*OFFICIAL* M11xR2 Owners Lounge - Part 1

Over a week now, still in love, gaming for couple hours a night and surf and everything. 520UM is surprisingly agile, if anything, the 1.07ghz feels on par at least with my overclocked SU7300 at 1.73 ghz if not faster in some instance where multi-tasking was needed.

Body still rigid, hinge still good! and somehow, my HOT ac adapter has cooled down no matter what I'm doing, so I take it as a good sign!

 

hey guys proud owner of new mx11 playing moh beta right now high settings with about 25-30 fps.. not bad. If I bring it to medium its much better about 40 fps. This was with turbo on no overclock. Screen looks good, however there is a small dot thats lit up right above the e on the alienware logo. Will be calling them tomorrow about that. I also had some of my keys on the right side kinda sticking up higher then the rest. I just pushed on one of them snaping it into place. Now it looks good. So far I am also amazed by this gaming notebook. Not bad for 925 shipped.

 

Latest review:
Alienware M11x Review: A Rant Against the Alienware

 

The small form factor is one of the M11x's pro's.
I mean, sure, you do definitely sacrifice performance and screen size but you must realize, that much power in an 11" laptop(heck netbook) is unheard of! So maybe it doesn't really "benefit" the consumer, but it is still pretty sweet in my opinion. And oh yeah, 4.5 pounds is light. I mean, anyone can carry 4.5 pounds easy.

 

How did you get 25-40 FPS? Mine couldnt even get past 10 frames per second...you can see my spec below... i wonder if there could be that much of a difference even if you have the i7. What Nvidia driver are you using?

Remember you asked me a while ago to install and Play which MOH was totally unplayable on mine, wondering if my optimus had glitch at that time....did you use the 189..something driver or you are using the 2xx.... beta driver?

 

Yeah, he makes some weird arguments in there. Paraphrasing, "Netbooks are awesome, but it's bigger than a netbook, so it sucks, but it's small, so doing anything on it sucks." He also makes the claim at the beginning that the hardware isn't good enough but never goes into it. Plus the whole thing relies on his idea that the M11X is for gaming and only gaming.

The one thing I agree with is they should've done the keyboard different. My 12" HP tx2500 looks to be the same width (just holding them against each other to compare), yet the keyboard feels much wider even though the M11X's is actually wider by 1/4". HP shrunk the width of tilde/tab/capslock/shift/ctrl a little and moved the delete/home/pgup/pgdown/end keys up top with the F-keys so that there's one less row. I don't mean to complain about the M11X's keyboard because it isn't bad; it just could've been done better.

Another benefit of the HP is it has a button to turn off the touchpad. For people who use a separate mouse for gaming, a button to turn it on and off would be a great addition.

And getting further off topic, why did they move the touchpad over towards WASD? For me, it just means I accidentally touch it more while gaming using the WASD keys. It's kind of annoying. If anything, move it to the other side.

 

Ai, it did seem that they kinda messed up with the touchpad/keyboard. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they had to do that because of the the 11" form factor, as you only do have so much room to work with.

 

That's the thing, though. The case is as wide as my 12.1" laptop, and the M11X's keyboard is actually wider by 1/4", yet the keys are smaller and more cramped.

 

lol - ignore this one chaps, looks like it was written on toilet roll whilst he was sitting on the training potty. Probably the worst critique I've ever read.

Regards,
Neil.

 

Well said Neil!

 

Due Date 7/14/2010.......A 49 year old man feeling like a kid on Christmas eve is worth half the price. I am looking for a BluRay external now. What game controllers you all using? My Life will now be defined as before R2 and after R2.

Alienware M11x, Soft Touch Stealth Black, Core i7 640UM
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz, 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M
320GB SATAII 7,200RPM, Bluetooth Module 2.1, AlienFX Color Mars Red

Eagerly Waiting in NYC

 

did this guy even use one ? it looks like he read the specs and ranted off that somehow.

 

No he didn't. You can tell because he's postulated that the battery life for the R2 will be comparable to the R1.

 

garbage!!!!!!

 

OK, it's hard not to be unbiased when reviewing this guys review, especially since this is a sub forum DEDICATED to the computer he just ripped apart, but this guy did several things wrong:

When you review a product, even if you are just reviewing the IDEA of a product, you should ACTUALLY HAVE THE PHYSICAL PRODUCT. He's saying that it's too big to have the amenities of a netbook, and too small to be comfortable like a laptop. Yet how do you know this if you DON'T HAVE THE PRODUCT?

w/e, this guy wrote a hate piece, so why give it attention. We all still love our little machines, right?

 

I still love my machine, even though it hasn't shipped yet

 

Yeah, no official review of the R2 yet, despite promised by NBR itself 2.5 weeks ago. And Anandtech had something coming, but nothing yet.

Though he did say any day now.

 

I suspect they're running into some of the issues we've been seeing - Optimus and battery life in particular - and are perhaps looking into how best to deal with them in order clarify their initial results.

 

Just called the EPP # as well. My original delivery date was 7/14 and got pushed to 7/19 and they threw in next day delivery as a good will gesture. Can't wait.

 

Hey Howard, can you do us a favor and run wprime for i5 (overclock)? Just want to see where i5 is at, when compared with su7300 OC'ed and i7. 640um.

i7 overclocked scored 29 seconds

 

Please do this. I have been looking for it as well.

 

Interesting... here's what I got with my i7.

No OC - TB On: 41.623
166OC - TB Off: 39.547
166OC - TB On: 36.646

Is 29 seconds a solid average for the i7 or is that one person's reported score? My R2 has been OC'd at 166 since day one and has never exhibited any signs of instability.

 

Somebody here on the forum attached a screenshot of wprime --i7 640 um . I saw 29 seconds.

 

Wow, someone's in a tantrum.. mommy didn't give him an M11x for his Bday..

 

Hey Howard yes I dont think your card was enabled possibly. I had to force it to use the dedicated graphics card. I'm using whatever drivers they installed it says 1.10.59.37

Now what I want to know is what crap can I unistall that I dont need. Has anyone made a thread on this. I might do a fresh install as well, because I'm very ocd about my computer stuff... lol I'm also a clean freak no dust or finger prints are allowd..period..

 

Which one did you use? I tried all the ones on this page, kept giving me error won't let me run it .

Downloads | wPrime Multithreaded Benchmark

 

How did you force it?

and weird, mine wont let me run 3D Mark vantage either.. i mean it wont even install...

 

Just got 1 question when I look at the optimus list for what games run on the Nivida vid card it shows wow.exe, but on the description it says tony hawk skateboarding??? Does anyone else notice this? Oh I had wow pre installed.

 

Wow, this guy seems to recognize that netbooks have a tradeoff of size/weight vs. speed/power. Then he goes to rail against the M11x because it doesn't combine the size/weight of a netbook with the speed/power of a full sized notebook. Then he rails against the screen size of the M11x!!!

Umm, Earth to moron... was he expecting an 11.6 inch screen to provide him with a 15 inch viewing experience? Was he expecting that a dedicated GPU would use the same amount of power as a netbook? In what world? Certainly not on Earth today... maybe in the future there will be a netbook with an ATI 5870 that sips 10 watts, but not today. This author seems to be expecting a product that doesn't yet exist.

 

Hmm. damn..3D mark installed but wont run due to the newer 1366 x 768, and Wprime still won't install wonder wats wrong with it, any ideas? tonight is not a good night lol

 

Under the nvidia control manager go to Manage 3d settings then select programs settings tab click on add then locate where your mohmpgame.exe is and I also added the mohmpupdater.exe and then select use global settings (high-performance NVIDIA processor). Hope this helps.

Im off to try some gaming in bed... while my wife calls me a nerd

 

eh? The very top one..2.03

 

yes, i know you guys are going to thinki am crazy. I am awaiting on my new 11x r2 too. The difference is i chose the 250gb solid state drive and every other option to bring the bill up to $3000. Every possible option and i had them find me a portable blue ray optical for $350, too.

That's a lot of damn money, and i must say i am completely disappointed with their organization. I am now getting emails that parts of my order just shipped and they have been sitting here for a week. I have gotten no updates on the pc, and everyone i speak to gives me a different answer. I'm fed up, and for 3k they should give me some respect.

 

Ya I ordered the portfolio and the screen protector a couple days after the laptop. The EDD on those was the 26th...the portfolio actually came yesterday but when i check my order status it says everything was delivered.

I will be calling them later today.

 

yeah tell me about it. my sales rep went for vacation and i was trying to reach him for 3 days to change the shipment type but guess what he was on a vacation and no voice mail vacation alert no automatically generated vacation email nothing nothing at all. then i talked to someone else from india i guess and he was great. threw me next day shipping gave me all the information i needed it about my unit, why it was being delayed and so on...

 

Got my R2 and I'm really liking it so far. I just overclocked it to the maximum setting and have had no issues. Every game I have run on steam has switched automatically without intervention and has run great.

To anyone in NZ there was some questions as to whether or not we were getting shiny tops of soft-touch and I can confirm mine is soft-touch.

 

yea..2.03 wont allow me to even install on R2 kept giving me error msg nor would any previous versions.

 

Hey guys! Just purchased one of these and looking at overclocking. Could anyone give me a quick how to?

 

RTFM or search

 

Took delivery of my R2 on Thursday. I installed a 500GB Seagate Hybrid SSD/HDD and did a factory restore via USB flash. So far no complaints, unit is really perfoming well for the games and apps tested.

 

Deliverystaus updated: Its now phase 4 "in production"

This waiting is killing me : (

OD: 06/28 EDD: 07/23

EDIT: SHIPPED: 07/13 *YIHA*

 

I saw that drive..whats so good about that hybrid drive.maybe I'm deficient but I just can't seem to grasp whats so good about it. I'm sure it is superior to the 7200 i have in mine, just not sure how much better or worth the swap..

 

I orginally got for my M17x but decided to put it in the M11x to see how it performs. I haven't benched it yet but startups and shutdowns are faster. I'll run some benches in the near future. Here is a review that was linked in the M17x forum:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/6396367-post3168.html

 

I haven't done any in depth research of the Momentus XT Hybrid Drive but from what I've seen, it's apparently faster than your standard 7200RPM drive, slightly faster than some 10k RPM drives, but still slower than your standard SSD. Apparently the drive tends to eat up more battery life than the 7200 drives though. I've seen some people say they lose up to an hour of battery life. If this is incorrect then my apologies. But in terms of performance and price, most people say it hits the sweet spot.

Gonna be calling Alienware tomorrow to see if I can get a system replacement. I don't have any huge issues, but the hinge creaking has gotten a little worse (no cracks though), the USB are still a tight fit (I figured it would loosen up over time but it really hasn't), the keyboard touches the screen (doesn't actually bother me but I'll be adding this to my list of complaints tomorrow). Lastly, I had bought a new wireless card as the stock Dell one doesn't do me any justice but the screw that keeps the card in place must have been super glued to the motherboard or something because I couldn't get it to unscrew. I pretty much ended up obliterating the screw in the process so now it's really impossible to unscrew. I know they'll probably try to get a tech to help but I'm gonna push for a system replacement. If not, I'll ask for a full refund (since I'm still within the 21 days) and simply reorder it as I really do admire the laptop.

Also been looking at battery life. It seems I get just over 1 hour battery life of gaming and that was with SC2. Was really hoping I could push 2 hours but oh well. For people using BatteryBar, using the simple formula of capacity/discharge rate will give you the number of hours of battery life. Don't trust what Windows might say because it fluctuates way too much. Also oddly enough BatteryBar still says I get a max of 2.5 hours, regardless of the discharge rate.

Just some quick numbers:
idle 8W= 8.5 hours
light browsing (no flash) 14W=4.9 hours
browsing (with flash, 335M not active) 20W=3.5hours
browsing (with flash, 335M active) 30W= 2.3 hours
SC2 gaming + browser open in background + 6 brightness +AlienFX (335 on) 50W= 1.4 hours

Except for gaming, everything else was done with power saving mode, lowest brightness, and AlienFX off.

 

Roger on Hybrid drive, thats what I thought but I do have one question.. part solid drive, part mechanical drive.. there WILL be fragmentation on mechanical sector and need defrag but solid portion can't be defragged, so do you defrag that sucker or not

I think I posted it before.. 25 mins full power full detail screen brightness MW2 ate up 37% battery so we are about the same... well, what can you expect?

Think about it.. 2 years ago I had Gateway FX-7811 with Nvidia 9800M GTS mobile video card at the time, top of the line, 64 stream processor. Right now even our mediocre GT 335M has 72 stream processor. Though manufacture process is smaller, still drains a good amount of power.

Speaking of which...just got evga superclocked gtx 480,..that thing is a monster.. now I'm complete!

 

Thanks for the link, awsome review, boot and log off time was stunning for a drive that's 129 dollars! will think about it....

 

Don't quote me on this, but I remember reading something about how the SSD part is read only (not read+write) which apparently means it's okay to defragment the XT drive. I was considering this drive myself but being cash limited sucks =( also reading that battery life takes a hit worried me.

 

To start with, thanks all for your posts so far, they have been invaluable in leading me towards the m11x! I am about to order mine, however there is 1 minor favour that I need to ask from any willing person in here. I am playing a lot of an online game called eve online. Does any of the owners play it, and if so, can you tell me about your experience with it and info like

1. fan noise while playing eve
2. duration of battery playing eve
3. graphics settings for eve (with the game still smooth in space).

I hope one of you guys shares my interest and can respond.

thanks

 

quick question if you are watching say a hd video on youtube or a bluray rip video on battery power will the nvidia card kick in or will the intel card only be used? And is there anyway to set it so that when on battery and power saver the nvidia card never comes on?

 

Ordered mine on the 6th. Delivery date was the 27th. It's been shipped today, the 13th \o/\o/

Will hopefully have it Friday!