alien.adventures

Finally installed the SSD and my Alienware m17x is complete: i7-2630QM 2.0GHz CPU 8GB of DDR3 RAM 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6870M Boot disk: Crucial M4 256GB SSD Data disk: 750GB 7200rpm HDD Delivered by DHL on Oct 28, 4 days after I authorised delivery from the Borderlinx forwarder. Not bad. Plain box of Crucial M4 256GB SSD. No other packing material, other than plastic carton. No moving parts I guess. Btw sticker on SSD says 'Product of Singapore'; you figure. Alien innards. Note 2 HDD cages, and heat pipes leading to fans. Unscrewing the drive cage. Clearly labelled ports. Build quality solid, but the screws are soft, and very easily stripped if not careful.    Woot, detected and booting up properly -- no issues! 15 second boot-up now (not counting BIOS start-up).

Another Amazon acquisition: Damage is S$120 including shipping, better than retail of S$175 here. Now waiting for the final piece of the puzzle: Crucial M4 SSD.

Got the package at lunchtime on Oct 14, that's four days after I placed the order on Amazon. Very fast. The damage is about US$2k for the stock M17x, inclusive of shipping, compared to S$3.5k from Dell Sg (that comes with a faster i7 variant). The choice is quite clear. Next up: Alien surgery ... (ironically, I'm getting the SSD *later* than the rig) Outer box. Alienware shipping box. Ditto The actual product box. Nice packaging, with spot varnish applied liberally. Quite OTT actually. The familiar logo on the utility box. The rig itself! The Alien has landed. Default colours; notice the super-gloss screen. Fingerprint magnet it will be. Playing around with the LEDs. Bonus pic:

Ordered this off Amazon on Oct 10, from Beach Camera: i7-2630QM 2.0GHz CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6870M Review here (different specs tho): http://www.anandtech.com/show/4458/alienwares-m17x-r3-an-antidote-to-clevo I'll do some alien surgery as soon as I get it: putting in a Crucial M4 256GB SSD. Review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4712/the-crucial-m4-ssd-update-faster-with-fw0009/7