Well, Hi, Y’all – It’s August, 2010 and earlier today I took delivery of this Alienware m11x laptop computer.
It’s fairly small as full-fledged laptops go. It has an 11.6” screen which is the smallest that I’ve had in more than 10 years. The previous small-screen record holder was the IBM ThinkPad X20. I got it used in 2002; it had a 12” screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio. This Alienware has a… what does it have? 16:9 or 16:10… I’m not sure which. As I was researching the specifications on the ThinkPad, I read that the max resolution was 1024x768, which was big enough for me. What I didn’t realize was that 1024x768 was the max resolution that the graphics chip could handle. The actual screen on the laptop was only 800x600.
This m11x has the widescreen ratio, but its resolution is 1366x768. Which nowadays is a little bit low. But two things made me decide that it would be OK. First – the machine is about the same size as that old X20 ThinkPad – it is certainly thicker – but I think this m11x is just a little bit larger in the other dimensions. I’ll have to find the old machine to make sure.
It’s interesting that this one doesn’t have the dimensions of a wide-screen laptop. It seems to be quite a bit… deeper(?) than most widscreeners. Tomorrow or the next day I’m going to set it side-by-side with the black MacBook and my work-issued Toshiba Tecra M9. The MacBook has a 13” screen at something like 1200x800 and the Toshiba has a 14” screen at 1440x900 (I think…).