By Bob Rankin
Would You Pay $5000 For a Laptop?
Would You Pay $5000 (or more) For a Laptop?
The Alienware M18x laptop is a heavyweight gaming machine, in more ways than one. Not only does it tip the scales at a whopping 13 pounds (not counting the 3 pound power brick), it also weighs pretty heavily on the wallet. The M18x starts at $1,999 (USD) but, with options, can easily exceed $5,000.
That eye-popping price includes a quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU overclocked to 4.0 GHz, dual Nvidia GTX 580M graphics adapters (each with 2GB of GDDR5 video memory), and 16GB of 1,600MHz DDR3 RAM. The M18x comes standard with a huge 18.4 inch display whose resolution is 1,920 by 1,080. A 3-megapixel webcam is embedded in the screen’s upper bezel and an illuminated Alienware logo is centered on the bottom bezel.
In fact, there’s another glowing Alienware logo on the back of the display, plus two backlit grilles on the front face of the chassis. The keyboard is backlit too. Software lets you adjust the colors and intensity of your personal light show. Big CPU, big RAM, big screen… that’s a hot rod by any standard, whether you’re talking laptop or desktop. Isn’t it amazing what $5,000 can do?
The M18x has a slot loading Blu-ray drive and twin, 7200 rpm 500 GB hard drives in RAID0 configuration, which increases performance by enabling parallel read/write operations. (You’d need a RAID1 configuration to keep shooting the bad guys in Modern Warfare if one drive fails.) For wireless networking, both 802.11/b/g/n and Bluetooth adapters are included. Ports include two USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, an HDMI input, an eSATA/USB combo port, an MMC/SD/MS-Pro card slot, and an ExpressCard reader, VGA, HDMI, and mini DisplayPort inputs, and a Gigabit Ethernet port.
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This excerpt is shared with permission from Bob Rankin.
