New Laptop

Jan. 14th, 2007 03:31 pm
slycat: (Default)
Got my new Alienware Area 51 m5550 laptop on Friday and have had a good chance to play around with it. The first thing you notice once it's powered up is just how high the definition of the screen is. 1920x1200 in 15.4" is quite an impressive feat. It's not as painful to look at as I had expected. In fact in going back to my normal 20.1" 1680x1050 screen, you start to notice how jagged stuff is! As it's an Alienware system with a pretty modern processor and a highly rated graphic card, I expected it to blow me out of the water as far as gaming performance goes. However, it seems to only be performing as well as my normal desktop PC. Running tests in 3D Mark 2005 pretty much confirms this.

Click for test results )

This shows that the CPU is far more powerful than my desktop PC, however the graphics performance is slightly worse. True, it's still very good for a laptop, but it's not quite the hike in performance I was expecting. Also, I can't run modern games in the native res as I would have liked but as the screen itself is physically small, turning down the resolution isn't so much a problem. Thanks to the extra processing power, the system has no trouble playing back high definition videos in native resolution, which look utterly fantastic. Ultimately, I'm happy with the system, just not as happy as I would have liked.
slycat: (Spanky Ham)
To celebrate my recent raise, I've decided to purchase my first ever laptop. I wanted something fairly futureproofed and so ended up going for an Alienware system. I was gonna go for a Dell, but their New Years Sale offers sucked compared with Alienware's. Anyway, here's the rundown of what I'm getting:

Area-51® m5550

Display: 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview Technology - Saucer Silver
Operating System: Genuine Windows® XP Professional UK with SP2 - English
Warranty: AlienCare Free Phone 1-Year 24/7 Warranty
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7200 2.0GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz FSB
Memory: 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 512MB
Video Card: 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7600
System Drive: 160GB 5400 RPM SATA
CD/DVD/RW: DVD-Burner: 8x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24x CD-RW Combo w/Software
Sound Card: Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192Khz) with surround sound
Keypad: Mobile Keypad - English
Communications: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem
Wireless Network Card: Internal Intel® PRO Wireless 3945 a/b/g Mini-Card
Ultimate Holiday Mobility Bundle: Ultimate Mobility Bundle
Includes Alienware Odyssey Backpack and Logitech MX 518 Gaming-Grade Optical Mouse. Get 50% off!!
Security Software: Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Professional - Included!
Alienware Extras: AlienInspection - Exclusive Integration and Inspection - £50 Value - FREE!
Alienware Extras: Alienware® T-Shirt - FREE!
Alienware Extras: Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager - FREE!


I should get it by the 12th January. I'm quite looking forward to it!

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