Digital Trends

Alienware Area-51 m15x May 11th, 2008 | by Josh Norem

Battery Life

Nobody expects a gaming notebook to have decent battery life. Truthfully, we usually see these supercharged laptops run about an hour or so before giving up the ghost due to the sheer amount of power required by both the components and the fast-spinning fans that cool them. But the m15x actually surprised us by delivering 2 hours and 22 minutes of battery life from its 6-cell battery, a surprisingly strong return on investment. Keep in mind that we tested this feature while using the onboard Intel graphics, and could have extended it a bit further if we had disabled AlienFX. It’s also worth noting that if one used the optional 6-cell modular battery, you might even be able to get around 4 hours or so worth of battery life, which is unheard of for a gaming notebook.

General Usage

The m15x is actually only a 7lb system, so it’s actually something you could conceivably put in your lap for awhile, but it’ll be a short stay since the bottom of the unit tends to get quite hot. We liked the full-size keyboard and found it very comfortable for typing. We also enjoyed the Fn keys that allow special functions, as they allow you to perform a lot of useful tasks such as disabling the touchpad to make sure it doesn’t interfere with gaming.

Furthermore, you can additionally eject the optical drive’s tray, disable the keyboard backlight, adjust display brightness and more. We like the fact that the system has 802.11n (which also works with legacy g and b routers) as well as Bluetooth connectivity. It even has a 2.0MP webcam built into the LCD bezel, which is great. There’s also a soft-touch button below the LCD that looks like a speedometer, and touching it puts the m15x into Stealth Mode, which downclocks the components and lets the machine run silently – handy if you’re on a plane or somewhere with other people in close proximity.

Trouble Spots

Sadly, the m15x is not perfect. Our biggest complaint is with the soft-touch buttons that lie above the keyboard and are used to toggle the wireless radios on and off, turn Stealth Mode on or off, change the volume and to open the AlienFX program. We like the idea and design of these buttons, as when something is disabled it glows much softer than when it’s enabled, making it easy to tell at a glance if, for example, the wireless adapter is disabled or not.

However, the problem is the buttons require a lot of forceto activate, much more than we expected, since they’re not really buttons but more pressure areas. Secondly, the volume control is so difficult to use it is almost worthless, which makes increasing or decreasing noise levels while gaming very difficult. Alienware either needs to fix this or implement a dial or keyboard combination to control volume.

We were also a bit turned off by how flexible the LCD was, and how when you open it you can hear a bit of creaking.

Conclusion

The Area-51 m15x is certainly an amazing notebook, and we actually like it better than the Alienware m9750 and Dell XPS M1730 simply because it’s a bit smaller and easier to transport, but still extremely powerful. We love the system’s lighting scheme, the modular bay and the fact that it can be configured to be as cheap as $1,499 too.

The only real beefs we have are with the speakers and soft-touch controls, which are difficult to use. The LCD bezel also creaks when you move it around, but that’s the sum of our gripes, which prove less deal-breakers than general annoyances. Like we said in the intro, the m15x is one heck of a gaming notebook, and is almost perfect aside from these small issues.


Pros:

• Awesome lighting
• Strong performance
• Relatively small and light
• Modular bay
• Decent battery life

Cons:

• Expensive
• Soft-touch volume control is useless
• Feels a bit flimsy in places
• Weak speakers