One of our resident boys gives us his view on the attractive Dell Alienware M11x:

Dell Alienware M11X

The Alienware mx11 is a curious little beast: a fully-powered laptop in the form-factor of a netbook, that packs more power in its graphics card alone than most device of this size can yield in toto. Alienware are, of course, famous for building brashly over-powered gaming rigs for serious gamers with big budgets. Despite its size, the M11x fits comfortably into the Alienware range.

Although the machine is only 11 inches across, it fairly bristles with fancy coloured lights and gurning alien heads, while the box and keyboard are covered in curious occult symbols that presumably say “This way up” in Alpha Centauri. This is a laptop that says “I have too much disposable income, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

From a hardware point of view, the device is almost impeccable. As with any Alienware machine, you get great build quality and a whole bunch of added extras. The M11x looks like Darth Vader’s netbook, and is reassuring weighty. The keys are rubberised (and backlit, naturally) and have a nice action to them. My only criticism of the keyboard is that it’s too small, and my arms began to cramp, but hey – it’s only 11 inches wide, so what can you expect? The built-in webcam does the job, and there are more output ports than seem possible, with both HDMI and DisplayPort alongside the VGA out. An SD card reader makes a nice addition to a well-considered spec, but there’s no CD drive. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a problem – a CD drive would be a useless encumbrance on a netbook  - but ordinarily I wouldn’t want to install Crysis on a netbook. The tight compromise between size and functionality rears its ugly head here, and while it’s not a killer, it’s an irritation.

The machine ships with Windows 7, and comes preinstalled with AlienWare’s fancy control panel, and a fascinating facial recognition system called AlienSense. This provides biometric login based on images from the webcam – not only can you use your face to sign in instead of a username and password, but the machine can lock itself if a stranger starts twiddling while you’re away. It’s not foolproof, and it refuses to let me sign in with a beard, but it’s a cool little gimmick that adds to the futuristic aesthetic of the device.

Games, however, are the raison d’etre for the M11x, and this is where the machine really does sparkle. I was skeptical that the 1.3Ghz CPU would be able to take the punishment of a serious game, but it more than makes up for it with the graphics card, and it turns out to be the right trade-off to have made. Crysis ran better than expected in medium performance mode; while the sound was screwy, I’m willing to blame the drivers, and the video was flawlessly smooth and detailed, and I was able to run Rainbow Six: Vegas II at 35 fps even at the maximum resolution of 1366 * 768 with detail turned up to highest.

It’s difficult to give an objective review of this machine, because I don’t understand who might buy it. It’s a great little toy, and I can’t fault it technically, but it’s hard to see why the world needs an ultra-portable gaming laptop – even one so beautifully executed as this. There’s no way that the trackpad is going to be useful in an Unreal match, so you’ll need to pack a mouse, and find a place to set yourself up which makes the whole concept a little moot.

That said, the M11X has enough horsepower to be a gaming rig, and it certainly looks the part. Ultimately, it’s a neat little device in search of a product – category, but if you’ve got the cash to spend on a new toy, it’s way cooler than an iPad.

Overall – 4/5