Fitting some of the highest-end tech available in a laptop, the M17x offers one powerful gaming rig. With an Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9300, dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 280M GPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and 1TB of storage, this can trounce many desktop setups in terms of actual processing performance. Simply put, if you want the best gaming hardware a laptop can provide, there’s no other place to look at.
As we’ve said, the company has been working to subdue the over-the-top designs as of late, with fewer distracting flourishes both on the case, around the display and on the keyboard tray. Not that it’s gone the way of traditional machines, though. The anodized aluminum case sports a very snappy design that still hints at the company’s sci-fi leanings, while making it less-embarrassing to show professional colleagues.
Fusion FX, which basically makes the keyboard look like a rainbow-colored space ship’s dashboard, makes a return and looks even crazier than ever. It uses a tapered set of keys, rather than the chiclet-style most portable computers are decked with. This actually makes sense since the laptop is intended for gaming instead of doing actual work and tapered keys allow for longer travel between keys.
Display is a 17.1-inch widescreen LCD with 1920 x 1200 resolution. Image quality is crisp and bright, making it great for gaming. It doesn’t offer a 16:9 aspect ratio, though, so it’s not a perfect fit for movies.
Price for the Alienware M17x starts at $1,799 but that cost easily balloons up to $5,000 when you put in as souped-up a configuration as possible. Depending on the quality of experience you want to enjoy with your games, most buyers will likely pay for something between those two extremes.
