Gamers looking for tried and true performance, the gold standard in reliable hardware, and the customer support of the Dell Empire go with Alienware’s ridiculously fast desktops and laptops. The Alienware Area-51 m15x is the current 15-inch display incarnation in Dell’s lineup of face-meltingly fast gaming laptops. With the exception of screen size, the Alienware Area-51 m15x is nearly identical to the Area-51 m17x in terms of tech specs. You’ll find key info and features of the Alienware Area-51 m15x on this page, but if you’re looking for a more in-depth account of the Alienware Area-51’s true capabilities, check out our review of the Area-51 m17x.

Alienware Area-51 m15x

The gamer with a need for portability that still wants to enjoy the graphical glories of modern gaming will want to take a look at the Alienware Area-51 m15x. It features the hardware of premier gaming machines with a tidy 15.4-inch display. It won’t rival a midsize laptop in terms of portability, but it’s lighter and smaller than the huge 17 and 20-inchers on the market.

Standout Features

• 1920 x 1200 resolution LCD display
• 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT video card
• 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme X9000 processor
• 4GB of RAM
• Blu-ray disc burner, DVD+/-RW, CD-RW optical drive

Features

The Alienware Area-51 m15x differs from its bigger mean brother largely in the video card arena. Because of a smaller frame and marginally older chipset, the Alienware Area-51 m15x is not SLI capable. That doesn’t mean you won’t get sound-barrier breaking frame rates and performance. The GeForce 9800M GT video card is the Rolls Royce of mobile GPUs. Crysis, Call of Duty: World at War, Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Sacred 2… You name the game, the Alienware Area-51 m15x can handle it without breaking a sweat.

The high resolution display ensures that video card’s hard work gets the respect it deserves. The 1980 x 1200 resolution puts the Alienware Area-51 m15x into 1200p HD territory. Tack on the Blu-ray disc player and the Alienware Area-51 m15x doubles as a portable theater megaplex when it’s not tied up in late night frag-a-thons.

As far as processors go, there’s not a more powerful dual-core on the market than the2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme. Add the support of 4GB of RAM and the Alienware Area-51 m15x is ready for NASA-level graphic and video editing.

Summary

The Alienware Area-51 m15x is a prestige notebook. There are faster notebooks out there, but very few are in its weight class. We’re more enamored of the Alienware Area-51 m17x, the larger Area-51, but can wholeheartedly recommend the Alienware Area-51 m15x to the gamer cum designer with an increased need for portability. Who wouldn’t appreciate the technological edge hardware designed on military black sites in the Nevada desert gives your game?

Take a look at our review of the Alienware Area-51 m17x for an idea of some of the benchmark scores and frame rates you can expect from the Alienware Area-51 m15x. We’ve got side-by-side comparisons of other brainstem-ravaging gaming laptops too.

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