Alienware Aurora m9700

Field Testing Continued Life with the Aurora m9700

As is the case with any desktop replacement notebook, traveling with the system can be troublesome at best. As one can imagine, walking around with a 10lb weight strapped to their back is anything but desirable making many wonder whether the word "portable" should be banned from any and all marketing materials for notebooks of this size. Regardless, the Aurora m9700 more than makes up for its size and weight with performance and is a tradeoff we foresee many making with relative ease.

Bringing the system to work and back as well as having it accompany our group on our daily coffee runs, we quickly realized that the system is relatively easy to live with on the road. The system boots quickly, is always blistering fast, and is able to access wireless networks with ease thanks to the Realtek 802.11b/g wireless NIC. Performance and functionality aside, one of the biggest reasons to bring the Aurora m9700 along with you is to amuse yourself with the Sheer amount of attention the system receives. With such an aggressive aesthetic, it is nearly impossible to go unnoticed in public and you should be prepared to field at least a few inquiries on the system every time you take it with you.

Battery life on this system certainly won't be breaking any records anytime soon, however, thanks to the power saving features of both the AMD Turion64 processor and GeForce Go 7900 GS GPU's the Aurora m9700 is able to hold its own for the vast majority of occasions. If you need to operate off of batteries for longer than an hour, you would be wise to purchase an additional battery or direct your attention towards a smaller system that has been designed around maximizing battery life with less emphasis on raw performance.