Alienware's revamped 17-inch megagaming rig finally takes flight
The long-awaited 17-inch Area-51 m17x is finally up and available to order on Alienware's Web site.
(Credit:
Alienware)
Way back in November of 2007, Alienware told us about its rebooted gaming laptop series: the 15-inch Area-51 m15x and the 17-inch Area-51 m17x. We first got our hands on the 15-inch version a month later in December, and it officially went on sale in February of this year, but in all that time we never heard another peep about the 17-inch model--a design that's the mainstay of any gaming laptop lineup (the only 17-inch choice was the older m9750 model).
We're pleased to say the long-awaited 17-inch Area-51 m17x is finally up and available to order on Alienware's Web site, starting at $2,199 and easily topping the $5,000 mark if you totally trick it out. Noteworthy highlights include:
The Area-51 m17x's design is nearly identical to the 15-inch version, although with a black finish instead of silver. At the time, we said of the m15x: "The system is somewhat clumsy looking...and very fingerprint-prone. It's dorm-room chic, at best--we'd expect a laptop with the fastest components available to look a little more sophisticated."
But there was no arguing about the high-end components inside, or that this was an extremely powerful gaming laptop: "The combination of the 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme X9000 CPU and Nvidia GeForce 8800 GPU is a real winner, and the m15x is, overall, the fastest laptop we've ever tested."
