Alienware M11x Ultra-Portable Gaming Notebook Sneak Peek

During the Consumer Electronics Show which took place in early January of this year, we showcased a myriad of upcoming products in our coverage of the event. Of the literally thousands of things we saw at CES, however, we'd consider only a handful of them to be truly stand-out products. One of those geek-lust worthy products, at least in our opinion, was the slick Alienware M11x.

We gave you somewhat more than a glimpse of the M11x in our close-up look at the machine at Dell's display at the show, but we've now got one in house and will finally get to put it through its paces on our home turf...

  
Alienware M11x: Top and Bottom Views

Our initial thoughts on the final production model of the Alienware M11x is that it is even better than the engineering sample shown at the show. The metal casing of the machine is as sturdy and rigid as any we have seen on an ultra portable notebook, the backlit keyboard is excellent, with minimal flex, the touchpad is large and responsive, and the screen is top notch.

 
Alienware M11x: Right and Left Sides Views
 

 
Alienware M11x: Front and Back Views

The particular sample we'll be evaluating sports an 11.6" WideHD display, with a native resolution of 1366x768, a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M GPU, an Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 1.3GHz CPU, 4GB of Dual Channel DDR3 RAM, a 500GB SATAII, 7200RPM hard drive, HD audio, and an integrated 1.3MP Web Cam.

  
Alienware M11x: Opened Up and Keyboard Views

In the shots above, you can see all of the various connectors, vents and lighting on the Alienware M11x. The lid is adorned with a lighted / pulsating Alien head, while the underside is home only to a few decals and perforations for the cooling system and front-mounted speakers. The nose of the machine also has some perforations for speakers and lighting, while the back houses only the power connector and an air-vent. The right-side of the M11x features two USB ports, two headphone outputs and a microphone input. And the left side has one more USB port, VGA, HDMI, and DisplayPort outputs, an RJ45 LAN jack, a mini-Firewire port, and an integrated flash card reader.

We'll save more of the finer details and performance information for the full review, which will be posted in the not too distant future. For now, enjoy the geek porn while I put my feet up on the deck outside and fire up some Left 4 Dead 2 on this puppy...