Gaming laptops are a conundrum for many: with costs and sizes that are higher and larger than most mainstream users are willing to accept, they exist in a specialized upper echelon of the computer universe, a niche usually avoided by most. An affordable, small laptop that also plays games well is a rarity, and most people looking for a travel-friendly notebook simply leave off such hopes in exchange for a few more bucks in their pocket, and buy a gaming console or desktop gaming PC instead.
Processor 1.3 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 ULV
Memory 4GB; 1,066MHz DDR3
Hard drive 500GB 7,200rpm
Chipset Mobile Intel GM45 Express
Graphics Nvidia GeForce GT 335M + Intel GMA 4500MHD
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Dimensions (WD) 11.3 inches x 9.2 inches
Height 1.3 inches
Screen size (diagonal) 11.6 inches
Category Ultraportable
The compactness, especially in terms of width and depth, struck us upon removing the M11x from its box. The Alienware M11x is still a relatively thick ultraportable, especially considering that it lacks an optical drive, but its look is a lot cleaner and more streamlined than the M15x. Our silvery-gray unit (the M11x also comes in black) really only gives away its Alienware pedigree via a subtle black alien head logo on the back lid and its trademark angled-front profile with somewhat silly LED "headlights." To some degree, the squared-off bottom-heavy look of the M11x resembles an old-school portable DVD player. Its all-around smooth and clean lines make it an easy laptop to slide into a bag.
A powerful but not top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce GT 335M graphics card with 1GB of RAM is the M11x's real secret weapon, giving it enough gaming power to handle most mainstream titles. The M11x also has "hybrid graphics," meaning that with the press of a Function key the laptop will switch between its GT 335M GPU and less powerful but more battery-friendly integrated graphics, letting the M11x either be battery-conservative or a gaming workhorse. The switch causes the screen to black out for a few seconds, but otherwise is painless and doesn't require logging out or quitting programs. Still, you have to remember to switch, and the hybrid-graphics indictor icon isn't exactly prominent. Sadly, the M11x lacks newer on-the-fly Optimus graphics-switching technology recently announced by Nvidia, which would have been perfect on the M11x, but we have to admit that once you know how to do it, graphics-switching is easy.
