Got a few thousand quid stuffed under the mattress? Just won the Euromillions? Love PC gaming more than your girlfriend? Then you’ll need to look long and hard at the Alienware M15x. This spanking new gaming lappie from Dell’s gaming obsessives is a monster, churning out Blu-ray, full HD and graphics that’ll leave you rapt. The question is, is it worth dropping thousands for? Read our full Alienware M15x review now and we’ll tell all.
It’s no surprise to see Dell furnishing the Alienware M15x with the very best specs, aimed right at those who want to push it to within an inch of its life with hardcore games. The basic model kicks off at an eyewatering £1,179, but the model we got to play with crammed in that all important Intel Core i7 1.6GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate.
The results, unsurprisingly, were stunning. The screen is an absolute peach. Movies look ace, but more importantly gaming was a sheer delight. We slung Crysis into our Alienware M15x and it looked super smooth. And the best bit? Our version didn’t pack in the 1GB NVIDIA GTX260, which will give even clearer pics.
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To get the most out of the screen you will want to spec it up to 1080p and of course ensure you’ve chosen a Blu-ray drive too. However, this is really where the problems arise. Dell’s epic number of spec options mean you’ll need to shell out more and more to get the very best out of the Alienware M15x. A quick check on the Dell online store shows you can spend a massive £4,266 if you choose all the top options.
That’s a huge amount of cash, and while we’re not quibbling with the performance, you could easily buy a desktop rig for that and have spare change for a few more gadgety treats.
In fact, the Alienware M15x does lack in some key areas. It only has two USB ports and there’s no HDMI. That’s standard on most nettops now so is a big miss from a machine which costs so much. DisplayPort just isn’t the same. Likewise battery life is a disaster, only giving us 90 minutes before it gave up the ghost.
The Alienware M15x is a killer piece of kit, no doubt. But if you are going to pay such vast amounts for your gaming fix, we can’t help but recommend a desktop over this huge laptop.
