The Official m15x Owners Lounge

Hey, new to the forum for posting but I've been reading often to figure out what I should go with. And just ordered it earlier today, hopefully the 29 days will pass by faster than I hope.

Display: 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p)
System Lighting: Alienware® AlienFX® System Lighting - Fuchsia
Video/Graphics Card: 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800M GTX
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 1024MB
Operating System (Office software not included): Windows Vista® Home Premium
Notebook Tuners and Remotes: Without Media Center Remote Control or TV Tuner
System Drive: 200GB 7200RPM (16MB Cache)
Optical Drives : 8x Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Wireless: Internal Intel® Wireless 4965 a/b/g/Draft-N Mini-Card
Sound Card : Internal High-Definition Audio with surround sound
Keyboard Options: AlienFX® Illuminated Keyboard

 

Hey man welcome to the forum.. Congrats on your AW purchase
I'm looking forward to ordering one with the exact same config so keep us updated with any +ves or -ves..

 

Hey, welcome to the forum, congrats on your m15x purchase.

 

Hello for anybody that has a 8700GT card in the m15x, I would appreciate if you could answer the following questions:

1)How is the performance with the 8700GT in crysis
2) What settings can you run it to have a smooth experience (Crysis)
3) Are the visulas good? (Crysis)
4) Did you turn on DX10 in Crysis?

Thank you very much,
Xenon

 

@D4rkMisFit
Time seems to pass slower when you're waiting for something like a m15X
Congratz anyway.

 

Congrats D4rkMisFit on your m15x purchase. Hope you pst a review

 

Ah I made it! It took me 3 days of reading on my breaks but I just didn't want to post until i read everything on this thread.

I visit notebookreview all the time but this is my first post on this forum. First off, thanks to everyone for your comments/video/photos; they were much appreciated.

I ordered my m15x a little over a week ago:

Display: 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p)
System Lighting: Alienware AlienFX System Lighting - White
Video/Graphics Card: 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 2.6GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 1024MB
Turbo Cache Memory: Intel Turbo Memory (1GB) – Accelerate Data Transfer Speed
Operating System (Office software not included): Windows Vista Ultimate
Notebook Tuners and Remotes: With Express Card Media Center Remote Control
System Drive: 200GB 7200RPM (16MB Cache)
Optical Drives : 2x Dual Layer Blu-ray Disc Burner (BD-R, DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Wireless: Internal Intel Wireless 4965 a/b/g/Draft-N Mini-Card
Sound Card : Internal High-Definition Audio with surround sound
Keyboard Options: AlienFX Illuminated Keyboard
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service
AlienRespawn: AlienRespawn v2.0 Recovery DVD – Windows Vista® Edition
Power: Additional Battery – 6-cell Smart Bay Battery

At $4409.71 (a little over $4500 counting the 4GB GeIL from newegg), this goes down as my most expensive laptop yet. I hope i absolutely love the 1200p screen, that i won't regret not getting the x9000, and that it's not too heavy for travel.

They say I'll get it on March 18th but I'm not holding my breath.

 

welcome to the club! march 18th.. that's not too bad. only problem i saw from your spec is the turbo memory..
if you've read the threads, you'll find that it's not really that great and as a matter of fact slows the laptop down. didn't mean to bring you down, so i hope things will go smoothly for you!

 

yeah, i did read that and i appreciate your tip.

From what i've read (and please correct me if i'm wrong), it mostly slows down startup, hibernation, and maybe shutdown. I don't really need my system to be lightning fast at either of those. I have a t61p running T9300, 200GB, 4GB Ram, with the turbomemory and i didn't think it was particularly slow on startup or shutdown. I'm hoping that i'm right when i say that the performance loss is probably more significant on paper than actually perceived in practice.

That being said, I'm not necessarily looking for stronger/faster performance either. Running 32bit Vista with 4GB of ram, I wouldn't think the turbomemory would help much... although i understand that turbo is not really the same as your primary memory.

What i am hoping for is some boost in battery life. IF turbo memory works remotely as well as i hope - acting similar to hdd cache - i'm hoping it would allow my hdd to rest more and in turn squeeze a little more out of my batteries while doing lighter/similar things like web browsing, office suite, and the likes... maybe even things like photo editing where i would need to open the same DNG multiple times. I'm also hoping that Vista's SP1 and updated TurboMemory drivers will help the OS utilize it better. I might have too much hope for the technology right now though.

With all of this, I'm just hoping as i have not tested this before. Whether the battery gain it is worth the cost? I don't know and it's quite possible that it's not. As far as i know, having TurboMemory doesn't really negatively affect performance while running... if i see that it does, i can alway turn it off. I'm hoping that with the primary and smart bay batteries installed, the cumulated battery time gained would be significant enough to justify the $40 for turbo memory.

Again, i appreciate your comment and I too hope that i didn't make a bad choice.

Thank you.

 

I know that Sobs already asked this on multiple threads but has anyone confirmed whether the smart bay hdd for the m15x can be easily dismantled and the hdd switched out? Is it simply an enclosure/casing where the hdd can be accessed after removing a few screws or is it pretty much sealed?

 

Congratz nnugles for your anew m15x purchase. Post pictures when u get ut plz

 

Thanks. I'll post some as soon as i get it... is there anything specific you'd like to see or just general shots?

 

Yes Please, i would like to see the keyboard from top view, the back, the nameplate, a close of of the LCD Screen, and a Tilted view. Thanks a ton nnugles

 

Hmmm... a day after i ordered my m15x, the status jump to Phase 4: Pre Production. I'm still in phase 4 and i hear that phase 6 to 8 takes forever (with the possibility of being bumped back to earlier stages). I'm patient but I'm just going to wager that I'm not getting it on the 18th of this month.

What's the preferred way to upload photos here: add as attachments showing thumbs or larger inline img href to external host?

 

it'd be a safe bet.. nothing is certain with AW.. preferred way? showing the image straight here would be nice. so, uploading to a host, i'd say..

 

my m15 arrived this morning woohoo...

8800 GTX
T9300 2.5 ghz core 2 duo (penryn)
1920 x 1200 screen
4 gigs ram
320 GB HD
smart bay battery
alienfx lighting
bluetooth expresscard remote control

im currently rocking all pink lighting.

only real gripe is that this thing is kinda warm... even on integrated graphics

 

Grats! Glad you're enjoying it.

Yah, i figured it would be a little warm... that's why i also picked up a Thermaltake iXoft to pack with it. It's passive cooling and soft/flexible. I figured it would help keep heat off my lap, not drain power like the fan coolers, and I'd be able to pack it with my m15x flat or folded up without worrying it would scratch anything. I also picked up a Zalman NC1000 for it while it's on my desk.

 

Congrats Carnyl. Do you live in canada?

Can you please post pics? (LCD Screen, keyboard, tilted view,back, nameplate, and a different tilted view) pleasE?


thanks

 

Look at packers review there you'll find all those pics.

 

Did, i just need as much pics from as much people as possible, because im writing a major review once i gte my m15x, i include all pictures from people and me and then compare. and i also compare specs, and benchmarks.

 

mine has shipped from miami to NYC. i should have it by friday! im so exicted! i will post a fully video review here. i swear if this thing is powerful enough, im selling my consoles. one question though, can i purchase a blu ray smart bay drive now? how much money would that be? and also do they suck like people say?

 

I opted for the blueray burner on mine so you can expect me to say, "i don't think it's such a bad thing". I am one who don't want to run into a situation where i can't take some movies with me just because my laptop doesn't support it.

The upgrade to BR Burner was $400. I have no idea how much it would be just buying it but i wouldn't guess that it would be much more than that. Whether it's worth the price or not is up to you.

If you're concerned about Blue Ray versus HD DVD, I don't think you should be. As far as I know, BR won mid January to early February. The battle between HD DVD and BR is pretty much over. Although i do like Toshiba, Sony won the HD battle.

HD DVD was pretty much hoping to get Warner to give them a chance to take down BR (or at least a stalemate for a couple more years). Warner's final decision to support BR sealed the coffin for HD DVD. That left Universal, Paramount, and Dreamworks. Well Paramount recently swiched from HD DVD to BR... today Paramount released the last of it HD DVDs. Dreamworks have "unofficially" move over to BR but it doesn't really matter. BR won.

The longer that BR is top dawg, the harder it is for anyone else to ramp up for a fight even if someone comes out with a "better" media/technology. It's just not likely that we'll see a good rival to BR any time soon as far as HD media goes.

 

*sigh*
For some reason hd dvd sounded better to me. I hate sony.
I might get the bluray smartdrive next year as an addon

 

HD DVD was more consumer friendly from the start. It was cheaper, and it was more advanced in that the discs and players were able to go online, download updates, and could support picture in picture special features. Blu-ray just got these features recently, yet hardly any discs or players support them. All the people that bought first generation players will never be able to take advantage of them, and their players can never be upgraded. The PS3 and computer drives are the only ones that were able to just get a firmware upgrade to support the new disc features.

In the end, the consumer lost and yet they don't realize it. Sony over charged for their products and were behind in sales yet they paid off the studios to switch. What a shame.

I had both formats (ps3 and hd-dvd xbox drive) so I wasn't too hurt by the result, but I was hoping for hd-dvd to win. Cheap media with the same quality isn't a bad deal...

 

yeah but has blu ray really won? it has not yet been accepted by the public. 95% probally still use dvds. Maybe somthing else even better will come out and crush blu ray. i have a ps3 as well.

EDIT: and i almost forgot about digital downloads. Hell, they took over the music industry.

 

I personally was a fan of Blu-ray, both being a Sony fanboy (not in terms of playstation though, but rather their TVs/other home electronics) and also because of the increased storage capacity of Blu-ray (yes, HD DVD technology did start getting to sizes that Blu-ray could hold, but at the same time, Blu-ray technology was also evolving to have bigger sizes)

 

It has *won* in as much as any HD format could have won (if HD DVD won it would also have this same problem of consumer adoption; it's common to both)

 

Sure thing! I can't do it tonight though, i've got a lot to do for tomorrow. Anyways, I remember how much I loved seeing new pics posted when i was waiting for mine (it feels like just yesterday! lmao) .... i have to reiterate though, it looks a LOT better in person. Except for the light pipes ... i can almost see why they didnt want to activate them on some. LOTS of bleeding around edges.. uneven painting on the rim... good thing i don't really care about that as much. The system is a beast. My included benchmarks (havn't had a chance to run this tests myself yet) included 10,272.00 3dmark06 3d marks, 148.0 fps in Doom 3.

and yup, i live in Canada. Got international priority shipping from fedex (didn't choose it, actually chose ground shipping)... shipped friday, arrived here this (monday) morning at 9:45ish

 

That will be quite a job. Good luck doing that!!


edit: congratz to you Carnyl

 

This is simply not true. Against my advice, my g/f purchased a 1st generation Sony BR player. I've already updated its firmware several times. Sure, it requires the user to burn an iso to a DVD, but it can be done by the consumer. Alternately, Sony will send you an update DVD free of charge upon request.

 

Do you still advise to not get a BR player? Most people who I've spoken to have usually told me they dislike BR... but most of those people don't actually own one themselves (i guess because of the disliking part).

I've always wanted to hear from the people who own BR players, if they dislike it as much as the people who don't own BR players tell me i should... and if so, why? I ask simply because I just don't know of all the bad points and I have a feeling the people around me here don't either.

The BR burner i ordered on my m15x will be my first HD player so my reason for getting it is simply because i didn't know of a reason not to (other than price i guess but i'll get over it eventually). I planned on going HD and since HDDVD is out of the picture, BR it is. IF some new hip format comes out and stomps BR (i doubt any time soon), I'll have to check back with AW to see if they'll offer the smart drive that will handle those disks. In the meantime, i'll keep my firmware up to date and enjoy the drive and wait for BR-R price to drop significantly (as if that is going to happen any time soon).

 

sorry if this has been asked, but would it be possible in some way to switch to the new intel chipset later on?

 

for me, personally, i don't own BR player.. and not going to get one anytime soon. i'm used to normal dvd players. blue ray discs are for HD entertainment . it works best with super huge HDTVs and i don't have an HD tv. and having it on a laptop is pretty useless in my opinion, if you're going to watch a movie.. but i guess a good use is the blue ray burner.. 50Gb of storage.. you can burn a lot of stuff on it. but that's pretty much it IMO..

and as for new media formats, i don't think anything new will be coming out in the next 5 years at least.. BR just came out and they're trying to warm people up to it. so don't worry about that.

in short: i don't get blue ray and am satisfied with normal dvd. good to have if you want to burn huge files on a single dvd.

edit: this just came to me.. i'd start buying blu-ray when they cram tv series in it. imagine having the whole 10 season of friends in just, what 5 BR! i think that'll be awesome.. normal quality would be fine with me.

 

I have 5 computers in my house and I manage about 70 more at different locations (some as a part of my job and others just for the heck of it). I deal with a lot of files, disk images, etc... this was one of the main reasons why i think the BR burner would be nice. Sure i can get one for my desktop, and i probably will... but having one with me would be very convenient. I currently carry around 2x 250GB WD Passport drives with me most of the time... along with my trusty cruzer titanium. On top of that, I've almost filled up 2.5 TB on my home setup. Having the ability to burn 50GB is real nice.

I concur! I've always wanted them to do this. It's really annoying when you own 10 seasons of friends and then someone misplaces 1 disk. Having it all on fewer disks would mean less to keep track of and maybe less likely to lose.

Oh the BR Burner would be nice for my photographs, it would be nice to be able to shoot a wedding and store all the jpegs and DNGs onto one disk instead of 2-3 DL DVDs that I'm doing now.

 

@ NNugles - see.. you've just answered your own question! you should definitely get it then! get BR with your laptop and make life more easy for youself.

yeah.. i know what you mean with lost dvd's.. that's so annoying..
they should really start doing that..

 

hey all. I am new to the forums...became a member after falling in love with this beast of a laptop. Mine was just shipped out earlier t oday and should arrive friday (hopefully). Upon receiving it, i was planning on making a few videos for all you patiently waiting people as i could not stand searching countless hours for hte last month straight to seeing the same few videos on the web and throught the forums everyday. any specific videos you guys would like to see one the m15x?

 

First off congrats and welcome! I think people like seeing gaming videos.

 

@XxRmMxX: Well we currently have videos for COD:4, Test Drive Unlimited, UT3 and Crysis here and here..
Would be great to see it running on BioShock and umm.. Dang I can't think of anymore..

Oh and to everyone else congratulate Dionysus AGAIN !! His 2 Daughters and him (well his voice at least) are ON THE AW WEBSITE !!

On the m15x Product Detail Page under User Videos right here !!
Theres also another one but I can't recall the user's name.. Anyone owning up ?
Enjoy !!

 

Congratz again (you posted this in more threads though I forgot in which 1 I answered it) but to be on the save side:
I'ld like to see a RTS game with loads of objects if you know what I mean (if not plz ask)

 

@xxrmmxx

Thanks for videos. be sure to include links also some pics please. Congrats on your m15x order. and when it arrives, can you tell me if it came in perfect condition? (no scratchs or dead pixels)


Thanks ,and grats.
Michael

 

I got my m15x review unit today, and holy cow it's awesome . . .

-Great keyboard. It's quiet and has a slightly rubbery feel. Very nice. The backlighting is super cool.

-AlienFX ROCKS. You can change the whole laptop's theme and make it look how you want.

-Extremely light. I still can't believe how small this thing is for the power it packs. Very portable for its size.

-Relatively quiet fans at idle. Haven't tested at load yet.

-Love the smart bay, I have a 320GB drive in it at the moment.

-It just looks and feels awesome. This is the best 15.4" notebook I have tested.

 

Do you know when you might post a full review on it Chaz?

 

Probably within two weeks. Before I post the review you're welcome to ask any specific questions.

 

Great to see review units finally out there!

Can you check a couple specific things in your review?

- What LCD panel manufacturer/model is used,
- Run GPU-Z, Everest 4.20.1305 (latest beta version found here http://www.lavalys.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2998&st=0&gopid=16875&#entry16875 ), and also ntune and check all GPU core clock speeds, and test at high temps to help with some of the confusion going around lately about the underclocking thing. I hope your unit didn't have the troubles that some users are having with this! And if it does, I hope AW issues a quick fix. I'd be worried about this too, if I were a potential buyer.

 

Sure thing.

1. Monitor is "LPL1801". I have the WUXGA matte screen, which is beautiful.

2. The core clock is 500MHz, the shader 1250MHz, and the memory 800MHz (1600MHz DDR). Both Everest and nTune report the same thing. Do you still need me to test with GPU-Z? I don't have any games installed yet to check temps.

 

chaz... could you plz check for the underclocking GPU issue that myself, hemlok, and GRB have been posting on. We ran crysis and kept gpu-z open (i did it in a windowed mode so i could see both at the same time... granted i have a 1920x1200 screen so it's easier to keep the windowed crysis at larger res. Anyways, we noticed that the gpu clocks DROPS to something like half its speed at gpu temps between 80-85 degrees C...... causing significant loss in performance. As soon as the gpu returns to below that, everything clocks back up. All three of us are sending ours back because of it..


Also, how are you finding typing quickly on the m15x? My keys were not very responsive... even when typing "hard" and quickly, it wouldn't register some of the keypresses.. foudn it very annoying, and am hoping they will fix this as well while it's there.

pretty please again. and thank you.

 

I'm having no problems typing, and I type fast. I have not noticed any issues with the keyboard thus far.

I am installing Crysis now and will download GPU-Z.

 

thanks a ton! must have been another of the "unique" problems with my system.. lol

anxious to hear about the gpu-z results. My money is on you not having any problems like we did but it'd be interesting to know.

 

chazm how is it's keyboard and chasis flex compared to the m9750?

 

How about the touchpad? Is it as bad as what the previous m15x have said that it is?