Dell Cedes Gaming Spotlight to Alienware
As one of the largest computer makers in the world, Dell has offered its own line of gaming machines for years. After Dell purchased Alienware, however, Dell’s XPS gaming line became blurred with its Studio multimedia computer line. Around this time last year, rumors began to circulate that Dell was planning to kill off its XPS line. Dell quickly put those rumors to rest and assured users that its XPS line was an important part of its brand despite the company’s ownership in Alienware.
Times have changed, however. Now we’re hearing reports that
Dell plans to kill off the XPS line with regards to gaming. Moving forward,
Alienware will be the official game face of the organization. As a company,
Alienware has catered to gamers for years offering powerful notebooks and
desktops as well as a line of peripherals such as keyboards and headphones.
As part of Dell/Alienware's gaming strategy, aggressive expansion will ensue. An “All Powerful” campaign is set to launch as the brand attempts to expand its reach from six countries to 35. The first machine to show off Alienware's new message is the M17x laptop.
The new M17x sports a 17-inch screen and checks in at $1,799 for the base model. This base config includes a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX260M GPU that can be upgraded to dual 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M GPUs. The standard rig also has an NVIDIA 9400M G1 GPU that supports Hybrid Power and provides for longer battery life when the big graphics card is not needed.
CPUs for the M17x range from the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz P8600 CPU all the way up to the Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core CPU. You’ll get 4GB of memory in this beast; up to 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM is available. The M17x has a 250GB 7200-rpm hard drive that you can upgrade to a 1TB 7200rpm drive or to a 512MB SSD if you so choose. The optical drive is a slot loading DVD burner with a Blu-ray option.
The M17x is no small machine, measuring 15.98 x 12.65 x 2.11 inches and weighing 11.68 pounds. Connectivity options include FireWire, four USB ports, an eSATA/USB combo port, ExpressCard Slot, and an eight-in-one memory card reader. DisplayPort, VGA, and HDMI outputs are also included.
