Alienware M11x Review
If we are asked to describe the Alienware M11x, we would say that it is the ultimate ultra-portable out there. Alienware is famous for making some really powerful computers and this is the first time they have come out with something this portable.
Alienware M11x, although very portable is a bit heavy if you are used to the light 1.5kg netbooks. The M11x is ~2kg, but it packs a lot of heavy-duty hardware too. It handles 720p and 1080p video playback like a duck soup. How many netbooks are able to do that? Not only that it is able to play the latest PC games out there. Featuring Pentium SU4100/Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor, it is much more powerful than any Atom CPU out there.
The Alienware M11x has a Nvidia GeForce GT 335M GPU that can activated and deactivated without rebooting. Just hit Fn+F6 and you are ready to enjoy 1GB of dedicated video memory. There is full DirectX 10.1 support, Blu-ray acceleration. [via hardwareheaven]
So how is the battery life? Well, without the GPU activated, you will get nearly 6 hours of runtime. However, activate it and you are down to just over 2 hours of runtime.
It is available at Dell’s site for $799
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ha,
Its an overpriced peice of crap, so what did you expect out of alienwares shit factory. Good products.
1.3gh dual core is not sufficient for a high end gaming.
Yeah they are trying to aim lower and get a bigger range of consumers, but a high end graphics card and a weak CPU is not the solution. Remember the basics a CPU is the brains and in this scenario nVidia’s 335M are the legs. Well a retard cant run fast if his IQ is 20 or at all.
The only thing putting me off is the CPU. 1.3GHz dual core is not very good, and certainly won’t be able to handle high-load tasks like hardcore gaming or video rendering. If it had more like a 2.6GHz dual core CPU, it’d be worth the price and I’d be sold. As it stands… I’m not so sure.
@Some Dude
If you look up videos of this machine it shows that it can play mass effect 2 on high settings. And this is a laptop so if it can do that while being smaller and all hell i’m sold
it sounds ok to me. ive seen videos where it was playing mw2 no problem. 1gb geforce gt335m will make up for it, plus i got 4 gigs of ram with mine.
Functionally this is an ideal solution for people on the go. In regards to the first comment, “Ultramobile, not Ultragaming” is the primary feature of the device. Anyone looking for a highend gaming machine needs to look somewhere else and be ready to strap on a rucsack. The 1.3Ghz may be a bit slow, or a bit conservative as compaired to AMD’s ratings, but required to maintain the low power consumption for extended operating periods (although to ability to overclock is there). This is a great solution for someone who travels frequently and enjoys ‘pawning a few noobs’ after the end of a long day away from home. I have to say, “Kudos Alienware (Dell)”.
I find the expectations of ‘high end gaming’ by some of the above posters a bit surprising, really.
It’s meant to be able to deliver a gaming performance that blows anything else of comparable size out of the water, with the ability to *also* go for long periods without charging. In this it delivers.
If you want ‘hardcore’ gaming, go buy a desktop with twin 5970′s.
i hope nobody is buying this machine thinking that its gonna be the end all for portable gaming. I mean don’t get me wrong im super excited to get mine and get on some l4d2, but in reality i believe this is being marketed for people like me who are interested in getting a netbook for the portability for school/work but it also has the option to play some current gen games as well. Definitely wont be playing with max everything on all the time as i really could care less about seeing every zombie pore. But for people that care about that it is capable of doin so to an extent. Will for sure be hookin it up to my 42 inch hdtv though for movies and when i want to game for an extended period of time.
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They CPU can be overclocked to 1.6-1.7 GHZ with only a 1*C temperature increase so it isnt that bad for someone who wants to do a bit of gaming on the go, media editing or design work.
@Boris: Please don’t speak ever again. “A high end graphics card and a weak CPU”… Nvidia 335 is NOT a high-end graphics card. It’s one of the lowest-end graphics cards you can get that are still capable of 3d renderings quick enough to use for gaming. The CPU is weak, but guess what, it’s ULV, it’s supposed to be weak. Why? Because this is an 11″ laptop. There’s no space to put huge heatsinks and tons of fans into the chassis to cool a high-powered CPU/GPU combo. There’s no space to put a larger battery to cover the high-powere CPU/GPU. Finally, it’s an 11 inch screen. No one who wants a “high-end” gaming computer will want an 11 inch screen. Ever. At low resolutions, which are required for small screens because they simply don’t have enough pixels for high resolutions, high-end graphics cards don’t boost your speed at all and in some cases are actually slower than low-end graphics cards. If this were a 21″ laptop with a 2560×1920 resolution screen, then yes they would need a better CPU and GPU. On an 11″ though, it would be retarded to expect to see high-end components.
@Gadgetmix: Pretty good job, except this isnt the first time Alienware has come out with something portable. The Alienware Sentia a few years back was a very small laptop catered towards portability. To all you crybabies about no graphics power… the Sentia had integrated Intel graphics, not capable of gaming at all.
Please learn a few things before jumping to conclusions. I mean no offense to anyone, but seeing people mouth off about things they don’t fully understand is a bit annoying.
I say the M11x is a pretty balanced machine for what it is intended to be. It’s first and formost function is portability and with that comes battery life. It does make a few sacrifices. Mainly it’s not as thin as some other CULV ultraprtables and it’s battery life drops to a little over 2 hours with intensive gaming (well as intensive as you can get on a 11 inch screen). Buy that’s ok because many, like me, want something easy to carry around for work and still be able to get some gaming breaks when we have time.
Oh and it does do encoding faster than any 11 inch notebook if you use the GPU. Many forget the grphics card is CUDA enabled so many tasks will benefit from this. Read up and actually use one before bashing. Unfortunately the bling isn’t optional and that they make you pay extra for.
To me, the M11x is more of ‘feel good’ net/notebook, just in case you feel bored while on the move, you know you have the option to play some pretty power-intensive games simply because you can.
I’ve read plenty reviews pointing out a potential shortfall because of a ‘weak’ CPU. Well, isn’t 6-8hrs of battery life a more compelling offer than a 3-4hr one if it means you need to trade-off with a faster but higher power consuming CPU (although some may argue that one will never be using a notebook for 8hrs straight, but what it means is even after 6 months old, expect to get somewhere near 5hrs instead of 1hr).
I have a Macbook Pro, a Dell XPS M1330 and a PC at home with 4GB RAM and an ATI Radeon HD4890 1GB gfx card powering a 22in screen. If you’re serious gamer, then play it on a PC not on the M11x. That way, you’ll have no complains.
To conclude, I’ll only say that it’s just a little overpriced for now, but the minute it drops, I’m likely to get one for my holidays travel use.
From what I understand, the Alienware M11x can get away with having a low-end processor (If you wanna consider a dual-core low-end – any dual core is faster than my AMD64) is that you’re playing the games in a lower resolution.
You aren’t playing Modern Warfare 2 at 1920×1200, you’re playing it at like… 1024×768(widescreen of course)… but the difference is that the screen is smaller, so it’s gonna look decent.
I actually am very intrigued by this little device. I’m definitely into gaming, but I don’t know if I’d call myself a “hardcore” gamer… I mainly just want something that can play Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and maybe a little Left 4 Dead or Guild Wars.
My only concern is (like most people in these comments seem to be saying) is the processor. However it is overclockable in the BIOS from what I’ve heard, and for whatever reason Alienware clocked the processor down quite a bit out of the box. 1.7 ghz dual core is fairly respectable.
My only concern is that some games may not have support for the unusual resolution of the screen. Nvidia has a system where it can scale and stretch stuff, but do you really want that? If you want to know what I’m talking about… try playing a game like Diablo 2 in fullscreen on a 1920×1200 display … it’s freaking awful to see a 800×600 image stretched like that.
anyway… I’m on a really big budget… the economy has hit me hard and I need a new computer that can play some of these newer games. I don’t have the money for anything more than like 1000.00 – sucks for me I guess, but the alienware m11x looks like a decent underdog for my gaming needs.
So I’ve been looking into the M11x a lot and I’ve been comparing it with a lot of other gaming laptops. If you are a mild gamer who wants to play games with the comfortability of mobility, I think that this laptop is for you. I agree that the CPU speed may not be a quad core or whatever but I think that if you wait a little Dell will finally add an i3 or i5. Cause honestly, Core 2 DUO is a little outdated… But anyways, if you actually go to Dell and get some essential pieces for your M11x, the price will be closer to 1000 than 800. But considering that it gets about 5-8 hours of batt time… it’s not bad. I’m just hoping that the new Asus ULV laptops will come with better graphics cards :D or the Dell upgrades to the i3 or i5 cores.
I got mine. It plays games like bioshock and fallout 3 easily. TF2 gets a little intensive and framerates drop to about 25. You can overclock and those problems are eliminated (1.3 GHz-1.6 Ghz) I’m thoroughly happy with mine.
How the hell can a 1.3 GHz processor play MW2? It does not even get past the MINIMUM system requirements! Come to think of it, no respectable game can play on a 1.3 GHz processor. Am I missing something here?
Overclocking wont get it past the min sys req for MW2 either!
Beavis: Yes, you are missing something. There are numerous reviews on the net and on YouTube, showing the M11x playing MW2 with framerates around 30fps. People on this site should actually play around with one, before bagging it.
I love the small form factor and how portable it is.
Domino: the resolution isn’t strange – it is 720p or 1366×768
I’ve had mine for about 2 weeks now and I absolutely love it!
I beefed mine up with a full 8 Gigs of memory and opted for the Windows 7 64bit Ultimate. I have no complains with the processor, perhaps the combination of the 1Gig GPU and the additional memory helps wit the speed of the machine.
It runs Second Life smoothly and without a hiccup. When I run into lag, I know it is the sim, and not my machine.
The screen is crisp and clear, I really have no complaints at all with my new Alien. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who wants a truly portable computer, and not a wimpy “netbook”
When the processors overclocked, it runs Bad Company 2, medium graphics (and high texture resolution), just fine. In fact, it’s more than playable, but rather quite smooth.
The screen is small, but it’s an ultraportible, what would you expect?
Price wise, it’s a great deal. The battery life is insane, it hardly heats up at all (like, at ALL), and even with the 335 turned on (via FN+f6), the battery life still hovers around 2.5 hours. I still haven’t gotten over just how cool the facial recognition is on login.
So unless you own one, you really can’t rap on it.It does everything I expect it to, plus on the side, it’s a pretty good computer when it comes to gaming.
I’ve had my m11x for about a month now. @Kari, I upgraded to the 8Gb of RAM as well. I’m a graphics/web developer that also does photography. Not wanting to go the MacBook route, I still wanted something cool AND portable.
The m11x was perfect for what I do. However, the processor has given me second thoughts as to whether I did the right thing. Gaming needs CPU speed, yes, but a good bit of it’s processing happens in the GPU (so I’m told). I notice speed issues when I’m trying to process a ton of RAW photos or encode video BUT it IS a portable laptop.
The screen has a little bit of a blue cast to it but it’s super sharp and bright. I love the larger resolution on such a small machine. I have pretty good eyesight so the smaller text is great for me but might be a bit more difficult for some (in respect to usability in menus and various apps).
I can say that the battery life is VERY suprising. When I put it in the integrated graphics mode it is great. Honestly it’s NOT 6 hours but it’s approaching 4+ EASY. Seriously, my Dell mini10v only gives me 2 hours if I’m lucky!
I *would* like a little more power but at the end of the day I’m still happy with it and have even considered looking into a Desktop model for the encoding and RAW photo processing power.
Alienware is an exceptional brand. I’m sold.
for any1 whos confused about why it can game, the GPU is actually their so that graphics capabilities are seperate from the processor and ram. so while the processor still matters the GPU is what affects performance the most.
I’ve starcraft 2 beta, yet all attempts to use it have failed, I have tried ALL mac/pc VMs, crossover, wine and the rest, all lead to the same error. So I’ll bide my time and anticipate a mac version to be sent. Kinda thoughtless to send a person who states they personal a mac a pc beta :( . I simply wish they can launch the game soon!
hey i want to buy alienware m11x… am a programmer… can i have good speed with my processing with matlab and all? what about the noise of the fan? is it too noisy? please reply me fasttt….
Personally, this product is perfect for my job as a 3D modeler. Sure, I play some games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion… but I mostly use it to model, which is something you don’t really need HUGE power for, just a decent ammount of graphics (which 1 gig is enough for trust me). So, to all you criticizers out there, shut up and buy the m15x or m17x and leave us who are content alone. :)
I just got my M11x is in the mail today. I found this review and postings and am quite surprised at some of the comments!
I actually upgraded to this computer from a 15″ powerbook. (early dual-core intel model, not PPC) That computer had double the cpu power, although a 128Mb ATi card for graphics.
I do a lot of Audio recording and mixing with FL Studio, Reason, Adobe Audition, Ableton etc….
I am not noticing any difference in performance in those apps at all on the m11x. It’s not better or worse. Maybe ableton indexed my sounds faster :D
I also love to game. My Mac couldn’t really game at all even in XP. The alienware plays almost all my games on full settings or close to and at native or 720P res.
Even games such as Just Cause 2 and GTA IV can run within 18-35 frames persond on low-med settings.
Also, this “netbook” has every possible port I would need built in. I can have my midi keyboard, mic, bluetooth mouse, and external speakers without a hub while plugged in through HDMI to my big screen at home or in a hotel room.
The only things I cant do on here unless left overnight are converting big videos or rendering movies.
I also work in realtime 3d engines. I have had photoshop and an engine called “Unity” running at the same time without a prob.
Keep in mind this is with the stock Core-2-Duo model. (So it’s at 1.3Ghz)
I cant even think what the average person needs to do that they cant accomplish with this hardware.
For just under 1k this has probably been the best purchase on a laptop I have ever made. NO regrets!!!
Hope I helped clear things up a little bit :P
@Hostile 17
For video encoding try CUDA ;)
This will be 15x faster and easely beat a Macbook 13″ in fps