Alienware Area-51 m5500

Weighing in at 7.2 pounds, the Alienware Area-51 m5500 is a portable with some punch. Along with the ABS Mayhem G4 Revolution notebook (reviewed on page 142), the m5500 is among the first to offer dual graphics cards. The idea is to let gamers get in a few rounds of Battlefield 2 with Nvidia’s GPU, and then switch over to Intel graphics to save some battery life for everyday tasks like surfing the Web or checking e-mail. Is this multiple-personality portable worth almost two grand?

The m5500 looks exciting on the outside with a blue LED and rubberized side grips, but flip it open and it’s indistinguishable from the myriad of other notebooks on the market. In fact, we previously reviewed an Xtreme Raptor 766X that looked identical except for the cover. The black keyboard and gray plastic border are a letdown for an Alienware system. The keyboard is average, but the Space bar is shrunken to make room for extra keys on each side, this occasionally led to accidental button presses.

Above the keyboard are four buttons for Internet Explorer, Multimedia Player, Wireless On/Off, and Power. The quick-launch multimedia player uses a third-party application from InterVideo called InstantON. It boots to a Linux partition in 18 seconds and allows you to play a DVD, listen to music, and view photos and video files without booting Windows.

The m5500 packs a powerful 2-GHz Pentium M 760. Flip the switch labeled Ext. VGA to On, reboot the system, and the laptop runs using the Nvidia graphics chip, most suitable for gaming. When set to Off, the Alienware uses Intel’s integrated graphics; this setting is best for business applications and Web surfing and provides improved battery life. The Intel integrated graphics chip comes with the 915GM core logic chipset, but Alienware adds an Nvidia GeForce Go 6600 with 256MB of video memory.

These graphics chips drive the 15.4-inch WSXGA+ LCD. The 1680 x 1050 display isn’t shiny and bright like competing consumer notebooks, but the anti-glare coating helps reduce eye strain.

The m5500 notched a 6,325 on 3DMark03 using Nvidia’s graphics, which is a good midrange score. Playing F.E.A.R. on the autodetect setting yielded a pretty good 45 frames per second (fps). On the maximum setting, the count went down to a sad 12 fps, which means the system won’t play the latest games on the highest settings. You should still be able to run any game you wish, albeit at a medium graphics setting.

Keep in mind that playing games with the Nvidia GPU enabled sucks the life out of the battery. With Nvidia’s graphics, the m5500 lasted about 2 hours and 34 minutes. Switching to Integrated Graphics mode, the runtime jumped to 3 hours and 37 minutes with the Wi-Fi off, giving you over an hour of extra battery life.

The 802.11b/g Wi-Fi connection doesn’t have the best range. At 5 feet from our access point, the m5500 delivered a decent 10.4 Mbps of throughput, but that dropped to just 2.4 Mbps from 50 feet. It’s possible the antenna placement is holding back the performance here.

The m5500 includes a not-too-big, but fast 7,200-rpm 60GB hard drive. It has all of the usual ports, plus an S/PDIF output for hooking the system up to surround sound speakers and a 4-in-1 memory card reader. The sound is about average for a notebook. 

With its dual graphics chip solution, enough storage to save tons of music and videos, and decent sound, the Alienware Area-51 m5500 is a mainstream laptop that can also play most 3D games. This laptop satisfies two categories of buyers: business users who need battery life, but also consumers looking for a good all-around notebook for multimedia and some gaming. Overall, the Alienware Area-51 m5500 is a solid choice.