ALIENWARE AREA-51 M5790 REVIEW

Desktop Replacement Notebook from Alienware, this one is an economical option for a Gaming notebook, and is at an initial price of $1,200.

Design
The notebook has been given a deep glossy look, and a shiny silvery finish. There is the Alienware logo along with the alien head on the top, which glows blue when the laptop is on. They keyboard is a nice full size, a must for every gamer out there. There are additional keys above the keyboard which have various functions like the Power ON. The screen is a WUXGA, 17” and it offers great color reproduction and quality. Presenting a vibrant and clean feel, it can support a maximum resolution of 1920x1200. The screen has a great viewing angle and absolutely no problem was faced while viewing it from different locations. The adapter port and one USB port reside on the left and Firewire , 3 USB and Ethernet port on right. A DVI port has also been provided at the back of the laptop, which has an advantage over the traditional VGA.

Performance
The laptop has an Intel Core-2-Duo T5600 processor, 1GB RAM and 256MB ATI Radeon Mobile x1800. The laptop performs well and you can carry out a fair amount of tasks simultaneously, without any lag or slowdown. It scored a 4,411 in PCMark 05 and 2,625 in 3DMark 06, which is an average score for a gaming notebook. The notebook could play latest games at medium settings easily, but faltered at higher settings. The sound system of the notebook deserves a special mention, because the speakers of very good quality and it also includes a sub-woofer at the bottom as well. The sound-card was a bit of a setback though, and I had a feeling, that the speakers could perform better had the card been better. The battery is a plain-jane, with lasting around 1 hr and 30 mins.

Conclusion
The performance is good but there is definite scope for improving it. The price is a definite plus for a notebook as powerful as this, and the features and configuration is justified by the price tag.

Pros
+ Good design
+ Good performance-price ratio
+ Superb screen viewing angle

Cons
- Poor battery life
- Sound card limits the speaker power.