Where to place a M11x....

...compared to the other alienware notebooks out there.

A "quick" explanation:

I'm not really happy with the x51 which I use as a Movie/Sound Player in the living room connected to a beamer.
Most of the time it's too loud too cheep components (lots of bsod) and just doesn't feel like a usual Alienware product.
I have also a m18x which is beyond everything I had so far - the (almost) perfect PC. Except his weight ;-)
So I need two things something other than a crappy x51 and something to take with me without break my back.

Now the m11x is out of production from what we hear. And there are a lot interesting offers about this little guy out there...

Where can I put a m11x concerning performance, build quality and around feel about it. Near to a m18x as a little brother, with good performance, build quality and satisfied owners or near the x51 which is not so good, not so good build quality, antenna, DVD-rom, with a cheap feeling and not worthy to have a Alienware label on it.

The m11x I could get is the i7-2637 with 1.7 GHz, 8 GB Ram, 750@7200 HD, Wifi and BT (no killer card and no 3G modem).

What do you think?

 

Based on your opinions, I would consider it the little brother of the m18x. The majority of m11x owners are quite satisfied with the build quality and performance relative to the size. Assuming you aren't expecting it to perform anywhere near the level of the m18x, you should be satisfied. It's a great ultra-portable machine with fantastic build quality (except the hinges on early models). I previously owned an R2 and now own an R3 and don't have a single negative comment.

 

The M11X R3 is a little beast!
I bought it for on-the-go After Effects/Photoshop/Maya work with gaming here and there and movies. I am happy with the size of it, and the weight is nothing. The build quality is second to none.

Only pain is the placement of the USB ports and it does heat up a fair bit on your lap over long periods.

But for playing music and watching movies, presumably connected to a TV it should be fine.
Plus you can turn the mic into an extra audio output giving you 5.1 Surround Sound.

The fan gets LOUD under intense workloads, but for movies/music, it should be rather quiet.

I'd still recommend propping it up a bit if you plan to watch a Lord of the Rings marathon, as it does heat up over long periods, just to give it a bit of extra airflow.

Do note the M11X doesn't have a built-in disc drive.

It's a fantastic machine which handles all I throw at it very well. I highly recommend it!

I'd say buy a "bare bones" one, get the lowest RAM and extra's and then add them yourself, aka take the 8GB from your X51 or purchase the ram online, like RAMExperts.

 

I would consider the M11x to be the little brother of the M18x as I happen to own both. The M11x is great when your on the go.

 

Ok, clearly this is no performance beast, but I'm surprised that it's suitable to do After Effect/Photoshop/Maya on the go.

I had a MacBook Air with a i7-2677M and it was OK for 90% of the work a normal PC can do - but it was not suitable to work with Lightroom and RAW files beyond 30 MB in size.

So I guess it's also very important which GPU you have in use and a GT540 is much much more better than a Intel 3000....

 

It depends how heavy the work is.
I take it to class and to friends houses and to interviews to showcase work.

I mainly use it in Maya for simple blocking out and shaping, it does the job fine. But for a heavy rigged character it moves rather slow when viewing it in "persp".
It render's just fine, yes, a lot slower than my M15X and a desktop, but for the light work I wanted it for, it handles it just fine.
Render times are of course slower, but I didn't intend for it to be used as the workhorse.
In saying that, a rendered image is a rendered image, so I can now have a render farm going on to quicken my workflow.

As for After Effects, the GPU and RAM are the biggest players I've noticed.
It handles it fine, despite a graphics card crash the first time I tried to render in AE, it works fine and smoothly.
A simple driver update soon fixed the GPU crash problem and ever since it has been fine.

Photoshop is nothing. It runs on practically any system.
There's the usual brush-lag when 500px+ or 4px- which I have experienced on EVERY computer I have ever used.

Photoshop I find is a lot more GPU intensive, and whenever there is brush-lag, it's usually fixed by a driver update or the cards buggering up, the card simply has to be taken out and put back in and it tends to fix the problem 60% of the time.
But yes, it does slow down when the files get larger, as expected.

And then there's the OS thing, they run differently and what-not and from my experience Maya runs smoother on Win7 than OS Lion, which we have at Uni, the computers there have far better specs than either of my AW, but tend to crash or lag quite a lot when in Maya.
But that could be caused from a variety of things.

I don't plan on getting into a Mac Vs PC war, but that's my two cents on using 3D on both Os's.

Anyway, I find it handles my needs fine and for me, the build quality was the biggest selling point.

 

Me neither. After almost 11 years loyalty Mac-only usage - I get rid of everything. I just doesn't fit and feel professional anymore .....

 

See, I've really only used PC.
I've used Mac's for only a year, I see a whole bunch of qualities, but feel at home using Windows.
My only annoyance is that the Macs at Uni crash, A LOT, specifically when it comes to AE or Maya.
But in saying that, I have only used those builds...
To me, as long as I can get my work done, I really don't care.

Plus I get annoyed how people spend crazy amounts of money on a MBP when all they do is surf the net/watch movies... It's become a
fashion item more than a computer.

All in all, who cares... Sooo... I highly recommend a M11X, just depends what you want it for and if you can get one easy enough.

 

In my experience it was the other way around. Before I went to Mac I had Windows 3.11, NT 3.51, NT 4 also 95 and 98 and had a lot of problems - so using a Mac was really a relief. Finally I could work with a stable system - almost everything was perfect. Then after a few years the home user get more attention and the professional user less. and then they end the support of some sw and they stopp building servers and the bring lion server which is a joke, then the new final cut which is the biggest joke of all.... so it was time to go back on a system that become very good in the last months - Windows 7.
.... but in all fairness I have to say I get usually one BSOD every month even on the m18x .... I think it has something to do with VPN/network driver ... but I'm to lazy to fix it - it's only happens if I have to fix the servers remotely from home....

 

Oh man... I came in at Win 95 when I was a kid... I am a youngen in comparison, no offence.

Anyway, yes, Lion is a shocker! for some godforsaken reason my uni upgraded some of the labs to it... Now Maya 2012 just hangs and doesn't even open at all!

Don't even get me started about the new FCP... From what I've heard it's going to be the last make of it too...
Probably my favorite thing about macs and STP.

And yes, the odd BSOD does happen to me too.

So ah, I guess we should get back on topic about the M11X and what not before this gets taken down by a mod for going off-topic.

Nice to hear opinions about cross platform users and it not end up in a flaming war saying what's better.

 

I was thinking about one evening/night about buying the new m14x R2 intead - but then I realize it's too close to the m18x. I would be a lot better as a HTPC but then again the weight - to heavy to schlepp it around all the time.

No I think I give a try with the m11x. Now I have to wait till the dell key account manager from our company answer or I get it from the local discounter. There you can get it with the i7-2637, 8GB RAM, 750GB HD for 1099.- Swiss francs that's around 900 USD.

 

Yeah, I could of gotten an M14X for a similar amount, but the weight was a bugger, I wanted something small... haha... "schlepp it around all the time"... Nice wording...

900 USD... it, here in AUS it cost me $1400... after I haggled with them. :/

If you'd like some video's of how the M11X performs in Photoshop, After Effects and Maya before you buy it I'm happy to do some quick vids

 

Little brother!

 

after I contacted the local discounter and asked for an additional price reduction of this end-of-life notebook - they increase the price :-(

 

Increase the price?! Say whaattt?
What about online?

 

Yes sadly, I write them a mail. This btw already the online/discounter kind of store - this WAS the lowest price. If I buy the same configuration from dell it's around 1'700.- swiss francs - that's around 1818.- AUD - but then with a build in killer 1103 card.

@T-ravisty

I see you have the Core i5 version of the m11x. If I take the i5-2467M instead of the i7-2637M I can save 550.- bucks on dell.ch. And then I get also the killer 1103 instead of the Intel 6205 card......

.... Can I install the 2x 8GB (1600MHz) RAM from the m18x and run it with a lower 1333 MHz speed?

 

All depends on what you want, there's not much difference between the i5 and i7.

Here in Aus I got the i5 version with 4GB ram and Killer and upgraded sound card for $1480 AUD.

Yes, you can. I'm pretty sure the RAM will just downclock to 1333MHz.

 

The base is no issue 1.6 instead of 1.7 GHz but in turbo mode you will probably "feel" it. The i5 has then 2.3 GHz with one core, 2 GHz with both cores active. The i7 on the other hand 2.8 GHz with one core and 2.5 GHz with both cores active.

In the meantime the discounter (which increase the price) offers me to order it for the lower price 1099.- Swiss francs. The offer from dell is also here sadly not very interesting besides the killer 1103 card - but this I can upgrade later for much less.

 

LOL @ anything OS x related..
in terms of security its about 10 years behind windows. and anyone who wants to game is sure as heck not going to use os x for it.
over priced, under performing hardware, produced from a patent crazed company.

no thank you...

 

I don't want to start a war but just to be fair....

@ anything OS X related

- in terms of security it's now 10 years behind, before it was simply not necessary and 100 years ahead of windows.
- no gamer buy's a mac.
- In relation to Alienware the Mac is not overpriced
- In relation to everything else it's not extremely overpriced but you have to pay for the premium materials, build quality and value over time