unreal25

And the funniest part - it costs $42 (yes, forty two dollars) to upgrade the regular 12.5" panel to IPS. On the other hand, Dell Precision M6600 should eventually be available with a 17.3" IPS with RGB LED backlighting.

Yes, especially their X and T series which are currently priced below $899 even with some fancy upgrades (IPS screen on X220 for example) and one thing I absolutely love - MATTE displays!

I use Pidgin for everything except for Skype (Gfire plugin ftw). I guess let's see what happens. I use Skype quite a lot too. I hope Google pimps up their GTalk video chat.

It could be worse - what if Apple bought it?

lol... Thinkpad X220 (with specs/build quality that are literally light years ahead) starts at the same base price. Why in the love of god would one chose this one, is beyond me. I guess it has better speakers ^^ Also, there are Macbooks for about the same price for people who like "sleek".

Unless you're in AW section of the NBR. (Sorry, had to.) Steven seems a good guy, has my voice too. Btw, I used to be a site admin on one of the sports betting forums - those were the days when I had a bit of free time.

I'd also add to disable your WiFi and lighting if you're not using it. Every little bit counts.

Windows are distracted by your avatar. Run "Disk Management" or "Create and Format your disk partitions" from the Start menu. The disk is probably detected but it has no drive letters assigned. Create a partition there and assign a drive letter.

Btw, I think we're missing ketchup, Nivea creme and honey on that list. There's a video somewhere in offtopic of Heinz ketchup beating AS5 ^^

Yep, thanks anyway. I kept it in the hope that I'll be able to have time to play with it at some point. I just hoped the effects are smoother, but they aren't. It's a neat idea, but the way both of the AlienFX systems work, I got annoyed with it after some time. There was 1 video I saw once that seemed to have more smooth lighting demo on M17x, but it got removed from youtube.

Haha yeah... I'd like to "unbox" that. ^^ It made me laugh.

Ha well I learned my lesson from M11x. Alienwares aren't as user-friendly to do user replacements and mods, as say Thinkpads. There are lots of booby-trap cables that you can easily break if you're not careful - that are hidden beneath certain parts you're trying to remove. If the scratch isn't that big, and it might have been there since you received the system and you JUST noticed it - I'd ask for replacement. If Dell did a proper job with thermal conduction system, it would never happen. Also, whoever decided it was a good idea to make the damn plastic cover that needs to be popped out, needs to be shot.

Just tried it. Few things I'd note: - Winamp plugin didn't work on my M17x-R2 - Windows MP plugin works but I'm hardly impressed. It reminds me a lot of a third-party plugin actually. I think it would look much better if the colors wouldn't blink, but would dim smoother. - It takes a bit to set it up. All defaults are setup with all zones activated by all frequencies. Just can't be bothered to spend that much time adjusting it right now.

So um... who's steve1ddd and where are his instructions? Thanks!

I think that's certainly way too much paste. The idea for the paste is to fill the gaps between bumps and holes, not to serve as a passive cooler. OT: Anyone thought it was cool how you get the fractal patterns like here: I wonder why does it look like that.

Oh, cool. Can't wait.

I think based on Brian's experience (he had both R2 and R3) they are about the same? He still didn't put up that R3 review, we should poke him what's up with that. I think he actually has game benchmarks for both R2 and R3 - that will be the best indicator.

Man cried LMAO! Yes, the M17x-R2 is really solid in terms of design. It's not as rugged as T/W series Thinkpads but it can take some beating before giving. The one thing you ALWAYS want to make sure is that you close the lid if you're moving it and there's a danger it will hit something in the process (e.g. moving through the door). If it falls down with open lid, it's going to be bad news bears. Anodized aluminum cover ftw. It does add to the weight, unfortunately, so I'm guessing that's why they don't have the entire AW lineup in that. I guess I just wish they go into more 'premium' and less into 'consumer' style.

Hah, well I can't predict it... but it would surprise me if game manufacturers decide not to support SLI/CF in games, especially since these dual card setups are not that uncommon on desktop systems as well. As it is right now, I don't remember I played any game last year that didn't support crossfire - apart from the games 3-4 years old. On the other hand I'm not really that hardcore gamer (I do other stuff in my life ). Maybe someone else, who is more into gaming, has different information?

GT520M has a big number, but roughly looking at the numbers on notebookcheck, it seems to perform worse than 335M that comes with M11x. What's the point of dedicated graphics that's barely better than Intel's integrated 3000 HD ? Hardly impressive for 14" or even 15" format. I'm not sure what is the target audience for these kinds of laptops - people who like sleek laptop looks? 520M dedicated graphics will cut down on battery life (and it's 3D performance is just a joke anyway ~5K on 3DMark06). Someone should give LG a call and let them know we're few years ahead of 2008. Besides, there is already Macbook Air (for example) for folks that want slim laptops. I mean "OOhhhhh LED LCD screen" the very same technology that has been already available for YEARS. From the specs that are posted, the laptop seems mediocre in pretty much anything. (Or should I maybe be impressed by 2kg weight?)

Eh, have fun typing on that thing. :-/ I don't think sub-12" keyboards are going to be much comfortable than the touch-keyboard you have on iPad. The price is way too high, imo. Especially considering I paid $600 for my tablet.

I see we have a small bio/biomed community here. I do research in biophysics and I mainly use SSD as I need to load/save a lot of images where cells are moving on the screen (about 1000 files per experiment, and we have lots of those), then find the trajectory for each cell. TBH, Core2Duo ULV @ 1.8GHz on my laptop can choke a little if I throw too many images so I do the most extensive tasks at home, on the Mothership. (Or I bring it to my office occasionally.) I hate the fact that the most software I use is written in the damn Java and takes so much RAM, and we're planning to do something that will probably be more CPU and memory intensive so I'll probably have to grab 8-16GB. With my own money. My... own... money. -.- Speaking of memory upgrades, I noticed higher capacity memory has somewhat higher CAS latency... anyone has some numbers as to what impact that has on gaming or anything else?

Hm, I haven't tried that so I don't know. You can always try it out and see whether there any problems. The VBIOS flash should be pretty straightforward with Dell's tools though.

Yep, all gone. I am also using AMD drivers, and not Dell ones. The reason is - I use custom color calibration in the driver settings and had flickering due to that , with Dell drivers.