Alienware Area-51m

WHAT'S HOT: Its 3.06-GHz desktop Pentium 4 processor and 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics enable the powerful, bright-green Area-51m to approximate the desktop gaming experience. In our graphics tests, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Unreal Tournament 2003 looked out of this world, with smooth action and crisp details. We couldn't tell much difference between playing them on the Area-51m and playing them on a flat-panel monitor connected to the ABS Excellent 4450, a powerful desktop PC equipped with 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro graphics.

The Area-51m offers a complete set of notebook connections, including four USB 2.0 ports, built-in 802.11b Wi-Fi networking, and two drive bays. The Area-51m's PC WorldBench 4 score of 120 was the highest we've ever recorded for a desktop Pentium 4-equipped notebook (and the second-highest score we've recorded for any notebook). That makes the Area-51m a fine choice for processor-intensive applications besides games, such as complex spreadsheets and databases, and video- and image-editing applications.

WHAT'S NOT: With a case that measures 2.4 inches tall and a weight of 9.7 pounds, the Area-51m is bulky. Factor in the power adapter, and the package tops 11 pounds. And you'll need the adapter: In our tests, one charge of the lithium ion battery lasted for only 1 hour 5 minutes. Finally, the Area-51m's $2899 price tag is astronomical, orbiting just this side of three grand.

WHAT ELSE: Big, green, and gilled might be your first impression of the Area-51m, which sports a remarkable number of air vents for dissipating the heat generated by its desktop processor. But beneath its alien skin, the Area-51m is a serious notebook. If you like the convenience of dual optical drives, a feature frequently offered on desktop PCs, you'll appreciate the Area-51m's side-by-side media bays. The bay on the right holds your choice of optical drive, semifixed with a removable screw. The other bay is modular and accommodates a floppy drive, a DVD-ROM drive, or a second battery. (Our review machine came with a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combination drive and a removable floppy drive.)

The Area-51m's 15-inch screen has a native resolution of 1600 by 1200 pixels--nice for graphics work. The setting isn't much of an advantage for playing games, though: They slow down significantly and gain little detail. On the other hand, games look and run great on the Area-51m at 800 by 600 resolution.

For offices with legacy peripherals, the notebook retains all of the older notebook connections except a serial port. Our review unit stuffed with 1GB of RAM had neither memory slot left open; but if you're order the Area-51m with less memory in just one slot, increasing the memory later should be relatively easy. The slots lie beneath the keyboard--not in a compartment accessible from the bottom like most notebooks'--but we had no problem reaching them. You release the keyboard by pressing two latches at the top with the flat end of a screwdriver; then you remove the exposed shielding plate by extracting one screw. Almost all of the Area-51m's connections, including parallel, PS/2, FireWire, and an S/PDIF speaker port for surround sound, reside on the back. That makes it easy to remember where to look, though a bit inconvenient to reach everything.

We liked the translucent keyboard, which includes three quick-launch buttons. A good key layout and the slight slant provided by the Area-51m's big rubber feet permit comfortable typing. Dedicated audio buttons on the front make playing music CDs a snap, even when the notebook is turned off; but the Area-51m's built-in sound, channeled through speakers at the top of the keyboard, is only so-so. A hardware switch for turning wireless scanning on and off would have been nice, too. Alienware provides a good user's manual in both print and electronic formats, an all-too-rare convenience. Unfortunately, both versions lack indexes.

UPSHOT: We admired the UFO-crash-site-inspired name and the Martian green case. But this Area-51m is otherworldly expensive, and plenty of other desktop replacements have the same gaming chops for less.