M11X R2 since 9/2010 Thoughts

Been an excellent notebook. No hinge issue. On nearly all day most days. Screen closed every night and before work I rarely ran this on battery. No reason to replace it except I want a 14" screen with a optical/hard drive slot and slimer. I never played games on it but used it for Audio and Video editing.

I chose it because it was a great deal on the outlet and it has been an excellent machine. Next up maybe the new Gigabyte or Sagar 14" Gonna throw this up on Ebay soon and see what it fetches. We have too many notebooks. 11 inch screen is too small.

Dell does not put in the best Video cards in anything but the Alienware. Love the XPS but no options for great Video card.

The GTX670M is in the $1000 Sager with SSD and DVD bay with removable HD. Seems like a good one to throw in the mix. MSI looks interesting as well

But for those who are thinking of the M11X Don't worry about it. It is a great little PC and has served me well. Pretty bullet proof. I have had great luck with Dell. Never bought an EW and bought Outlet PCs only with coupons

 

I had my Alienware M11x R2 since October of 2010. I got this one because I needed portable gaming laptop. At that time, M11x was perfect as I was going to uni. Unfortunately, things have changed as I started working. Now I need a really powerful gaming laptop like M17x R4. I was often annoyed with M11x R2 as it was weak overall and sometimes couldn't even play games at lowest setting. I am now planning to move on to bigger laptops and it's been a pleasure having this baby. The BEST portable gaming laptop.

 

I love the m11x R2, but the Western Digital 250GB HDD it came with died last week. It lasted almost 2 years. I kept my laptop in a cool place and not overclocking it and still the hard drive died. Warranty for the laptop expired a year ago. Luckily a friend has a 500GB spare HDD. : / I'm not choosing that brand for storage in the future

 

1. the HDD itself could still have had warranty for another 1 or 2 years, check the serial on the WD site.

2. a HDD can die at any time for any reason, they are a CONSUMABLE and have a rated lifespan. Some die after 10 years, some die within the first 15 minutes. A single incident after 2 years is most definitely not something which should sway you away from the brand. The HDD is the only mechanical component in your laptop and has a higher failure rate than any other component in your entire laptop due to its intricacy and the speed at which it operates (the disks spin at 5,400 - 7,200 rotations per minute - that's 90-120 every second, they are read by a head which actually makes contact with the disks and a slight knock could make it scratch the disk erasing all data).

It broke and i'm sorry, but you knew it was going to happen ONE DAY from the moment you bought it. Don't hold that against the company.

 

If you like your M11x, I would recommend you give the M14x a try! I was in the same boat where I first had an M11x but wanted a bigger screen. So I bought an M17x R3. Turns out, it is TOO BIG AND HEAVY for me. So I bought an M14x and now all is well.

 

Had mine since late 2010, OCed it based on advice of this board and it is still my away from home gaming PC and has never let me down and pulls over 9k 3DMark06 with the config I game with.

The two issues..
Hinges creaked from early on but have not gotten any worse.
Rubber feet have fallen off
(2.5) the screen is showing some marks from the keys, but it does live in a backpack on pub floors quite a bit.

Also the best cooling I get is if I leave the fan sitting over the edge of a table and use an external keyboard & screen. This is like 5deg cooler than all the stands I have tried, even ones with fans in.