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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bobjones32 - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Thanks so much for your comprehensive review, Jared. I've read a bunch of reviews for the m11x, but they're always mixing up overclocking, non-overclocking, GPU enabled, GPU disabled, and a bunch of other factors that make it extremely difficult to discern how the thing actually performs.Your review, on the other hand, covers all the bases thoroughly, and answers every single question I have!
Well, one question left - I wonder when the 335M will be made available in other laptops? I'm interested to see what ASUS and other manufacturers could do with it....
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
I'm guessing it's just a question of laptop manufacturers asking for chips from NVIDIA. There are lots of options so they can take their pick. For example, a great alternative that's not from NVIDIA would be the Radeon Mobility HD 5670... we'll show you why soon enough. :-)aguilpa1 - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Thanks for the review and only confirms my initial thoughts that this tiny notebook is hardly qualified to be a gaming computer. I knew it was all marketing hype. I don't enjoy gaming in low res, thank you.PrincePickle - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
As an M11x owner your review pretty much sums up the M11x pretty well. Once I got my Alienware unpacked and setup I immediately started loading some games onto it and was pleasantly surprised. I've only played Wolfenstein and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, but they look good and are definitely playable with no problems. Will it play Crisis as well as my desktop? No way, but I don't expect it to either.I found the keyboard tight, but I got used to it quickly. I don't really care about the lack gigabit ethernet or optimus, however I do find the screen kind of glossy. Glossy screens are a problem with every other laptop manufacture on the planet, so I don't blame Alienware directly.
One thing that really surprised me when I opened up the packaging was an actual Windows 7 install disk was included. The system manual was actually useful as in it gave graphical pictures on how to replace the hard drive, memory and battery. Granted I don't buy that many laptops but I haven't seen either these things included with a computer since 2002.
There's a laptop for everybody and this one will suit some and not others. The angular looks and the system lighting are the greatest thing since sliced bread IMHO, but I'm sure others will disagree. I'm in the military and deploy fairly regularly so small form factor and power are crucial when your trying to squeeze hundreds of pounds of stuff into small bags. This computer is almost perfect for a deploying gamer and I'm sure I'll be testing that out soon enough. Anyway, good review even if I thought you were being just a little bit picky.
synaesthetic - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
The lack of Optimus is more a driver concern than anything. The old push-button switchable graphics probably won't get more than token driver support from nvidia, while they're pushing Optimus very hard--Optimus drivers will soon be included in the Verde package.Personally even if I had Optimus, I'd tell it to change GPU switching to manual since there's a lot of weirdness with some apps when you let it try to decide on its own.
RamIt - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Such a huge mistake to not include report post in the new web setup :(JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Working on it, and will be hopefully filtering out spam automatically in the near future.Fastidious - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
As an M11x owner I thought I'd just comment/question on a few things:1. I know there are two different LCD panels(one a bit brighter, one a bit better contrast) used and both pretty much suck ratings wise, yet I find mine looking more than good enough for me. My 24" LCD for my desktop is rated much better all around(double M11x quality or more) but I honestly can't tell much of a difference between it and the M11x screen. So while I do understand better is better, I see why the LCD is the corner that is cut most often in a notebook.
2. My fan never turns on unless I am using the 335M. Once I use the 335M it kicks in instantly and can get loud if you don't have sound(games, music, etc) going.
3. How well does GPU assisted video editing work? I know you said fast but does it make up for the weaker CPU? I am planning to use it on vacation most likely once I get around to buying a camcorder.
Overall I think the M11x is sorta for people who want something as small as possible that can game well and have big battery life in standard tasks like browsing. I got it for traveling/mobility myself, I liked the better performance in bigger notebooks but I knew I their size or extra weight would defeat the purpose. I almost never use the 335M for gaming unless I am going to be sitting plugged in for a while so it works perfect for me.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
As far as the fan, either my unit is flaky or your unit is better than most. Fan noise levels top out at 36 dB, which is certainly lower than a lot of laptops, but it kicks on ALL the time for me.Video editing is generally far more CPU bound than video encoding, and here the CULV processor will be a definite bottleneck (at least AFAIK... maybe someone can recommend a good video editing package where the GPU will make a difference). Since you asked about video, though, I did a quick check of Badaboom with the GT335M.
The result (using the same test as here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2878/9) is an encoding speed of 53.1 FPS on the GT335M. With the CPU using TMPGEnc, we got a result of just 22FPS. A faster CPU can surpass the GT335M, but we're looking at quad-core Kentsfield before we get to the crossover point.
Finally, in regards to being picky, I admit to being a bit occupied with my wife and pending birth. LOL. But I tried to make it clear where the flaws are and where the M11x excels. If your primary criteria is getting a smaller laptop with good battery life that can still play games, it's awesome. If you're concerned about drivers, I'm not convinced. The LCD is also a weak spot, but it's no worse than 98% of laptop LCDs, so that's almost a wash. Optimus and an i7 ULV processor would have been a silver award for sure.
synaesthetic - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
When I first heard about the M11x, I was really pretty shocked Dell didn't use the Arrandale ULV processors. A Core i5-520UM or i7-620UM would have been perfect in this (along with Optimus), but it appears the problem was that Intel did not have the ULV chipset with support for discrete graphics available at the time the M11x was ramping up. It wasn't until later that I saw Arrandale ULVs with a discrete graphic option... and right now, only one of the MSI X-Slim is the only one I can think of.