OK sent back an M15x....and M17X on to the M11x

I have purchase a lot of notebooks on the outlet over the years and bought an M15X.....It was DOA. Sent it back got a juicy coup0n and bought an M17X....It coult not find the OS and had the wrong power supply. (Apparently no one at Dell actually boots up the "certified refurbs" LOL but the returns are always smooth. I am waiting on $1232 for the 17 as I write......

I decided I did not want nor do I need a gaming notebook. I have a home built desktop that will be upgraded with Sandy Bridge for our Home Studio.



I build the desktop that runs this gear and low DPC is a must. The only game I play on it is Flight Simulator. If FSX works the processor is in the sweet spot. Because that program is processor intensive and uses 4 cores...I'm going to try to run it on the M11X.

So I decoded to by a NETBOOK for my spot on the couch where I currently use this beast E1705 which will go to the Kitchen).........After configuring one the price It came to around $500!!!! LOL for something that wont run photoshop despite the maxed out specs....Then I thought where can I get the best of both worlds....A small netbook that is powerful enough to edit videos and mix and record on the go......

I had a 25% off coupon for the Latitude and almost pulled the trigger on the E6014...but I could not get past the "dedicated" NVM3100 Video card which runs WORSE than the GeForce go in THIS 4 year old notebook.. If they would have stepped up to at least a Quadro3800 I would have been all over it.

SO...with $1232 on the way back to my card I am looking to buy a refurb M11X (and pray for no hat trick) The difference in price between the exact combo is $735 vs $1143 for this config:
Same Warranty............

Alienware M11x, Soft Touch Stealth Black FT
Intel® Core™ i5 520UM (3M Cache, 1.066 GHZ with 1.866 GHz Max Turbo Frequency) - Overclockable
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz
Alienware M11x 90W A/C Adapter
11.6-inch WideHD 1366x768 (720p) WLED
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M
250GB SATAII 7,200RPM
Quasar Blue
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Alienware M11x a/b/g/n 2x2 MIMO Wireless
330-6352
Web Cam
1 Year Basic Plan
Bluetooth Module, 2.1+ Enhanced Data Rate


Anyway I could get THIS set up for $631

Alienware M11x Laptop
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor SU4100 (1.3GHz/800MHz FSB/2MB cache)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
160 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz (2 DIMMs
11.6 inch High Definition WLED Display (1366x768)
8 Cell Primary Battery

Dell Wireless 1520 802.11n Half Mini-Card
Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module

Alienware TactX Keyboard
65W AC Adapter

64BIT Operating System DVD
Microsoft Works 9.0




IM guessing the i5 is a stronger processor in the MX-2

What is this TacTx Keyboard on all the refurbs? An extra USB keyboard?

 

Why not get the i7 on the M11x?

 

I hate to say it, but if you're having bad luck with refurbs maybe it's not a bad idea to steer clear of them.

That being said, the i5 is better than the dual-core Pentiums.


I'm not sure about the TactX keyboard. Maybe that's what they're calling their built-in keyboards now?

 

@Circuit: The reason not to get the Core i5 --> i7 CPU upgrade is because it has no impact on real-world performance. For the past 15 years, every single benchmark has shown that small incremental bumps in CPU speed have practically no impact at all in real-world performance. The only scenario where CPU speed has any noticeable benefit at all is video encoding, which is not what kingfrog is doing. Spending the +$150 on a Core i7 would be a waste of money. That money would go a lot farther in getting something like an SSD, which WOULD show noticeable practical benefits in day-to-day usage.


@Kingfrog: Yes, the TactX is a separate USB keyboard. They probably threw it in there just to sweeten the deal.

The difference between the M11x R1 (the 2nd laptop you mentioned) and the M11x R2 (the 1st laptop you mentioned) is based largely on the CPU. The M11x R1 uses ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors based off of the Core 2 Duo architecture, while the M11x R2's use ULV processors based off of the Intel Core i5/i7 architecture.

The benefit of the M11x R1 is lower cost, higher battery life (M11x R1 has about 20% better battery life than the M11x R2 (about 7.0 hours for the M11x R1 vs 5.5 hours for M11xR2). The M11x R2 also does not have a VGA/DSUB video out port... only HDMI and DisplayPort.

The benefit of the M11x R2 is the more powerful CPU, which typically shows about 5% - 10% faster performance in real-world scenarios. In addition, the M11x R2 supports nVidia Optimus technology, which will automatically switch between the Intel HD Graphics GPU and the nVidia 335M GPU depending on what application you are running. With the M11x R1, you need to manually toggle between the two GPU's yourself. The manual/automatic toggling is nice, but the real reason to go with Optimus is future driver support. nVidia will be releasing new and updated drivers that support Optimus on the R2 much more frequently than they will be releasing drivers that support manual switching on the R1.

If it were me, I would just go with the M11x R2 and be done with it. Faster CPU and better graphics driver support; with the drawback of higher purchase price, lower battery life, and loss of a VGA port.

 

Dude, if you're looking on the AW website right now, they have deals for both i5 and i7 cores. The m11x i7 core version is HIDDEN. They are about the same price with a $50 difference.

The i7 version has 4gb ddr and 320gb HDD.
The i5 version has 4gb ddr and 250gb HDD.

The only difference being the cores and the 70gb upgrade for only 50 dollars.
Oh, and the i5 model for $1,049.99 is the "fastrak" that can be shipped in 24 hours.

Here is the i5 m11x which expires October 28, 2010

Here is the i7 m11x which expires September 9, 2010 (THIS THURSDAY)

 

I play FSX, and It runs fine on my i7 m11xr2 with everything at max.

 

I saw both deals and pulled the trigger on a refurb i5. I am paying $735 for the same thing with an extra keyboard Dell sells for $99 I am watching on Ebay go for $75....SO that drops the price to $655 or so for the same set up...and if I call Dell and say I want to return it becasue I simply don;t like it they will as ususal offer a $50 refund to my Credit card to keep it.....So I could get this thing for $600 after all is said and done. Well worth $500 less than "new" I did not see a BT option on the new i6s either. I like BT for phone syncing.

I agree with Kent on the i7...I don't need the 10% or whatever more for $150 more even if I was going to buy new or the loss of battery time. I guess Dell is getting that as well as they slashed the prices on the i7. They don't slash prices when product is selling well.

As ar as the refurbs fo> I have saved enough over the years on them to pay for many more to comeLOL. Yeah I got a few bummers (Actually I could have solved the M17X issues with BIO setting for RAID but I was pissed No one at Dell booted the machine and I realized the whole Idea of getting aniother machine was to go SMALLER not larger. LOL

I would have chosen the core 2duos but I thought about the driver issues as well and remember I ended up looking for a netbook so this is a MEGA netbook for $600 and some change......I already have the power desktop for games and fun which I will be rebuilding on the Sandy Bridge platform in 2011.

I may buy a few games for this thing when ti comes but I don;t see it as a gaming machine running at 1.06 Ghz with a GT335. A few weeks ago, I was looking at lappys with i7 820QMs and 5870 cards...Now thise were gaming machines. Sagar 8670, MSI 660X. Asus G73, and the Big Dells.

I bought dell becasue the service is better...then I got small because I realized I did not need a power machine for what I was doing. I need a SMALLER one....Why not get a little more power in afun package that is smaller..The M11X seemed to fit perfectly in that reagrd....

Now all I need is to get a good one.......RMAs are easy Coupons are plentiful....and if I get a good machine I will be happy if ot I will keep trying

Refurbsd are the way to go for me. Always have been with Dell on both the buisiness and Home side even when they me off....

 

Great! Love FS Been messin with it since the Intel 386 days and before when it was just green polygons LOL. Yeah Im middle aged and still tech savy.....go figure.