Alienware M11x: World’s Smallest Gaming Laptop
by Jarred Walton on March 30, 2010 8:16 AM ESTAlienware M11x Design
The M11x design conveys a futuristic style, with an angled front and rear on the chassis similar to the M17x. Available in either "Cosmic Black" or "Lunar Shadow" (our test system is the grayish "lunar" option), the M11x also has design elements like zoned LED lighting, though there aren’t quiet as many zones as on the larger chassis. You can individually set the various zones to one of 20 colors (including black/off); the zones on the M11x consist of the Alienware logo beneath the LCD, keyboard backlighting, front grille LEDs, the Alien head above the keyboard, and the (barely visible) indicator lights for WiFi and Caps Lock. The keyboard, front grille, and Alienware logo can all be set to a solid color, a shifting color, or blinking (which is just as horrid as it sounds). The color fade effect would be a lot better if it cycled smoothly between the colors; right now, it fades from the first color to the second color and then jumps back to the start color before fading again. Finally, the eyes on the alien head above the keyboard light up for hard drive activity. Note that the alien head on the top of the laptop always glows white (as far as we can tell). If you get the either of the optional Alienware TactX mouse and keyboard, you can also control lighting on those devices via the included AlienFX software. Alienware sent us the TactX mouse with a 5000 dpi laser sensor and braided cable: it looks nice and works well, but it's tough to justify the $100 price tag.
The chassis is made of magnesium alloy with plastic (or at least painted) surfaces and it feels very durable. All of the major surfaces also have a matte finish, the exception being the LCD and its bezel, which is covered by a single sheet of glossy plastic. (Groan….) One nice feature is the large palm rest and touchpad—they’re significantly bigger than most other 11.6” laptops. The battery pack is only accessible if you remove the bottom cover, which is one way Alienware manages to cut down on the size of components while still packing a 63Wh battery into an 11.6" chassis. Thankfully, even with the CPU overclocked you can expect to get upwards of 6 hours battery life (4+ hours of video playback) from the M11x.
Expansion options are reasonable, with three USB 2.0 ports (one powered), a mini FireWire port, and a flash memory reader. Video output options consist of all the major standards: VGA, HDMI, and DisplayPort—it’s nice to see two digital video outputs on such a small chassis. Not surprisingly, there’s no ExpressCard expansion slot, and there’s no eSATA either. The sole cooling vent is on the rear of the chassis, and the fan tends to switch between slow and faster speeds quite frequently—unless you’re playing games, in which case the fan spins at high speed the whole time. The maximum noise level from the fan isn’t particularly loud, but if you’re just doing office work or surfing the Internet (even with the discrete GPU disabled), the frequent changes in fan speed are definitely distracting. Dell would have been far better off setting the minimum fan speed a bit higher in order to avoid the need to bump up the RPMs every minute or so.
While the system looks great, there are a few areas where it falls a bit flat (pardon the pun). The keyboard has reasonably sized keys, but they’re packed close together and have a soft feel (which to me feels a bit mushy). My personal “gold standard” is the ThinkPad Classic keyboard, and the M11x keyboard is merely “okay” for long periods of typing. However, we need to be fair: compared to other 11.6” laptops, the keyboard on the M11x is far more comfortable to use. Acer and Gateway for example (1410/1810 and EC14 respectively) have flat keys that also lack separation and don’t have great action. Here, I find the large palm rest on the M11x makes it clearly superior to other netbooks and ultraportables. The colored LED backlighting also looks fantastic, and it's great for seeing the keys if you happen to be at a dark LAN party. If you like chiclet or beveled keys, you may not like the M11x keyboard much; I find the keyboard fatiguing (outside of playing games), but those with smaller hands and/or narrower shoulders would probably feel right at home. After the Lenovo T410, it's hard not to feel like this is a case of form over functionality. The keyboards are so close to the same size that Alienware could actually fit the T410 keyboard into the M11x—the T410 keyboard is only about 2% larger! Considering this is clearly a custom chassis and keyboard, for better or for worse Alienware chose this specific layout and design over other options.
Access to the RAM, hard drive, and other internal components is via a single large cover on the bottom of the M11x. Getting to the CPU/GPU requires dismantling the chassis, and there's not much point considering the default components. The battery is quite large and takes up most of the back-right section of the chassis; honestly, the only reason the battery isn't easily swapped out appears to be for aesthetic and/or frame integrity concerns. We're not sure how many people will miss the ability to easily swap out batteries on the road, but at least replacing the battery when it gets old won't require too much work (i.e. unlike the newer MacBooks).
Finally, as a gaming laptop one would expect most owners will want to play games on the M11x. It's certainly possible, but without an internal optical drive your options are a bit limited. Either you'll need to get games via a digital distribution service (i.e. Steam, EA Downloader, etc.) or you'll need an external USB DVDRW. We installed most of our games over the network, with local copies on a server, which does bring up another cut corner: Fast Ethernet. It's really quite pathetic to see "cheap" laptops like the Acer 1410/1810T come with Gigabit Ethernet while a "luxury" gaming laptop from Alienware chintzes out and provides Fast Ethernet. When we were installing 80GB of games over the NIC, yes, it definitely made a difference. Really, there's no reason any modern computer shouldn't come with Gigabit Ethernet; it's ubiquitous and cheap, and saving $0.50 by using Fast Ethernet on an $800+ laptop is silly.
There are certainly areas on the M11x that could be improved—most notably the LCD panel—but overall we're quite pleased with the design. It feels reasonably sturdy, looks sleek, and provides many good features. But what most of our readers really want to know is: how well does it run games? We've loaded up our standard selection of games and applications and put the M11x to the test. Interested in the world's smallest gaming laptop? Turn the page and let's get to the real meat of this review.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
My wife picked Corbin, and I got the middle name (after my one brother). Thanks! :)aodonald - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
I love my M11x. I ordered it the day they started taking pre-orders. Also I swapped out the HD for an Intel X-25 160GB SSD. Also using Everest CPU-ID mine says 1.73 Ghz, not 1.6. Also I think my Multiplier stays at 6.5 and doesn't drop to 6.Jarred I realize that you probably use clean images for all your benchmarking but something I think you should really point out to normal users here is how great the standard image of Windows included.
Compared to Sony, ASUS, Acer, HP this image is optimized, no bloatware other than the Alienware tools, which use only about 1-2% of the CPU. Alienware really treats the user nice by providing such an excellent Windows image.
I agree with the review though, Core i5/7, Optimus, glossy display, annoying fan while idle/browsing all detract from the best case scenario.
The fan is definitely the most annoying. Alienware/Dell if you read any of this please release a driver than enhances fan control. Louder but steady would be preferred over sporadic and crazy. Or give the user control :)
Overall I have fallen in love though, I use it way more to actually play games. I have a nice customer Core i5 750, but having a portable, small light computer is great. I love playing RTSs, Turn Based (Total War) and Batman on it, One game I have issues with it Empire Total War - the font isn't read well. Anyone else know how to fix this?
So many PC laptops out there are boring and terrible form factors. The extra thickness for a completely enclosed PC + battery is well worth it. I never swap batteries anyway. Goodbye disk drives! I've purchased everything on Steam or GOG.com for the last 18 months and can't wait for disc drives to die. Alienware did a great job with the computer look and feel. It is the gamer equivalent to the style and attention paid by Apple for the consumer (Minus the LCD…)
There really is no other laptop this cool and small out there for playing games!
JarredWalton - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
I actually run with the manufacturer install on all laptop tests; the only catch is that I uninstall any bloatware. That means antivirus, Internet security, etc. plus I disable some of the auto-start items that I don't need (automatic updates and webcam tools, for instance). But you're right about the M11x install being nice and clean. Other than the extra Alienware themes, you don't get a bunch of junk you will never use. You can have Alienware pre-install Steam and a few other items, and if you *want* internet security they have that as an option as well. Unlike many Dell (and other OEM) consumer laptops, there's an option for "none" on the security extras.CZroe - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
I'd love to get one of these because 12" and under notebooks are the only ones that will fit in my magnetic motorcycle tank bag and I've been wanting a gaming notebook to replace my 8.9" Acer Aspire one. So, I've been eagerly researching it since it was first announced.In my research, I've seen Alienware/Dell refer to it as an 11.6" "edge to edge" LCD panel. If here is truly a large bezel on all sides, just what do they mean by this?
Oh, and I'm sick and tired of seeing needlessly truncated right shift keys. There is plenty of room to shift the arrow keys down, you just have to be willing to make a non-rectangular keyboard module. Acer does it and it's hardly "L-Shaped." It doesn't curb my enthusiasm much considering that it is still nearly full size, but I still wanted to point it out.
The measurements indicate that it'll be a tight fit *IF* it fits, so I'm just waiting for it to show up at Best Buy so I can size it up for certain. I know a 13.3" notebook will not fit, so everytime someone suggests that they should have made it larger, I shake my head. I only home the successor sticks to this formula.
It's refreshing to finally see some decent coverage on the battery situation. Engadget's review just dismissively mentioned the internal battery as if we already knew about it, despite them never reporting on it! You have eased my concerns. My Aspire one's battery completely died (will not even pretend to charge) in barely more than a year, possibly due to a bad power plug, but my cheap replacement 9-cell battery gives me the freedom that only the m11x seems to compare with (9-hours).
JarredWalton - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
The "edge to edge" marketing speak really just means that there's a sheet of plastic on top of the LCD panel that extends from edge to edge. You can see this in the gallery images of the M11x:http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/623/alienwar...
By my measurements, the M11x is about the same size as a 16:10 AR 13.3" laptop already; that's why I suggest they should have just made a 13.3" laptop. I don't mean it should be larger, bur rather they should ditch the large LCD bezel and go with a narrow bezel, a 16:10 LCD panel, and preferably a 1440x900 native resolution. I know it would be tough to have to ditch the "Alienware" logo that sits right under the LCD, but seriously: do people care so much about branding that they would rather have the logo than a better LCD? Obviously the companies care about it, but I'm not advocating for the manufacturers.
In case you're wondering, the M11x has a diagonal chassis measurement of just under 14". An actual 14" laptop with a 16:9 AR display has a diagonal of around 15.6" which would put a 13.3" chassis right about 14.8" (give or take). A normal 11.6" LCD (without a bunch of wasted bezel space) has a diagonal of around 13" for the LCD with Bezel while the M11x LCD and bezel measure 14". So realistically a 12" panel would fit in the M11x without any difficulty, but they would probably need the chassis to be around .5" larger to fit a 13.3" LCD panel in it.
Anyway, if you have a laptop bag that can fit a 13.3" laptop, I'm positive it will fit the M11x (at least in diagonal measurements... the M11x might be slightly thicker than some 13.3" laptops).
Eidorian - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
I'm waiting for this product to mature in a revision or two. It's amazing to see it start off at $799 given Alienware's previous models. It falls in line above the Atom notebooks and still manages to hold its own against other CULV notebooks.My main interest right now is how well Battlefield: Bad Company 2 runs on it.
osideplayer - Monday, October 25, 2010 - link
Well it seems like the Nvidia 197.xx. will be the last drivers for the m11x R1. I went ahead aand purchased the laptop anyways. I was able to get it for 550 w/ the su7300 +4gb bgn and etc. I took this review and your newer one into serious consideration before i took the plunge, but relatively i wanted to ask, will its latest drivers and ssd increase frame rate performance. Now that ssd's are plumeting im looking to purchase one for my m11x. What would you say? Also i was curious... what drivers did u use for the graphics card. I noticed, on ur m11x r2 review, the frame rate referenced for the m11x were the same as this review. Thus either drivers made no difference or you did not have time update and retest.Either way i appreciate your review. Anandtech is one of the most reliable sources for thirough and comprehensive reviews. Way better than any video review. You guys really do things right.