My m17x is here *mad arm waving* - small overview

Hey all been back from holiday for 3 days so now I shall give you my opinion (opinion people, don't have a go if you don't agree) of my m17x.

(I am rather excited about it so I will most likely type like a child and I appologise because it really isn't me)

1. Looks -

This is gonna sound stupid but it's hard to find a word to describe it. I can't call it beauitful as it's too mean looking but it's not ugly. My friends have looked at it and just been like WOW AWESOME etc so that gives you th idea of what people think...anyway.

The ripley looks nice and clean and makes the laptop look just that bit slimmer then it really is, the glowing alien head on the back (you know where the Dell logo normaly is XD) is so cool and I spent a good half hour just looking at that.

The laptop is big, but not bloated or overweight, it's not to bad to carry round in a propper bag and when you think what is inside it its a really nice neat, small package.

The surround around the screen is reallllllly shiny yet there are no finger prints on it (as yet) but it looks pretty thin and like it might scratch easy. The lights are great, not awesome, but not lame. They colours like red, green, yellow stand out really well and are nice and strong but the others are sorta lacking some what. the morphing works really well aslong as you dont morph to back (aka off) to try and get a fading effect as it goes in stages and looks a lil cheap. I did find the pulse to be more a of flash on and off (I would say a pulse is more of a slow glow on and off) but seeing as I didn't want people dancing round my laptop...or a headache I won't be using that setting. The way you can change lights for each application is cool but only really works for fully screen applications you wont be jumping in and out of like I used it for note pad and seeing as the lights aren't the fastest things flicking through programs meant the lights didnt know what to do so I just use them for games and set them off for watching movies.

2. Touch Buttons -

They are ok, look cool and when the work first time every one loves them but the problem is they don't work first time. the volume bar on mine only works between the caps and num light and when hot non of the buttons work at all, that said, very pretty.

3. Screen + GPU -

The screen is good and is nice and bright but I did turn the resolution up as it was set to 800 x 600 when I got it so it was a lil scary looking. I am having one big issue and I don't know if its the GPU or Screen but when it gets hot (which it does) the screen flickers and like blue scrolling lines appear, it's the same sort of look as if you are filming a CRT moniter of the constant lines going down but I am yet to find the cause of this and it mostly happens in games but aslong as I put it in stealth mode when not using all the power it doesn't happen as the laptop doesn't get hot.

The GPU's are good but not god like which I kinda thaught they were gonna be, in Crysis (admitily on high but the res. is turned down) all the FMV's stutter and there is alot of time between seeing somthing and the different level of detail textures rendering as you get near to things. In UT3 there is a bit of stuttering during game play aswell but not to often so I will let it off for that.

4. Keyboard and Mouse -

I rather like the keyboard's feel but I am not a fan of the placement, for me it feels to far back on the laptop so my arms rest o the bit before it and leave marks but I think that is beacuse I sit in a really back position. The action is nice and smooth.

The track pad thing...well I am biased because I don't like them very much but this one works pretty well, I haven't put any stickers on it or anything but I do find it a little to resistant for my liking but I use a mouse most of the time anyway.
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I can't really think of much more to go into, everything is awesome it runs all my 3D applications really well and my level prodution ones, I really can't put a fault on it besides the fact you ahve to press FN + F8 to open the CD tray and the random screen flickering but that just seems to be my laptop and I am getting in touch with Alienware about it now.

It does everything I want and more I just can't help feel a little bit sorry for all the other tech in the house and now I've got this they really aren't gonna be used much.

Oh just to let you all know there will be a starbucks test with me and Darkfly and thats comming soon, basicaly people in the UK don't really take their laptops to starbucks and seeing as we don't know what outsiders (non geeks) think to AW's we are gonna take them in and see what reactions we get from people. I just have to wait for Darkfly to get his m15x back.

So yer hope it helped any questions just PM me or somthing.

 

the random screen flicking is probably some driver issue.

hehe, hope you put on a mad light show at starbucks.

 

Glad to hear you're enjoying your m17x so much. I don't think any GPU right now is supposed to be able to handle max res/settings Crysis. Crysis Warhead is supposedly going to be coded better and what not to allow potentially higher settings for certain GPUs.

Have fun at Starbucks.

 

Sound great, I hope the customers enjoy your new baby (",)

Eh, what morphing effects... I didn't find those yet? lol

OB

 

I love goin places with my alienware they just make every1 look and stare

 

i actually try to prevent people from staring at my AW . you should see what i do to make people not stare at it

 

care to at least tell us then since we cant see?

 

So I am about to post a new thread as I am having a problem so guys if you wanna pop over and have a look to see if you can help me out because I haven't got the time to send it back to AW as I am about to start Uni and need it working. Thanks.

 

I cant tell the difference and neither can you. here is my Ali...ummm Dell. Yes the laptop was on. i had to use layers of paper to cut the light off.

it wasnt photoshopped if anyone is thinking that....i actually did tape the logo on the laptop.

i do doubt i will bring it to school one day with the dell logo on tho.

 

Except for the sheer power, don't people buy AW's because of the badass looks?
When I get my m17x ordered, I won't be able to wait for people to stare and stare and stare at the logo, trying to figure out what brand it is.
I'll probably time how long it takes for them to ask ^_^

 

too funny exiled...
an AW rebranded a dell....

 

I can deffinately say I got my AW for its looks its a big factor for me if I am gonna spend alot of money after all I could have the most powerful laptop in the world but if its butt ugly I ain't gonna use it.

 

Congrats. Fusioncell,

i like the form factor of the M15X that i had previously. But there is no comparison with the better performance of my M17X. Also like the flat black color better. Since i upgraded the drivers to 177.92 even Crysis plays better. No over heating or downclocking.

 

Wow exiled you must have a world first... XPS m15x

Lol I like the disguise (",)

OB

 

i bought the AW for the performance and for the looks too otherwise i would of gotten a dell xps m1530. I will probably only use the dell badge if everyone suddenly starts looking at the laptop in my school. then it gets kind of scary

 

Nice writeup, fusioncell - how about some pics. Haven't seen too many of the m17x.

I suggest reading the SLI Guide and see if that fixes any of your flickering problems. It is a common issue with SLI:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=202449

 

So apart from the stealth Logo, do you turn off all of the lights etc?

I don't think putting a Dell logo on mym 17x would help really, it's kinda big even without any of the lights on lol

By the way how do i get my FX lighting to do more than just select colours? SOmeone was talking about "morphing" yesterday?

OB

 

I think I've read something about that in the x64 m15x guide.

Edit: Ah, here we go. It's under "DiscoFX." http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=285226 Guess it supports m17x's too.

 

Thanks, i'l take a look tonight. I read it and it seems i need the exe and dll files to be able to change the colours or "test" them with colour switching... my only concern is that i'm running 32 bit Vista Ultimate...

OB

 

i try to sit in the back of the class so i can have all the lights on . its not fun on the m15x without the lights

 

Lol i guess sitting in the middle and everyone staring at your shiny notebook would be a problem ha ha ha

When i was at school i used to sit at the back to avoid being asked questions lol

OB

 

the fact that people are still having crysis issues with the m17x confirms my decison to get the 9750.

 

Well it might do but, Cyrsis has issues "not" the machines it;'s running on. I have been rading and it seems unless your running a quad-core with three of four GPU's in Sli, Crysis will stutter at anywhere near full quality. Seems it's something to do with the way it's been written... it seems to screw-up Sli...

I haven't instlled Cyrsis on my m17x (which has no problems whatwoever by the way) because i'm waitin to get warhead and Crysis 1 together... Cheaper (",)

OB