**Official Alienware M11x Owner's Lounge**

Let's be serious here, starting at $1000 means that it will run you around $1500 or more when normally specced. Now, for that much, closest that can come to the spec would be Sony CW series or maybe one of the upcoming Asus refreshes. That's still quite a bit larger format (weight would be similar funny enough). For gaming, I would prefer the new CW with 1600x900 res screen to the Alienware. We'll have to wait and see at release, I just can't see it being 5 lbs in that small format. What did Dell do, line it with lead to protect against gamma ray radiation?

 

Assuming it is not $999 fully maxed. This could change but it has been stated multiple times. Also, the sweepstakes mention the first price as valued at $1000. For a contest, I am not sure they will give out a lower model.

 

I never researched them much because they are too big as well for my personal use but HP Envy 13 and Asus UL30vt i think it was? (Whichever one has the switchable graphics) come to mind there are probably alot more but I haven't looked much into it.

Really looking forward to this thing getting released though so we can see actual dimensions and see what games it actually plays. As much as i'm critical of it right now, I really hope it proves me wrong because I want to buy it LOL

 

Not what I was asking. Anyway, I figured this is the best in its class for the price and size. That's why I'm looking to buy one =)

 

Have you ever read the EULA on the retail games you buy? They all say that. . . it's stupid, and should be illegal (if it's protected by contract, it should not be protected by copyright! Copyright has its own set of rules for both the consumer and copyright holder, and by making their own rules the software industry is abusing the system. Speaking of which, why can you patent and copyright a piece of software? You can't use both those IP protections on anything else, but I digress. . . ).

I prefer Steam's "you have to register online but can install your games anywhere with an internet connection, for any time, for any reason, as many times as you want" to most retail games' "if you install it more than three times we deactivate your copy. Using multiple accounts on one computer count as seperate installations, as does reformatting and reinstalling on the same computer, and we'll install an impossible to remove rootkit on your system to make sure you're playing by our rules".

Basically, I hate DRM in general, but I'll put up with Steam because it actually provides me with some added benefit (the ability to download and install my games anywhere, anytime, even if I can't find my original disks or reciepts). If retail games didn't have DRM, I'd buy them over the steam ones, but these days the "content management" systems included with retail games are far worse than steam.

By the way, if you want drm-free, downloadable games, you should check out Good Old Games. They don't have the new releases like steam, but you can get a lot of great games there and everything's under $10.

 

I think I am going to have to deal with steam for MW2. Got it for xmas but have not loaded it up yet. Is there any drm rootkit like securom with steam?

 

some games on steam have securom but it will state it. MW2 does not have any DRM outside of steam itself. You should install it and play it! Fun game. No worries with steam for me.

 

Ya I am looking forward to playing it. Just wanted to get the 4870s in first so as to not have to deal with multiple nvidia drivers. I was planning on buying a pair before I learned I could get dell to hook me up to fix my DPC stuff for free.

 

That's a great site, thanks!

 

No problem, AFAIK it's the only DRM-free game download service (legal one, anyway), so this will be a must-have bookmark for M11x owners

 

Anyone know if there would be an option for a Matte, or Aluminum Lid? That glossy lid is a big turnoff for something that is soposed to be portable.

 

You mean I can only install a game three times from a hard copy before they deactivate it? I've never experienced that before... I've installed many games on many, many machines and never had a problem.

And I never knew that about the EULA. You must be the first person in the world to have read one through! I normally just find the "accept" box, sure in my mind that they make EULA's as long as they are for that reason in particular.

 

The install limit is highly controversial and, in some cases, publishers have raised the install limit in response to public outcry. Still, they monitor all installations and reserve the right to revoke your installation.

Wikipedia

Tom's Hardware

Reclaim Your Game!

Sorry this is so off-topic, but the whole copy-protection discussion does have some relevance to the m11x. Most older copy-protection schemes involve a disk-check, meaning that legitimate purchasers would need to use a game crack (which most publishers consider "illegal" even if you bought the game, not that they can stop you) to play their legitimately purchased game on the m11x.

Further proof that the DMCA should not have been passed, and that the US government is run by the corporations, for the corporations. But again, I digress. If you want to read up on the topic, check out some of the books by Lawrence Lessig, and of course there's also plenty of reading material online (of course, there's also a lot of BS online, so be careful).

 

Why would M11x users need to use cracks to play their legit games? I don't get it!

Wow, everytime I think Sony are destroying the games industry in every way possible, they rise to the challenge and drive another nail in the coffin.

 

because they lack a dvd drive

 

Yep. Without a DVD drive, all those games that require the disk be in to play need to be cracked to run on the m11x (unless you want to have a USB disk drive plugged in any time you want to play a game. . . ).

 

WHAT?! Thats ridiculous! I guess it makes sense seeing as the drive would take up half the space but seriously...

Steam will be loving this one then I guess.

 

thats why im so happy bad company 2 is out on steam i want this thing to come out so bad...im saving money right now just to afford one lol..

 

Yeah, basically all my games have been on steam, so the M11x won't be a big deal. And if it's not on steam, then I'll look up if they do digital key tying, like Blizzard games won't be a big deal since they allow digital d/l from retail keys. Also more and more games are using Steamworks, so retail games can still be bought and tied to Steam so this gives us possibly cheaper B&M options etc w/o having to go directly through steam. For example CODMW2 is tied to steam, but I had some reward zone points @ Best Buy and used that instead of just buying straight from steam. In the end, the game uses Steam and a DVD was not necessary to install or play. So I'm all set for the M11x in terms of lacking a DVD drive. Other than that, I use Daemon tools lite to make a virtual drive to mount ISO's I can make and transfer on another computer.

 

Guys I have read and heard in videos the Dell guys saying that the laptop "fully specced out would be under $1000"

I don't feel like finding sources, but I heard/read it in several places. Talking about this system being more then that would seem to be pointless since they've said it would be under $1000. (Which probably translates to $999.99)

 

I've heard that too, but then that seems to leave out a SSD option which should bump it to more than $1000 if it starts at $799 base... so $200 of upgrades leaves us with free lid choice between black/gray, maybe 2GB ram to 4GBRam, maybe 320GB to 500GB HDD, and processor...I dunno, I feel like a $1000+ should and will be available. Options are always good.

I noticed the black lid is a fingerprint magnet, like whoa. I'm curious what smokey gray looks, since I don't like the silver look on the M17x.

 

Just a heads up, the iso image mounted using daemon tools does NOT work in some games.....Gears of War needed the original disk as does Crysis (but for Crysis I know you can get a no-cd crack)

 

I'm just wondering: if they state a SSD drive why can't they mean something small like a 32GB SSD? IIRC 32GB SSDs are only about $100 instead of something like a 128GB or 256GB which cost in excess of $200.

 

most 128gb ssd's are around $300-$400

a 32gb would be too small to be practical...the OS alone is half that (these will ship with windows 7 for sure)

 

I don't know, it really sounded like they had a goal of saying "all this for under $1000 fully decked out"

I'm not saying they wont have more options, I'm just saying they kept repeating the price point as below $1k so some of these options may be "add your own".

 

when will it be available for ordering?

 

I think what they meant by "fully decked out" is you get the highest CPU and GPU, 2GB of RAM, and some regular hard drive.

 

word on the street (and it is reliable) is 2/2, 2/5 at latest

 

wow, thats good news !

i am eager to get my hands on the m11x =P

 

I haven't had a bad experience with steam but i just like the fact that i can't install a game on various machines especially when you have a few of them! I prefer to buy the disk or buy it from online isos or other means which i will not say. Before i played empire total war it would run very quickly now of course older games even the medieval one, but then the updates are ridiculous, my connection stinks at times and i hate the fact that i must have to be online to play the game i find it really really stupid the private world is dying very fast. Empire total war takes forever to run on high end hardware, and now i hear about mass effect 2 will only allow you to run the game on different times only three of them sheesh again other means will have to be taken. I run gta IV, cod 4, and some other games on different machines i own because i like to benchmark. I feel that steam would be a lot better if valve didn't own them they should buy themselves out.

 

I have over 70 games on steam, around 50-60% of them are installed in 3 machines.
I buy a new pc every 3-6 months and you can trust me on this:
- You can install your game on any pc with steam.
- You don't need to be online to play (online the FIRST time, 10 sec for server recognition, even a 36k phone modem can do it easily).
- You need to download the game ONCE. Then you don't need to download anymore.
- You don't need to patch if you don't want to (uncheck a cross in option-> voila).
- But you can't play the same game on different PC...As you're not supposed to with one CD version of the game.

When I change my SSD on my PC (often), It takes on afternoon for the drive to transfer 70 games from one HDD to another.
During the operation, steam is keeping ALL MY SAVES, ALL MY MODS etc.
The same operation with material disc would be extremely long and painful.

You can also backup your save to Steam server...Very convenient feature.

Finding the no-cd for the game your purchazed is unbeliverable, you often get spyware, virus and you need to find another no-cd for each patch!

Today game also are most of the time not finished at release, so you often have an incomplete cd version with bugs...

Every thing is patched and ready to play with steam, you have also everything ready for multiplayer without the need of extra software or anything.

My only complain with steam is that I live in Japan and very often, the game cannot be purchazed because of copyright problem...
But steam has nothing to do with that and I hope in the future it will be solved. If you live in the USA, this is no brainer IMO.

But I agree that if your connexion is low, downloading the whole game is very painful...However very often steam allow you to start to download BEFORE release, it gives you some time...
A last thing...Click right on your game on steam and click on brun CD..., You have your CD material copy. And you can burn again if you lost it...

 

save your money and nerves, use torrents

 

Firstly, No-CD cracks are perfectly safe if you know where to look. I'm not going to post a certain site here because I'm pretty certain that it's against forum rules to post links to a site containing pirated content, but this certain site is highly reliable. Plus, all of the main torrent sites have a 'comments' section-if it has a virus in it, chances are that someone will have posted as such in the comments.

Secondly, if it's a single player game then there's often little reason to patch it, and the vast majority of multiplayer games don't require a disk to play anyway.

 

I saw this and thought it's interesting to note..

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/25/core-i5-i7-roundup-panasonic-fits-core-i7-in-netbook-chassis/

i7UM in a smaller form factor and an i5 in a 14.1". I know 11.6" is much smaller than a 14.1, but 14.1 is a rather smaller laptop size as well. an i7 in a netbook sized computer is great to hear as well. Heat and cooling is a different discussion though as they're not released. Shipping Feb. 17th so hey who knows.. just more fuel to the fire for i5's in the M11x I hope =)

 

awesome thanks...and how long does it usually take to ship from alienware/dell (particularly dell canada if you know anything about that)

 

I was doubting about getting such a small laptop, but my exams are going so terrible, that I've decided to actually attend the classes this time. So...I will need a small laptop (I can barely read my own writing). And, if the price with warranty won't go above 1000-1200 € i'm definitly going to take this alienware. Since a sony vaio y for example will cost 800€, I might aswell add a few 100 euros.

This way, I'll have an alienware system (paying 2-3000 for an alienware or any laptop is something I won't do since I value money too much) which I can/will afford, i'll have an actual use for it (a few posts back i didn't know what to do with a small laptop), and...I'll have something to play the newest games with.

If those 3 factors aint enough to convince myself...then i don't know ^^

 

Thanks for the info.

Wow. Just to put this is one sentence. Panasonic are releasing a 10.4" netbook (CF-R9) in mid-February with an 18W ULV Core i7-620UM.

IMO, if Alienware don't release the M11x with the option of this processor (let alone the ULV i5), they'll lose a lot of credibility. I know the R9 is a bit on the chunky side for a netbook but it's actually smaller than the M11x.

At this stage, ULV C2D = Absolute and utter fail.

 

Well with all these options out, it would look likely that the M11x will have a ULV i5/i7.

As rpg-XPS says above, Alienware would lose some serious credibility if it doesn't.

I think they didn't have one in for CES either because they're wasn't time to develop it for an i5/i7 once they could do so, or that they just couldn't get the chips from Intel to develop the notebook with before CES.

 

Thanks to this thread, I am now in a tough situation. This thread has more or less convinced me that if the M11x doesn't house an i7 I may not buy it. At least not right away...

I hope they monitor this forum and change their plans right now if using Core 2 Duo lol

 

Well steam isn't that bad i just read an article on how more gamers are going for windows 7 with steam and how windows xo is finally loosing its glory finally sheesh. Anyway, i just don't like the fact i have to be online for everything sometimes i don't like to be online when gaming and sometimes i can't be which sucks when it comes to cod 6, i don't want this to continue on and on with having to be online for everything what is this the cloud or something? I have to agree this thread will die soon due to the fact its the same thing over and over again about the processors etc.. Just wait it out only another week and a day, and remember just like evilcorsair said that, i don't do much so having dual 3870s is great than others same thing with actual netbooks due to the economy and what people do they buy netbooks its good enough for them, just like a su7300 is good enough lol. It would be nice and i have to agree they will have a core i5 in there.

 

are people just not reading when we say you do not HAVE to be online with steam?

 

About steam...eventhough it offers great pricing I still have a weird feelling about it. I started buying games as a kid, which came in a nice box (well the boxes with nintendo games were still carton rofl..but they still looked nice) and a book. Something you could hold.
The fact that you can download a game with steam, but not put it on another pc is ... not my thing, although i'm sure you can bypass it.
I rather buy a game, which I can hold in my hand, and install it with magicdisk on my harddrive, instead of using steam.

I'm sure lots of people love steam, but i'm also sure lots of people don't like it for both logical, and unlogical reasons (like wanting to 'hold' something rofl).

Alienware made a decision by not giving us a disk reader, but I wonder...how much 'alien/advanced' their technology is, when you compare to (yes here we go again) to sony which does manage to put a lot of hardware in the z for example. Eventhough its a higher price...its still gives us the idea that sony can do that even alienware engineers cant, which ... kinda makes the name alienware, not so 'alien' anymore.

 

I get what you mean about having a "boxed" copy like for a shelf or Collecting or whatever, but the part where you say that you can't put it on another PC is false. I had two laptops and installed basically most of my games on my main computer as well as my work laptop. You can install them on as many computers as you want, as long as you're logged in. You can only play one at a given time though. Although I would guess this can be bypassed by doing offline mode, but I'm almost always connected so can't help you there man.

Interesting point about the ALienware name, never thought about why that name was there.. advanced technology lol. Anyway ALienware is ahead of the curve in putting the new stuff into their products, and their cooling system seems to be very good. Just hoping the M11x follows these lines in using newer tech and R&D. they did say they've focused a lot of energy into the thermals which is good to me.

 

I read some guy saying its only possible to put those games on 1 pc, since thats not true (if you are correct), thats definitly a bonus.

I also think that this m11x will have far superior cooling, compared to the thin sony, we all know what strong hardware in a small package means: the hard part is not stuffing it all inside a small chassis, but preventing it from overheating.

 

you can put the games on any pc u want, you just can't play them on both computers at the same time. afaik

 

yup you can download them on as many computers as you want. If I had 10, I could download for example Modern Warfare 2 on all ten computers.. I'd just only be able to play from one at a time.

 

Boxes are nice when you first get them. Then you lose them and you realize they had your CDKEY on them and you need to buy the game again.

Steam keeps the games forever, even if your PC is stolen your Steam account will always have your games and cdkeys available for download.

 

Unless they steal your Steam account. Anyway, Steam is great. I will not buy any game outside of Steam. In fact I will never buy a game outside Steam (unless not available) especially with those crazy 80% off sales. I have about 7 games or so, all great, for under $25 total.

Now, can we get some more comments and speculation on the M11x and leave Steam on the sidelines?

 

yea so this m11x better have an i series processor ......or something

 

with all those other companies saying they got iX stuff coming out, I would expect this M11x to

big letdown if not