| Alienware Area-51 M5500 Laptop Review |
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| Written by Laptop News | |
| Monday, 03 April 2006 | |
 Chicks Dig Alienware...or is it Dellienware? With DELL taking over Alienware, will things ever be the same with the brand we have grown to love as the coolest in gaming PC's? Probably not. But for now, it is business as usual and here's a review of one their little creations. "With a high level look at the Alienware Area-51 m5500, it is hard to not be pleased with its combination of portability and performance. On one hand, traveling with this notebook is nowhere near as effortless as carrying a 12" ultraportable. However, the Alienware system is still very portable, easy to manage on the run and brings with it a level of performance that is touch to match with a smaller system. On the other hand, the Area-51 m5500 is far from delivering the level of performance brought by the bulkier desktop replacement notebooks. Despite this fact, the system is certainly capable of handling any game at lower resolutions and can be a solid LAN platform thanks to its combination of size, weight, and performance. Were we to change anything with the Area-51 m5500, we would focus our attention towards the MXM graphics module. Although voltage and thermal constraints prohibit the use of the flagship MXM: HE format, we certainly should be able to make accommodations for at least MXM II or the faster MXM III. Were we able to have this level of MXM slot, there could possibly be upgrade options using the latest mainstream and even flagship GPU's such as the GeForce Go 7600, 7800, or 7900 series. In doing so, the Alienware notebook would become a dramatically more potent system as it would have excellent battery efficiency using the Intel IGP and could turn in some impressive framerates thanks to the higher level NVIDIA MXM graphics module." Related Products Read on at Hot Hardware |
