When it comes to products for review it’s been a great start to 2010 for me! I never thought Alex would encourage my gaming obsessions as much as she has, but believe me I’m delighted by it!
This product, the Alienware M15x Gaming Laptop, is possibly as close to my perfect review item as I could ever hope to get – just unpacking the box had me salivating! Every little detail seems to have been thought about, with the alien theme running throughout. Everything from logos & design on the box, extras like a cap & mouse mat (branded), right down to the alien-esque writing in the user manual which has been designed to look like leather bound parchment. Very slick!

Before I go onto the main part of the review, let’s get one thing straight, this beauty is not a normal laptop, if you want an office work horse or an internet browser, this is probably not for you. It is a laptop, but portability is way down its priority list! This is a sturdy, super-spec’d, monster of a machine. It knows what it’s built for, and boy does it do it well!

If I was picking for faults, an extra couple of USB slots would be great, but to be honest what it gives instead more than makes up for that lack, and, with a machine you probably won’t move too often, plugging in a USB hub is a perfectly acceptable solution.

I’m not going to bore you with all the technical specs, you can read them here, but I will just mention its Intel Core i7 processor, up to 8GB of DDR3 1333Mhz Memory, support for Solid State Drives, 15.6” 1080P Display & Blu-ray Disc Drive – Phwoar!

Set up was a dream; supplied with Windows 7 64-bit (for better memory & processor usage) it loaded seamlessly, and so quickly that I barely noticed the login screen. This can be customised using Alienware’s Sense product to allow face recognition login! How cool is that! It will also do auto user switching, whereby a change of face causes a switch of profile, and if you’re ultra security conscious you can even set it to lock if a ‘known’ face goes out of view for more than a set time!

Also included is Alienware’s FX control panel, from here you can customise every light on your M15x. Fancy blue lights on the speakers, red in the glowing head on the cover, green for your touch controls (more on these in a mo), go for it. Even better, the keyboard has 4-sets of lights underneath, so you can have a range of colours shining through! Ok, so it doesn’t add anything to the power of the unit, but wow, it looks fabulous.

Now, about these touch controls... Along the top right above the keyboard are a row of lights. Very pretty was my first thought, after which I ignored them, until I needed to unload my CD that is! After running my finger all round the case I found myself scratching my head – No eject button! And then I twigged, those pretty lights are actually touch sensitive buttons, eject, volume controls etc, all literally at your fingertips!

So, moving on from looks, what about performance?

What can I say – it ran like greased lightning! (This is the polite description folks; I felt my somewhat more colourful language should be kept private)

Proving that sometimes Windows will work exactly how you expect it to, it found and connected to my wireless LAN without a hitch, and I was happily file sharing across my network with ease.

I loaded up some processor hungry, graphics intensive games (Assasin’s Creed & Dragon Age Origins if you’re interested) and played for several -days-, erm hours. Not a time lag in sight, no judder, no stutter, and absolutely no crawl. Amazing!

To get that sort of performance out of a machine that can also be used for the boring stuff (if you really must) was great, and online, even Farmville on Facebook didn’t manage to make IE8 act like a snail! (which is certainly more than I can say for my usual laptop) This baby packs a lot of umph!

You’ve probably guessed I kinda liked this machine! It has power, grace, speed & style, everything you could want from a gaming laptop, all wrapped up in a shiny black box (or silver or red if that’s more your thing).

Putting it back in its box was one of the hardest things Alex has ever required me to do, and that’s saying something! If you’re a PC gamer, this is the, err, bees knees (more self censorship!). Yes its pricey, but so worth every penny!

Available, and fully customisable, from from www.alienware.co.uk with the lowest spec'd model starting at £999 (and you can easily double that with all the extras!)