**Official Alienware M11x Owner's Lounge**

can anybody advise me on how they expect the m11x to play HD videos ?? will the cpu be limiting enough to stop HD video play back ?

 

You could ask Raydiddi from post 558 (pg. 56) on this thread. He is suppose to be able to touch one tomorrow, at least according to him.

 

LOL This will play HD fine, the 12" netbooks with Ion all play 1080p with ease so no reason this wouldn't.

 

It should play HD videos fine. Especially ones that can offload work to the GPU. With the upcoming (or is it already out?) version of flash, video decoding can be offloaded to nvidia graphics cards - this allows HD flash playback on ION netbooks. The M11x is plenty powerful enough, possibly even without this feature (the Core 2 SU7300 absolutely blows the atom out of the water, by a huge amount).

 

appreciate the responses. thanks

 

Another good option i am looking at is the Sony Vaio CW

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Sony+-+...skuId=9999124400050012&st=sony vaio&lp=2&cp=1

its a blue label laptop which means its only available at best buy, but this machine has an i5 and an Nvidia 330M GPU, I even think it has a backlit keyboard.

Its a 13 inch laptop and i was fiddling with it in best buy, its pretty nice

only problem i see is that the battery life will be low compared to some other laptops mentioned in the thread and the m11x

 

No need to speculate about the dimensions.

 

I've thought about this too, but isn't the ones with 330m 14" The 13.3 have 310m in them I believe.. correct me if I'm wrong. And yeah I read battery life is ~2-3hrs

 

Whoops, I said 1.5" thick in my other post. Sorry to cause the confusion. These were the specs I was referring to, and as I said, the earlier estimate for depth was wrong.

 

The 14" ones offered at best buy arnt blue label and are specced out pretty lowly, they have a core i3 and a 310M GPU like you said. Online you can spec it out to have a 330M and an i5 but its fairly more chunky and a pound heavier than the blue label laptop.

 

so there IS a blue label 13.3 with i5 and 330m that's not chunky and heavier? Sorry a bit confused. If you have a link that'd be great, thanks.

 

Having an M17x and looking at that video with the M11x right next to it makes you appreciate the size of this little computer.

Very nice. Still off the bandwagon but feeling hopeful.

 

oh hey War, while you're around, I wanted to ask you about the AlienFX stuff. Can you turn on/off the backlight for the keyboard without having to go into settings? Button on the fly type of thing?

 

Yup. It is Fn + F11 here. I figure it would be the same on the M11x.

 

has anybody researched what the smallest laptop that comes with a GeForce GTS 360M is ??

 

Oooh early review!

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,49304848,00.htm

 

Toshiba's 18.4 Qosmio!

 

The only blue label sony notebook I see that is 13 is the S11 and it does not come with dedicated graphics card. It says intel hd graphics which I thought was integrated. But it does come with a i5 2.26 ghz. Here's that link.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Sony+-+...uId=9999124400050012&childSku=9701289&count=1

The other one is a Sony CW but that's a 14" laptop (13.4 x 9.2 x 1.5) at 5.3lbs (according to the bestbuy website). It has the 330m card and the i5 maxxed at 2.93ghz. Here's a link for the royal indigo colored one.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Sony+-+...digo/9724013.p?id=1218159867984&skuId=9724013

That's all I could see on there and I looked at both of those before and had counted them out because of no discrete card on the S11 and size and weight (battery life as well) on the CW.

 

Yeah, the laptop i linked IS that blue label laptop. The non blue label, chunky 14 inch laptop is the vaio CW. It doesnt really make sense since the blue label laptop is in every way better, it even has matte surfaces instead of glossy.

its weird because its pretty much the same laptop except its thinner, it even has matte surfaces.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Sony+-+...skuId=9999124400050012&st=sony vaio&lp=2&cp=1

 

Oooooh thanks for the link! So that's what smoky grey looks like?

 

Just doing some price speculating....

From the Canadian Dell site (I assume US prices are very similar and I'm having problems accessing the US site):

$50 to upgrade from the SU4100 to the SU7300 on the Inspirion 14z.

$50 to go from 2GB RAM to 3GB another $50 to go to 4GB.

I'm going to speculate $100 to go from 160 GB 5.4K HD to the 250 7.2K (based on it being $50 to upgrade the 160 GB 5.4K drive to a 250 5.4k drive on the 14z)...but maybe this will be $50. Add $150 to go to the 320 GBdrive, $170 to the 500 GB, and I dunno, $500(at least?) for the SSD.

So it starts at $799 USD.
+$50 for SU7300
+$100 to get to 4GB of RAM
+$100 to get 250 GB 7200RPM HD
-------------------------
$1049.00 for a pretty solid build. I can't imagine anybody not upgrading the processor, and 4GB of RAM and a 7200rpm HD seem to be pretty standard now. Maybe they drop that hard drive upgrade to $50 for you yanks, so while it 'starts' at $799, the minimum build everybody is going to get will be $999.

Thoughts?

 

Just in case my link doesn't work for you. The model number of the Sony blue label that I saw was VPCS111FM/S. I think you could just search for it and it should come up on the bestbuy website.

 

It isn't very detailed but it means a real review isn't too far away!

 

I can't seem to get your link to come up. Can you tell me the model number of the laptop you are talking about? Is it the same one I linked to earlier?

 

Good Find. +Rep.

^Yeah, that looks like the grey one. It's the one I would buy (if I did).

 

Normally I'd stick with the black if I was to say get either an M15x or an M17x,but this time I'd have to agree.The black is just even more of a fingerprint magnet as others have been saying a few pages back...

I absolutely can't wait for the release...

 

Yeah, and the reviewer called it a netbook and didn't know much about the processor. Not a review at all IMO.

Plus, it was a wimpy model -- slower processor, 2GB RAM. I'm not sure why Dell would send that model for review.

Hopefully we get a full review today. If not, probably Monday.

 

I saw a release date for Wednesday, February 3, 2010, but no official release date as of now

 

oh sweet, didn't even notice the gray lid. Snap, I was leaning toward gray, now I get to see a pic, def going for it! No glossy fingerprints for me. woot

 

I was going to ask if that was the grey one... I couldn't tell for sure from the pics. It's nice. Thank goodness for a no fingerprint magnet option.

 

The bottom line is that there is not another system out there with the same GAMING performance in an 11.6" (sub 12") package. End of discussion.

You can complain about the CPU choice, but it's irrelevant because there aren't any other options for a 11.6" gaming "netbook sized" with a faster CPU/GPU combo.

The reason Dell chose the CPUs they did doesn't matter, but we can speculate all day long and never know for sure. Maybe they got a killer deal on the chips since they are on the way out? Maybe the chip can be OCed and thats why they chose it. Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe. It doesn't matter. There is always something better on the horizon. If this had a UM I5 in it, in a few months there would be something better from AW or another company. Thats how it works. Give it a rest.

tl;dr: Whine all you want, there isn't a better option under 12".

 

I wanted to add in since I'm sure some one is furiously pounding on their keyboard a response that has links to some other system that can do games under 12":

The point I'm trying to make is that there isn't going to be a better sub-12" gaming computer for a bit. Games rely on the GPU much more the CPU, and this is the best GPU available in 13" and smaller notebooks. As its been said, if the 1.3GHz ULV isn't good enough for you, then the Core Ix UM chips would not be either. Theres not enough of a performance difference for it to matter.

Dell probably got a sweet deal on the ULV chips

 

You're right. There's nothing else sub-12 that has the performance of the m11x. But still you have to be able to look at other models that might be comparable so there is no buyers remorse at the end of the day or at least know that you did some research. At least that's how I think and how I can justify what I get to my family.

I don't think people are whining so much as just expecting a bit more from alienware than what it is giving. The same could be said of other manufactures as well though. People on the ul30jt are complaining about the 310m that's suppose to be gpu for it. They want at least a 330m. So it's not just this thread and the m11x.

 

It's not sub 12" size though, it's sub 12" screen. The dimensions are more in line with a 13" notebook than they are with any of the 12" netbooks. I'm still waiting to see I mean if it ends up being a 13" notebook sizewise with a 11" screen then it's retarded.

Seems to be different people saying different things about the actual dimensions of it so it's hard to really get a grasp on it at this point. Really would like to see one of these in person.

 

Sony VAIO Laptop with Intel® Core™ i5 Processor: VPCS111FM/S

search on best buy sony vaio and the one thats $1050 is the one, weird that the link does work

 

Am I missing something? That says Intel graphics... if so it's not even in the same league as any of these?

 

dimensions have already been posted, and all their laptops run a little big, look at the "15 inch" it's like within an inch of the M17x on all measurements except width where it's like 1.3 or something. yeah it has an 11.6 inch screen yes it's close to the size of other 13 inch laptops. will it smoke everything else in or near it's size category yes it will. yeah there might be a couple others that could do the job just not as well or as elegant (in my opinion) not to mention the gpu in this thing in a plastic case thats badly cooled means you'll burn your nuts and the comp. meaning if u put what the m11x has in an asus with a coreiX

 

Another brief review. They go into more detail, but don't mention any benchmarking.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/4590/alienware-m11x-gaming-netbook-preview

 

I was with you until that part We're gonna have to wait and see but I am pretty confident any of these 13" coming out with i7 and 300 series will keep up with the 11x if not outperform it and have better battery life, more portability and bigger screen to boot.

The size is really important to me because if it's big and bulky I just don't take it with me. I bought a Dell 17" XPS top of the line back some years ago and the thing probably has about 5 hours total use on it because it's just too much a pia to ever take it with me. And when it's home I don't need it because I always have a killer desktop.

That's the reason I started looking through these forums and actually got interested in the 11x in the first place. I had just bought a 1201n because it can play games and is very small and light, I have no problems taking it with me even if I might not need it.

So if 11x is really as big as it seems it's kind of a dealbreaker for me, I went with 1201n because 13" laptops we're to big so this broaching that size and actually exceeding it in weight and thickness by a considerable amount is a huge turnoff. If I decide to go for something bigger then I might as well go for something like UL30JT that will play all the same games, has a 13" screen, has 12 hours battery life, is 1/2" thinner and only an inch longer than the 11x.

It might not matter to some but that is my thinking right now and it's really dissuading me from wanting to pickup an 11x anymore.That's why I say I hope the dimensions are wrong too, i'll believe the dimensions once I see them on Dells website, too many different dimension being thrown around in here already LOL

 

well the marketing campign has started ! two site previews within a few hours .. ? contract slience until now?!

still worrying about the release date not being mentioned considering the speculation about next weeks release. my guess is its being tested so if any errors are found they have not commited to a release date.

A question if i may, does the m11x meet Dragon Ages system requirements ?

 

Niiiiceee! Finally a review and the appearance of the other lid option! +rep

 

You're news hunting ay? Hahahahaha

@azn = about those recovery disks, as far as toshiba, acer, dell and hp are concerned, they just include them with the netbook. As for sony, sometimes they just don't give you. So yeah lol.

 

Why not? Don't forget that Alienware is really Dell now. Dell has the resources to have 4 types of systems.

 

My and the entire 5 pages was people arguing about screen size and alternatives that really aren't there right now. Suuure you have 13 inchers with 330s with iX series, feel free to buy those. Just means less people in line, and means I have a greater chance of getting it earlier! So full of win.

 

I know I am!! Just waiting for the release date is killing me
Cleaning my Macbook in preparation for a hopefully quick sale.

 

I though this was interesting page that shows M11x Specs.

Have a look.

http://gdgt.com/alienware/m11x/specs/

 

Nice find. Pretty impressive specs for a mini laptop that's for sure.

 

A convert!!!

Sweeet link!

 

Is it February yet?

 

I hope its 3rd February