New owner. Shocked at the quality.

I posted here because I did not see a new members thread.

I just got a new i7 with 4 gig Sunday (20110220).

I am shocked at the quality of the unit in general from the screen, keyboard, materials, command center options, battery life.

I have owned many, many laptops and this one by far has higher quality in every area.

Wow. Stunning. Very happy.

Wish I had gotten bluetooth.

Also, may install a 500GB Seagate Momemtus hybrid however there seem to be reports of problems with it.

Any one here have this hd inside their M11x ?
Does it hurt battery life ?

 

I have a Momentus XT installed on my R1 and it works without any issues.
I game on WoW with it and the loading of zones/instances are much much faster than conventional 7200rpm drives.

 

Thanks.
I wanted to hold off before installing it after reading this:

Momentus XT hybrid drive causing headaches, Seagate working to fix -- Engadget

I have one just delivered at home still inside a box from Amazon. I just received it last Friday. It was a refurb uint for $95 including shipping. This could be good or bad. It could mean Seagate updated it or they just turned it back around and put it back on the street.
When I install it I will make sure I have the latest firmware.

What firmware do you have ?

 

One person mentioned a 20% reduction in battery life.

 

I know many people here on the forums have the momentus xt and speak highly of it. If large amounts of storage aren't your main concern, but rather speed is, not even the XT will stand up to an ssd. Its a huge change from a regular hdd and if you dont mind sacrificing a little bit of storage, id recommend you look into that too.

 

Good read can't wait to get mine

 

Did you guys go to Seagates site to see a 4 window paned shootout happening between 4 identical systems with the difference being:
1. An SSD.
2. Momentus XT Hybrid
3. 7200 RPM HD
4. 10K Raptor.

They started all 4 at the same time. They all when through a series of steps involving opening and closing apps, etc.

The SSD finished in approx 7 min.
The XT hybrid was behind it by 30 seconds.
The Raptor was around 9 min and the 7200 RPM around 10 mins.

The main purpose is to show the cost advantage the XT has over an SSD.
I would imagine the apps had to be preloaded into the XT's SSD.
Take a look at it.

 

The OP must not have owned many laptops the past. I'd say that the quality of the external hardware on the M11x is sub-par at best. The screen is especially poor compared to what's been out there. I have owned Samsung and even Dell laptops that looked a lot more expensive than the M11x does (albeit they couldn't come close to the performance of it).

 

Well excuuuse me.

 

The build quality is nice imo, (the keyboard and trackpad feel great!) but I have to agree that the screen is a bit on the cheap side. The colors are nice, but it's barely usable outside in the shade because the overall brightness is so low.

 

I agree with above, the screen could get brighter but it is good for an 11inch 6hour battery life laptop. Sacrifice the screen quality for more battery life and more portability.

 

It has all the quality issues I complain about with any laptop. Bad and uselessly small rubber feet and bad adhesive on the other rubber spacers (eventually liquify and come off); glossy, overly-reflective screen; a keyboard with a compromised layout for the sake of maintaining a perfectly rectangular layout (move the arrow keys down, dammit!) and a spacebar with poor sensitivity; a touch pad that doesn't use ALL of the distance between the keyboard and the front; TWO lid sensors when only one is needed which only causes instability* and a potential second point of failure and, yes, it doesn't even turn off the keyboard backlighting nor does the AlienFX software have an even trigger for doing it; the power plug sticks STRAIGHT OUT and the receiving connector is placed right next to plastic vents that it can enter and bend heatsink fins though if you are blindly feeling for it (should at least be an L-shaped plug); and the list goes on and on.

I've had my left hings break twice, my power plug and battery died together, my rubber feet came off despite not carrying the laptop around and the metal base-plate that the foot stands are stamped into sheered clean around the pegs (stamped too hard/sharp?) causing them to fall into the notebook, the keyboard keys marked up and scratched the LCD even before I had a hinge issue, and it reboots when I tap it in the right spot or close the lid and flip it over (something I often do when I need to set it down on a couch and don't want to block the vents). Oh, and one of the captive screws is dangling due to a stripped thread after the Dell techs replaced my lower chassis and kept my service tag, express tag, and serial number! I guess I should be happy that they even allowed a field tech to do that because they said that the part was for depot repair only, but the only reason I even still have my Windows 7 COA was because I spent the time lifting it off the old one while the techs were still here. FWIW, they had to replace the lower chassis to fix the foot issue.

*don't close the lid after manually telling it to sleep until it is finished entering sleep: It can hard-lock even when told to "do nothing" when the lid is closed!

 

this makes me feel all "warm and fuzzy" with my new purchase.

 

Of course their test is biased. Like you said they probably had those programs preloaded in the XT's 4gb nand. Also, the ssd they used (wd siliconedge) is not on par with modern day ssd. Im not trying to dis on the XT, its a fantastic performance drive, but theres really no comparison if you try to compare it to an ssd.

 

1) the rubber feet work for me. the laptop doesn't slide around.
2) the screen is glossy and very reflective. everyone knows this prior to purchasing. it sounds ridiculous, but if you wear a dark colored shirt, it's not as bad.
3) i don't really have an issue with the arrow keys being where they are.
4) i'm not aware of many laptops that have a touch pad that extends as far up as the space bar. are you?
5) not really sure about the lid instability/sensor issue that you have.
6) i don't think i've ever seen an L-shaped power plug on a laptop.
7) the hinge is definitely an issue. the fact that the LCD actually touches the keys is ridiculous, i'll grant you that.

to me, laptops are like cars. there are going to be issues with any manufacturer. people are going to base their opinions of specific manufacturers based on anecdotes and personal experience. these days, it's a crapshoot whether you get a crappier one or not.

i was aware of every single issue with the M11x before I bought it. i have 2 years of warranty. i'm willing to roll the dice on a pretty slick machine that lets me game wherever i want.

just my two cents.

**EDIT**
i am NOT an alienware fanboy. i've only had my M11x for 4 weeks. all of this stuff could break on me in the coming months. if it does, it will obviously skew my opinion of the company, depending on how they handle it.

 

You can turn off the keyboard backlighting, right click alienware fx in the tray and click go dark or whatever its called

 

I think my pals MacBook has an L shaped cord.

 

If it makes you feel any better, I've had my R2 since August and never experienced a single issue with it at all, despite it being OCd to 166 from day 1, and about 8-12 hours of use per day (I use for work and as my main machine). Hinges, keys, rubber feet, battery, all in perfect working order. It still looks like it just came out of the box.

 

.PoNeH, I have probably owned more laptops than you have had .....

Also .PoNeH, its "OG" to you.

The quality of this laptop is awesome. I went and examined 4 laptops currently being used by my family right now at home and this one exceeds their quality.

I stand by my assessment that it is the best I personally have owned so far.

 

Really Anthony? You had to send me a private message saying that you left me a response here? I was hoping for something a bit more informative than fictitious and biased claims.

Regardless, you probably know as much about message forums as you do about laptops. OP = Original Post.

Finally, I didn't know that the 4 laptops used by your family were benchmarks for build qualities of laptops across the world. Pretty impressive.

BTW, I'm willing to bet that neither of those laptops are Macs, Samsungs, or Asus?!

 

Just purchase a true SSD like the INTEL or Corsair and you will be set. Yes they are expensive. The SSD is expensive for a reason and it compliments the m11x perfectly.

Congrats on your new machine. I hope you enjoy it greatly.

BW,

StevenX

 

Really .PoNeH, OG = Original Gangster.
That one I reserve to be addressed as from you only.

Benchmarked for build quality across the world ? You have no idea about any such thing.

Why dont you list the two or three laptops you have owned that you comapre the M11x to.

 

In build quality? The Asus my father and sister currently owns, the MacBrook Pro I had owned and my brother owns now, and the Samsung I owned right before the M11x put it to shame.

When you have a laptop in its 2nd generation plagued by serious problems such as the hinge issue, you cannot associate it with any arguments pro build quality. I'm sorry lil gangster, but you lose.

 

SSD's are not about load times. Load times are actually pretty insignificant.

The value of an SSD is that your system is actually usable even when there are a bunch of simultaneous read/write requests going on. It may have only taken the Seagate Momentus XT an extra 30 seconds to load the apps vs SSD, but how usable do you think the system was during that time? What kind of slowdown to the user experience would a person expect with all of that disk thrashing going on in the background?

Multitasking (not load times) is where it matters. And in that area, SSD absolutely crushes mechanical HDD's and the Seagate Momentus XT.
YouTube - Why I love my SSD - Windows 7 boot + loading 27 applications in about 1 minute.

The quality of the screen is luck-of-the-draw.

I had my screen replaced once. First screen was an AUO screen, with pretty poor image quality. Very poor contrast ratio, and terrible vertical viewing angles.

The replacement screen was also an AUO, but has much better image quality. Much better contrast ratios, color saturation, and brightness. Vertical viewing angles are a bit better, but still not great.

Point is: Not all Alienware M11x screens are equal. You might have gotten a lower-quality screen than your new best friend anthonykit, so you guys are comparing apples-to-oranges.

 

I wanted to verify I could use an 11 inch screen before buying it so I checked the macbook air.
Maybe I am lucky however my screen is much brighter, much better image. The build quality of the M11x is much better too.
Honestly, all the comments regarding brightness I thought were regarding sunlight usage which is impacted by the glare. Under normal light condition this thing is very, very, very bright.

.PoNeH, maybe your poor expereince is the result of karma or some kind of Star Wars like "Force". You seem to throw out a lot of negativity that has to make its way back to you in some bad way.

 

kent1146, I believe SSD's are better also.

However, once these apps are into the XT's SSD, shouldnt it go from there into RAM (multitaksing) as fast as an SSD.

Or, you may have noticed something I did not; the apps loaded and closed before another one was loaded in Seagates video . Did this happen ?

If so then thats proof even Seagate was afraid to show multitasking.

I am not sure though.

I tend to think multitasking is still very good on the XT. Great point though.

 

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“The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is.”

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I think we can all agree the most electronics may have some build quality opportunities. It took Alienware/Dell a while to work them out but from what I can tell they have. My wife had her screen and hinges replaced and it's fine now.

I dont have issues with others disagreeing with statements. To the OP, don't let the negativity get you down. As with any online community their are those that dislike everything and those who add value. I hope you choose to be the members that add value and feel free to post questions and concerns.

Best Wishes,

StevenX

 

My experience has been a little different. Indoors, the screen works well. But outside, in the shade, on a relatively sunny day, the screen's relatively low level of brightness starts to show.

 

I love the build quality of mine. There is absolutely no competition to other laptops in the $600 range.

 

bchreng, thats my point regarding the screen glare.

You guys are looking at a very bright display being hampered by a design decision to use a shiny cover that impacts sunlight and blaming it on brightness.

No display, no matter how bright, will show well under the shiny cover thingy.

 

My HP displays just fine under those conditions though and it too has a glossy screen.

 

The luck-of-the-draw issue with the display further supports my statement of the M11x having poor build quality.

 

Most recent netbooks have better build quality than the M11x BTW.

 

.PoNeh, "luck of the draw" is a cliche someone just threw out there earlier. You just picked it up and now smear this great manufactuer of great laptops. Shame on you.

Your laptop troubles are due to Karma. Period.

“[Luke:] I can’t believe it. [Yoda:] That is why you fail.”


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I have an M11x R1. I have to say the quality of this laptop is fantastic. It's sad to know about the hinges, but everything else is flipping fantastic.

 

I bought an R2 last summer, and it was plagued with problems, some that it came with from the factory and some that were exacerbated by poorly trained techs. It resulted in me receiving a replacement machine from Dell, which was a lot better.

Still, I was disappointed with the screen quality. I went through four of them, and only one could be considered acceptable. The brightness especially was a disappointment to me, as my 2008 Acer Aspire One had better brightness levels. I eventually sold my M11x and got an 11” MacBook Air, and in terms of screen quality the two machines are not even in the same league. The MBA has the screen the M11x should have had.

There are a lot of M11x’s out there with no problems at all, and many with lots of problems. From my personal experience, I don’t think the build quality or the screen are as good as all of the reviews claimed, but someone who never had a problem would probably feel the opposite, so it all depends on your own experience.

 

Just got mine today! Absolutely love it! I am done tweaking it too <3 http://i56.tinypic.com/23jhc94.png

 

How did you get it up to 2.3 Ghz?!?!?

 

I did my research while waiting for the laptop to arrive

 

Did you up the multiplier and bus speed via bios or does Alienware supply software like Asus does for their motherboards? I've got my i7 2600k overclocked to 4.8 Ghz via software and it works perfectly is why I ask. Not big into messing with bios.

 

Alienware does not support software overclocking in Windows and expect you to use the BIOS to overclock. The BCLK selector is the only option to choose from in the BIOS anyway.

If you really want to use software overclock you can compromise with SetPLL and using the BIOS to set 134mhz. (Leaving it at stock won't work for software overclocking.)

 

Score one for PoNeh.
I have been looking at my m11x next to my Toshiba Satellite T135.
I have to say the Toshiba looks better.
My screen has a blueish tint.

 

Well this is a hell of a big step above my MSI EX625 when it comes to quality.

 

Yup. Just wait until your hinges fail and then the led lights. Sorry I guess that was kinda a downer post.

The graphics card is nice. There

 

I have no complains except for the screen bluesish tint.

You do though remind me of a Debbie Downer type.

"wah wah".

 

I love my m11x. In my university, showing off in middle of 300 people with the lights off never gets old.

 

This point is 100% true. I find the build quality of the m11x very good, yet all the great advantages the laptop has are completely negated when its display lid cracks off.

 

I personally would overlook it if you love it and if dell is going to fix it.
Its a one of a kind piece of hardware. Its small, an unusual shape, etc.



It has its flaws however I did not find anything else I liked or would switch to right now.