Alienware Fires Up New Flagship Notebook

Miami (FL) - If you have well more than $2500 to burn on a performance notebook, then there’s a new option at Alienware.

The new Area-51 m15x notebook in fact is priced just above where Dell’s highest-end 15.4" XPS notebook tops out. There are two versions available at this time - a pre-configured $2100 model with a Core 2 Duo T7500 CPU and an Nvidia GeForce Go 8700 GT GPU, 2 GB of memory as well as a 120 GB hard drive, but the more interesting version is a customizable system, which has a starting price of $2600.

It is always interesting to see what Alienware’s parent company, Dell, offers for the same cash and it is exactly this Area-51 m15x model which is used to highlight the differences between the two companies. Intel’s Core 2 Extreme 2.8 GHz processor is only available in the new Alienware, as is Nvidia’s GeForce Go 8800M GTX graphics processor as well as a 1920x1200 pixel 15.4" LCD. Also available is a 64 GB SSD ($875), Intel’s 1 GB on-board flash cache ($40), a Blu-ray writer ($400). Decked out with all the goodies, the notebook’s price tag will easily eclipse the $5500 mark and match the cost of a fully equipped 17" Dell XPS M1730.

In contrast to the Dell, the Alienware notebook is not available with a mobile broadband card.