desktop Processor w/ HT Technology 3.8GHz 800MHz FSB 2MB
Operating System (Office software not included): Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Display: 17" WideXGA+ 1440 x 900 LCD Display
Motherboard: Intel® 915P PCI-Express Chipset
Video/Graphics Card: 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7800 GTX
Memory: 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 533MHz - 2 x 512MB
Hard Drive: Extreme Performance (RAID 0) - 200GB (100GB x 2) 7200 RPM ATA100
Portable Storage : Western Digital® Dual-Option 250GB External Drive
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo w/Software
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive
Wireless Network Card: External Wireless 802.11a/b/g PCMCIA Card
Communications: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS PCMCIA
Speakers: Klipsch ProMedia™ 2.1 200-Watt THX® Speakers
Primary Battery: Alienware® m7700 12-cell Lithium-Ion Smart Battery Pack
Additional Battery: Alienware® m7700 12-cell Lithium-Ion Additional Battery
Warranty: 3-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service / AlienAutopsy / Respawn
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Automated Support: AlienAutopsy: Automated Technical Support Request System
Mobile Transport : Alienware® Odyssey Backpack
Notebook Coolers / Stands: Xbrand 360 Adjustable Stand with USB 2.0 Hub
Additional AC Adapter: Alienware® m7700 220 Watt Auto-switch AC Adapter
Alienware Exclusive Offers: GameFly - Unlimited Game Rentals for 15 days - FREE TRIAL
Alienware Exclusive Offers: Gamespot Complete - Free 90-day Trial (a $20.85 value)
Free Alienware T-Shirt: Free Alienware® T-Shirt - Black
Free Alienware Mousepad: Free Alienware® Mousepad
Desktop Enhancements: Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager

And I want to use it mainly for computer graphic arts, graphic design and video games.

What do you guys think about this laptop characteristics? Will be useful enough for my purposes mentioned before? [/url]

[wtd]

It won't have any meaningful battery life, and it'll be too hot to use on anything other than a desk.

Buy a desktop that'll cost less, than get a laptop that's actually portable.

[Andy]

I agree with wtd. mine is a custum built on asus, they make quality laptops, check out istnc.com

[Dan]

I aucatly have an alineware laptop and i love it. It is not the same model as the one above but the stats are not that much difrent.

The battry life on mine is about 2 hours with noraml stuff but i can get alot more by trotling the cpu and other things. How ever gaming with just the battery ushely eats it up fast.

The heat issues is the bigest thing i whould say that effects alineware laptops. It ushely is only an issue when gaming with it on your lap for long perioeds of time and intives games. However this can be fixed with a $10~50 laptop cooling pad all togther. I uses a nice pad that has a usb hub in it so i get even more out of it. I play stuff like WoW all the time with it on my lap when i have the pad.

The quality is admazing, i have never seen such a strong laptop case wise and not breaking wise. My old dell needed almost monthly care. Also my gf recentaly bought a brand newlaptop that had slighty higher stats then my aline ware from toshiba and my 2 year old alineware out bench marks it and out permores it at almost every test/game. This is b/c unlike some coampys aline ware closey picks the compontes to get ride of bottole necks. Also i find that all the extra features they thorw in to the base model of it is quite good, like remote control, 2 ir ports, merory card reader, 3 usb2, 1 firewire, t.v. out (in to on some models), and other stuff give or take your model. Also sound sound on a laptop is cool.

Another small issue is the wegith of the laptop, not the best for jumping fences and runing when u get sposted hacking in to peoleops wifi. But i have not found it that bad.

What it comes down to is alineware will give u a good quality laptop that will last and stay realtively upto date for some time (mine is still betere then almost every laptop i see in the sotres and it is 2 years old) but you will pay for this big time moeny wise. As i see it there are 3 reasons why to buy a aline ware; 1. gaming, 2. power user (ie. compsci student who whonts a portable desktop for some times evil reasons) and 3. if you whont a laptop that (hopfully) will not be out of date in a few years. My reasons where 2 and 3, i whonted a laptop that whould last threw uni and not become out of date.

[Mazer]

And if you *insist* on buying an Alienware laptop, hang around the IRC channel for a day or two

[Ultra Jugulator]

Coutsos wrote:

And if you *insist* on buying an Alienware laptop, hang around the IRC channel for a day or two

I really wanna hear that. Tell me, what could happen?

[we64]

The desktop CPU will produce lots of heat and the power cosumation is great. Unless you are using it to replace your desktop, it is not much of a laptop of your dreams lol, it would burn your lap more likely.

Personally, I am a big fan of small real laptops. It is more meaningful of a laptop in my opinion.

[Mazer]

Ultra Jugulator wrote:

Coutsos wrote:

And if you *insist* on buying an Alienware laptop, hang around the IRC channel for a day or two

I really wanna hear that. Tell me, what could happen?

I don't want to give away all of the details because, frankly, I'm trying to sucker you into visiting the channel. But the basic idea is that we get... special deals, now and then.

[Neo]

Get an Asus, you can customize it so much more. And P4s suck. PM is the way to go for laptops. Plus the dual cores are already out. A 12lb computer is not much portable than a desktop.

[1of42]

You can't customize an Asus "so much more". Just about every laptop chassis has the same customizability - it just happens that there are many places to buya Clevo (the chassis that the 5700 is built upon), which provides for lots of customisation.

Now, Ultra Jugulator - if you're going to be dropping that much on a laptop (which, despite what others in the thread are saying, is perfectly valid), and you want a DTR, go check out Sager, Hypersonic or Voodoo. The main reason for that is that they can get you a laptop with an AMD X2, which is infinitely better than the P4 in the Alienware.

[Neo]

I meant there is alot more variety in asus's lineup than in alienwares.

[Andy]

I've had my asus for 6 months now and i love it.
specs:

Pentium M 2.0 GHz
2 gigs of 533 mhz ddr2 ram
geforce 6600 go 128mb
15.4 wide screen 1680x1050 rez
approx 6 hours of battery life when listening to music and word processing (two batteries, one main one, one in cd bay)
dvd burner

it came out to i think 2100 dollars canadian.. your alienware is gona be about 50% more than that, and has no portability, and benchmarks will not be ridiculously higher (except in 3dmark)

go for a intel duo, they're quite nice

[we64]

ASUS recent years seem to get lots of market shares. Since you are looking for a desktop replacement, Alienwares would do just fine, so heat and whatever doesn't really matter.
P4 doesn't suck that much than a PM in desktop replacement. PM is all about the low power consumption, and who would care about power if they use it for desktop replacement?
I would actually trip an AMD for a desktop replacement, lol, since it is more powerful than P4 for sure, or maybe you want the Dual Core.

[Andy]

actually, the pentium M chip is highly efficient.. study show, that if you multiply the clock speed on a pentium M by 1.7, you can compare it to the clock speed of a p4

[1of42]

Neo: True, but that's a really stupid comparison to make, since Asus is manufacturer and Alienware is a reseller. The better comparison would be Clevo vs. Asus, between which the selection is almost the same (in quantity that is).

Andy: Yes, it'll be more expensive, yes it will be hard to carry (though your statement is exaggerated - I have friends with 17" DTRS who have no trouble with them on the move), but don't kid yourself - it will dismantle a laptop like your ASUS in benchmarking. To say "except 3dmark" is sorta stupid, since 3dmark is the benchmark for the largest sector of performance apps (i.e. games, which I assume is why he's buying such a good comp in the first place). Even in Photoshop and other benchmarks like that, the better processor combined with the way better vide card, makes the Alienware much more powerful overall.

However, I still stand by my ideal solution - find another reseller, such as Sager, Widow PC, Voodoo PC, or Hypersonic (don't know about this last though) that sells Clevo chassis-based laptops with AMD X2 processors, because those will absolutely destroy any other laptop processor in benchmarking.