by Kaeyi Dream | 14th May 2013
Today Kaeyi Dream takes a look at the XMG P502 Pro Gaming Laptop in her latest video for HardwareHeaven. Subscribe to the HardwareHeaven YouTube channel to keep up to date with all the latest video reviews.
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by Kaeyi Dream | 26th February 2013
We reviewed the Razer Blade Gaming Laptop earlier this month in our full hardware breakdown, but here is a closer look in video form with Kaeyi Dream talking us through the Blade system.
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by Stuart Davidson | 8th February 2013
The Razer Blade (or New Razer Blade as we are now on a second revision) is a high end Ultrabook aimed at gamers. With a mobile i7 CPU, GeForce GTX 600 series graphics and a unique touch screen track pad it offers something that little bit different to the norm. Today we put it through a selection of real world tests including Crysis 3 and StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm.
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by Kaeyi Dream | 31st December 2012
Kaeyi Dream reviews the MSI GE70 Gaming Series Laptop from MSI in her latest video review for HardwareHeaven.
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by Stuart Davidson | 13th December 2012
MSI's latest foray into the gaming/enthusiast laptop marketplace is the GT70 Dragon Edition. With components including the latest Ivy Bridge i7 CPU, SSDs in RAID, GTX 675MX Graphics and 16GB of memory in a 17" chassis... and some great extra specifications, today we find out whether the system can play the likes of Far Cry 3 and Hitman: Absolution.
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by Stuart Davidson | 5th December 2012
So what happens when ThinkPad meets UltraBook? Well we get a system like the X1 Carbon from Lenovo with rapid charging, premium carbon fibre construction (with roll cage) and the latest Core CPUs from Intel... and today that is the focus of our review.
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by Stuart Davidson | 12th November 2012
With a 17inch form factor, the latest i7 CPU, SSD and dual GPUs the P722 looks to pack as much performance in a desktop replacement system as possible. Today we will be putting one through its paces in a selection of synthetic and real world tests, including the Crysis 3 Alpha to find out if it is an attractive purchase.
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by Stuart Davidson | 21st September 2012
One company out to match and maybe even exceed Alienware in offering a compact alternative to Ultrabooks is Eurocom. Their Monster system manages to pack in an i7 CPU and impressive GeForce 600 series GPU into an 11" form factor and today we have one on our test bench.
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by Stuart Davidson | 23rd August 2012
One of the latest systems to be released in the Ultrabook category is Lenovo's U410 which has a hefty advertising campaign behind it and GeForce GPU inside. Today we have one on our test bench and will see how it compares to the last generation system to see what the Lenovo offers in real world use.
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by Stuart Davidson | 19th June 2012
Today we have the new 11" model of the MacBook Air on our test bench and will find out if this Ivy Bridge based machine offers a desirable balance of portability and power for those looking at a compact system for their mobile needs.
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by Stuart Davidson | 18th June 2012
Recently AMD announced their next generation of APUs with Trinity branding heavily featured. This new range of chips enhances performance and features and first to market is the mobile range, followed later in the year by desktop parts. Today we have AMDs reference mobile platform on our test bench to find out how the new A10 range performs in a selection of real world tests.
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by Stuart Davidson | 7th June 2012
The Medion Erazer, in its latest incarnation, packs in Intel's Ivy Bridge platform along with NVIDIAs latest GTX 670M GPU and plenty of memory. We will be putting it through a selection of tests which include real world gaming, media and productivity tasks.
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by Stuart Davidson | 30th May 2012
Now featuring Ivy Bridge CPUs and NVIDIA 600 series GPUs the M14x is back and today we will be putting it through a selection of real world tests which include media encoding and playback as well as gaming. We'll be putting this i7 based laptop up against the original model in a selection of those tests to find out how much extra performance we can get and whether the system can game satisfactorily a its native resolution.
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by Stuart Davidson | 19th April 2012
Based on a familiar chassis the GT683DXR offers high end mobile speakers, a full HD screen and powerful CPU/GPU combination. Did we mention the dual hard drives in Raid 0 or 8GB of DDR3-1333, upgradable to 32GB? No. Well read on to find out what MSI can offer for the mobile enthusiast.
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by Stuart Davidson | 16th April 2012
Dell were one of the first manufacturers to release an Ultrabook with up to date specification and today we have that model on our test bench. The XPS 13 mixes premium materials with some impressive specifications to try and tempt users away from more restrictive devices and into the world of performance mobile computing.
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by Stuart Davidson | 9th December 2011
The EUROCOM Panther 3.0 desktop replacement is available with components such as the X58 chipset, Core i7-990X hex core CPU, dual HD6900 series or GTX 580 graphics, triple channel memory... And that's before we even consider three fast SSD's in RAID0.
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by Stuart Davidson | 24th October 2011
The XPS 14z takes its style from the 15z we reviewed back in July and packs as much of it into the smaller chassis as is possible, giving us some extra performance over the Inspiron 14" model.
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by Stuart Davidson | 19th October 2011
The Inspiron 14z as it is known features a second gen Core i5 CPU and some good on paper specifications. Today we have one on our test bench to find out what this model has to offer for those who don't need a 15"+ system.
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by Stuart Davidson | 4th October 2011
The G74Sx is a 17.3" enthusiast machine featuring Core i7 CPU and GTX 500 Series graphics along with a long list of other impressive features. Today we have a sample on our test bench to find out whether ASUS can compete in this area of the market.
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by Stuart Davidson | 18th July 2011
Today we will be putting the M14x through a selection of real world tests which include media encoding and playback as well as gaming. We'll be putting this i7 based laptop up against an i5 model in a selection of those tests to find out how much extra performance we can get and whether the system can game satisfactorily a its native resolution.
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by Stuart Davidson | 6th July 2011
Dell are back with the XPS 15z, a slimmer, higher specification model which combines an aluminium chassis with 2nd Generation Core CPU and GeForce GPU in a portable form factor which Dell states is the thinnest 15" PC available, anywhere. Today we have the XPS 15z on our test bench and will be putting it through a selection of real world and synthetic tests to find out if the great features and performance of the XPS 15 has been continued in this new model.
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by Stuart Davidson | 19th April 2011
UPDATE: SLI Testing has now been added to our coverage.
The M18x as the name suggests is an 18" model and we have been putting one of the first samples through its paces over the last few days. Join us as we find out through a selection of real world tests what Alienware can do when they have an 18" chassis to play with.
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by Stuart Davidson | 19th April 2011
Today Alienware is launching a number of new machines including a new revision of the M11x the R3. We have one of the first samples on our test bench and will be putting it through a selection of real world gaming, media and productivity tests to find out if the latest model retains the high level of build quality and performance we saw in the last revision.
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by Stuart Davidson | 18th March 2011
The GX660R is available in various flavours, including Core-i7 based builds and comes with the same high-end Dynaudio speakers that were used in the GT660 with the graphics also receiving an upgrade to AMD's DX11 enabled Mobility 5870... That "R" in the model name, that's for RAID. In theory that all sounds like a system with a high end price tag but MSI have decent spec builds starting at a little under £999 which seems too good to be true. Let's find out if it is...
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by Stuart Davidson | 2nd February 2011
Today we will be putting the M17x R3 with its Sandy Bridge components, 120Hz screen and 3D Vision kit through a selection of real world tests to find out how it compares to a desktop P67 system, the original 2009 model M17x and the R2 from 2010.
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by Stuart Davidson | 3rd December 2010
Today's review product is Dells new 15" XPS, the L501X which retails for just £549 in the UK at the moment and also has a $100 discount in the USA. We will be putting the system through a selection of real world tests which include Blu-Ray 3D playback, media encoding and gaming to find out whether this new system makes the ideal winter purchase.
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by Stuart Davidson | 10th September 2010
There are alternatives to the Atom platform and one of the major competitors is AMD's Athlon 2 Neo range. Combined with a DirectX 10.1 GPU it forms a well-balanced platform, one which Dell has chosen to base their latest ultra-portable system on. For those who want something a little bigger than the standard 10" netbook today we have the Inspiron M101z which is an AMD Vision based 11.6" laptop.
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by Stuart Davidson | 6th August 2010
On our test bench today is Alienwares new M11x, an 11.6 inch laptop featuring Core i5 CPU and Nvidia Optimus technology. We will be putting it through a selection of real world tests including StarCraft 2, media transcoding and HD playback to establish how good it really is.
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by Stuart Davidson | 2nd July 2010
In June 2009 Alienware/Dell launched the M17x, their first co-developed machine. On launch day we provided a world-exclusive preview of the new machine and today it is time to take a more in-depth look at the features and performance of the latest version of the M17x which contains Intel Core i7 technology.
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by Stuart Davidson | 21st June 2010
Today it is the turn of the 15" Inspiron to receive a refresh, moving to the Intel Core i3 / Core i5 platform and adding DirectX 11 support. Here at HardwareHeaven we have one of the first samples on our test bench and will run it through a selection of real word gaming, media and productivity tests to establish how well it performs.
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by Stuart Davidson | 5th May 2010
Dell has recently released their refreshed Adamo XPS, a machine which follows a similar design ethic to the original but aims to increase performance to ensure it is competitive in the current market. Today we have an Adamo XPS on our test bench and will see, in a selection of real world tests, what the latest high end Dell machine can do.
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by Henry Butt | 16th March 2010
Today we are going to look at Novatech's latest gaming laptop, the X1 CA, which boasts a massive specification alongside a number of other exciting features. It is very similar in design to the X1 Pro that we reviewed a while back but has been updated with an Intel Core i7 Mobile CPU and DDR3 RAM.
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by Stuart Davidson | 15th March 2010
HardwareHeaven with help from our gaming duo take to the streets of London to see if you really can game anywhere with the Alienware M11x.
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by Stuart Davidson | 2nd February 2010
Today we continue our trend of Alienware exclusives by reviewing one of the first M11x samples. With the M11x Alienware take advantage of the new GeForce GT 335M GPU with the intention of building the worlds first 11" gaming system.
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by Henry Butt | 6th January 2010
Today we are going to look at the Novatech V14 CULV laptop that aims to bridge the gap between netbooks and the more powerful full-size notebooks.
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by Henry Butt | 15th December 2009
Today we are going to look at the Asus K50IN notebook that is kitted out for menial tasks and multimedia playback. So it provides more power than their netbook range, but significantly less than youll get with one of their gaming-orientated notebooks.
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by Zardon | 4th December 2009
We have reviewed many high end gaming systems in the past from both Alienware and parent company Dell, but today we take a look at something slightly different - the new Inspiron 13z. The Inspiron 13z has been designed by Dell to enter into the market just above the 'netbook' sector - for those wanting more versatility, higher quality screens and faster processing speed.
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by Henry Butt | 20th November 2009
Today we are going to look at the Novatech X16 HD Pro notebook which is designed with multimedia and light gaming in mind. It makes use of the somewhat basic nVidia G105M GPU which is based on the 9300M G, but with a few new features.
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by Stuart Davidson | 23rd September 2009
Today we look at the new M15x from Alienware - they are one of the first companies to introduce Intels Core-i7 architecture in the mobile marketplace. Back that up with an impressive graphics processor from Nvidia and the new Intel PM55 chipset and we have a very interesting and theoretically capable product.
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by Stuart Davidson | 24th August 2009
Alienware was formed in 1996 and in the first 10-years of their existence the company created a name for themselves in the enthusiast market. It did not matter if a consumer was looking for a high performance desktop, notebook or HTPC system because Alienware had something capable to offer. When combined with futuristic and distinctive styling they have always appealed to discerning users.
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by Nathan Marks | 30th July 2009
Today we are going to be looking at the Novatech X1 Pro, a desktop replacement packed with the most powerful laptop components on the market such as a quad core processor and GTX280M graphics cards in SLI.
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by Nathan Marks | 29th July 2009
Today were going to be testing the Novatech X80GTX Pro, a 17 inch desktop replacement containing a dual core processor and one of the most powerful single mobile GPU solutions on the market, the GTX260M from Nvidia.
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by Nathan Marks | 24th July 2009
Today we're going to be looking at the Asus W90Vp, a multimedia notebook full of features such as an 18.4' 1080p display, a Blu-Ray drive and a powerful dual core CPU with overclocking capabilities paired with two of ATIs mobile 4870 cards in a Crossfire configuration.
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by Nathan Marks | 2nd July 2009
Today were going to be taking a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad T500, a laptop which is said to withhold the qualities the industry has come to expect from the ThinkPad series.
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by Nathan Marks | 25th June 2009
A while back we looked at the MSI GT725, a stylish 17 inch notebook containing the powerful Radeon HD4850 and a 2.53GHz dual core processor. Today were going to be taking a look at the GX723, a similar laptop but slightly less ‘high octane with a 2.4GHz processor and Nvidia 130M GT.
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by Nathan Marks | 15th June 2009
Today well be looking at the Sony P series netbook computer. Weve reviewed a plethora of netbooks to date including offerings from Dell, Asus and MSI but the Sony P brings a little something special to the table.
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by Stuart Davidson | 2nd June 2009
Today, for the first time, Alienware are allowing an exclusive preview of a new product (only at Driverheaven) prior to it being available for consumers. Is this the laptop of your dreams? - read our preview to read all the juicy details.
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by Nathan Marks | 13th May 2009
Today well be taking a look at the Asus F70 laptop, a basic Multimedia machine that slots in at the £750 mark making it a viable option for those who don't want to spend more on a Sony or Apple.
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by Nathan Marks | 29th April 2009
Today were going to look at the Novatech X55MV Pro, a dual core laptop which promises to provide strong performance at an unbeatable price point.
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by Nathan Marks | 21st April 2009
The Eee PC 1000HE is one of the latest laptops in Asus's ever expanding line of superportable notebooks, more commonly known as netbooks. What differentiates this offering from many of their other netbooks is the 6 cell battery included as standard with the machine... it is the real selling point for this model and purportedly offers up to 9.5 hours of battery life. Well find out later in whether the machine can come close to these impressive claims.
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by Nathan Marks | 31st March 2009
Asus are a household name among computer enthusiasts as they manufacturer some of the best equipment available on the market, the most notable products being their large range of motherboards and the famous Eee PC. Their range of portable machines is ever growing and today we are going to look at one of their laptops from the Asus Republic of Gamers line, the G71V, which as you can tell by the brand title puts heavy emphasis on catering for gamers.
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by Nathan Marks | 24th March 2009
Today were going to look at the Acer Aspire 8930G, an 18.4 inch desktop replacement which goes to market under the £1000 mark.
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by Nathan Marks | 2nd March 2009
MSI are a big player in the computer industry, manufacturing everything from high end motherboards and graphics cards to MP3 players and laptop computers. A couple of months ago we looked at their little Wind Netbook, an atom powered ultra portable laptop. Today we are going to look at an offering from MSI on the opposite end of the spectrum, a dual core 17 inch notebook set to facilitate a proficient workstation, portable gaming rig and media centre system.
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by Nathan Marks | 18th February 2009
Towards the latter half of 2008 we took a look at two high performance laptops from Alienware, the m15x and m17x. Both laptops offered phenomenal performance in an attractive package. Today we are going to look at the Alienware M17, a laptop which slips in next to the m17x, ditching Nvidias SLI for Crossfire and bringing quad core processing to the table on an updated platform.
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by Nathan Marks | 21st January 2009
Today we are taking a look at the Dell Mini 9, a machine which offers a similar specification to its competitors in an attractive shell. Dell are one of the largest PC manufacturers in the world and so we expect good all round quality for a reasonable price.
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by Nathan Marks | 12th December 2008
Today were going to look at the latest in the series of Lamborghini products, the VX3 laptop. Unlike the previous machines in the series, this latest addition to the line has shrunk down to a 12.1†laptop, slightly bigger than the netbooks floating around the market but smaller than any high performance laptops weve seen. It really is an ideal size for a potent combination of portability and speed.
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by Zardon | 17th November 2008
The model on test today is possibly the best model they produce today, it has a large 160GB hard drive (twice the 80gb model released earlier), a 10inch screen with 1024x600 display and an almost full sized keyboard (around 92%). To top all this, we have bluetooth, wifi, 3 USB ports and VGA out. Combine this with 5 hour+ battery life and we have a winner.
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by Nathan Marks | 21st October 2008
Today were going to look at the MSI Wind U100 Series, a smart looking subnotebook aimed directly at the successful EEE PC market.
After Asus revealed the Eee PC back in 2007, there were bound to be some who would follow suit and release their own ultra portable notebooks. With hotspots appearing throughout cities all over the world the market is becoming ripe for cheap, ultraportable, easy to use computers to perform basic tasks.
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by Zardon | 1st September 2008
We recently spent some time with the Alienware m15x and the end result was the fastest 15 inch laptop we have ever tested. Today we look at the bigger brother, the Area 51 m17x which is marketed as a high powered gaming desktop replacement. So what goodies have we inside? How does a 2.8ghz Extreme Edition processor and two 8800 GTX M in Sli sound?
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by Zardon | 24th August 2008
It is not often we review a Macintosh product on DriverHeaven and although we are late to the table we felt it would be an interesting novelty for our readers to have a look at probably the sexiest laptop ever made, the MacBook Air.
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by Stuart Davidson | 21st August 2008
Recently while researching laptop prices we found Novatechs own branded laptops which feature some impressive components but retail at a level we can only wish Alienware would use! Of course buying a laptop from a relative unknown is always a risk, so today we will be taking an in-depth look at the X80r Pro, covering all the bases and letting you know if they are worth your money.
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by Zardon | 25th July 2008
Alienware have always produced some of the sleekist sexiest laptops known to geekdom and with their latest M15x this tradition is set to continue. There is no doubt in my mind by looking at the sensual curves of the Alienware that they have crafted something rather special.
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by Stuart Davidson | 25th April 2008
The recent launch of the GX laptop range gives us a high specification laptop with some excellent features (HDMI) and the ability to overclock at the touch of a button. Lets find out if it is as good as the marketing makes out.
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by Stuart Davidson | 5th March 2008
The latest 17” model to be released by Alienware is the Area-51 m9750. This particular model features the latest Core2 parts with excellent hard drive options and continues an initiative that Alienware first introduced in 2006, mobile SLI.
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by Zardon | 28th November 2006
Close your eyes and picture two 7950GTX graphics cards, an SLI motherboard, a dual core AMD processor, RAID SATA hard disks, 20” widescreen TFT and DVD writer, then squeeze all that into a laptop – youll probably be thinking were crazy… well Rock Ltd has done just that!
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by Stuart Davidson | 27th July 2006
Alienware is a name synonymous with high performance machines. We've had a fair few come in for review and almost every one has been a fantastic kit to use. In fact myself and Driver Heaven’s Editor in Chief (Zardon) use Alienware systems for review and design work as they generally provide first class performance and great stability. Often these high performance systems come with a downside, that being size and weight, whilst the Area 51m desktop replacement is an amazing machine it is not great for using on the move.
Alienware do offer more portable machines though and that's where today's product is aimed. The M5500 will try to be portable whilst still providing some excellent performance, the question is though … can it be done?
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by Grace | 2nd July 2006
It would be safe to say that while Toshiba currently make some desktop oriented pc’s they are more commonly known for their laptop systems. They offer almost every type of notebook available, from value models to professional systems. Today we will take a look at the M70-159, a notebook designed for home and business users alike.With the integrated ATi Mobility X700 GPU and the “trubrite” WXGA 15.4” display, it should also provide good graphics performance, appealing to gamers.
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by Stuart Davidson | 18th June 2006
The world of performance laptops has always been an interesting one; we first looked at a “gamer” laptop in February 2004 and saw that speed didn’t necessarily mean portability. The 3.0Ghz P4 and Radeon 9600 Pro in that system required a rather large, and heavy, chassis and so really limited your travel options. Since then the majority of manufacturers have been forced to follow suit and generally if you want a top performing system you really do need to buy big. However this is slowly changing with the release of Intel’s Core CPU’s and some tough competition in the mobility graphics segment with ATI and Nvidia trying to outdo each other in terms of speed, temperature and power requirements. The result is that system builders can fit top performing kit into their laptops whilst for the most part maintaining portability.
We have one such system in for review today, it’s Rock’s Xtreme CTX which comes with the excellent Core Duo 2.16Ghz CPU and the high spec ATI Mobility X1800 XT graphics chip.
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by Stuart Davidson | 1st June 2006
A machine with a 19” screen isn’t something you would normally see attached to a laptop, however if there is public interest you can be sure someone will make it.
With such a meaty display there must be some excellent components under the hood, right? Well how about the fastest Turion 64 CPU, a gig of memory and 100Gb hard drive? Not enough for you….then we’d better not forget the Geforce Go 7800GTX 256Mb, in an SLI configuration!
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by Zardon | 23rd April 2006
Apple moving to Intel Processors and supporting the end user to run Windows XP on their machines? Whatever next? Bill gates as Apple chairman?
Danny has taken a look at a new Macbook Pro and spent some time with it over the last week. He has installed Windows XP Professional and given it a going over with some game titles as well as giving his views on the machine.
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by Stuart Davidson | 8th April 2006
Reviewing an Alienware is always a fun experience due to the fact that you are almost guaranteed a super high specification system which is designed to hit 0-60 in a few seconds. With the case of Alienware's high end laptops they create systems with the goal of being desktop replacements with no compromises. This review focuses on one such product with a mouth watering specification list comprising a 7800GTX backed up with 2gb of DDR400 ... and did we mention a FX-60 dual core CPU? Please take a moment to clean the drool from your keyboard before you read on....
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by Stuart Davidson | 3rd May 2005
Desktop Replacement laptops are becoming more and more popular due to the fact that the components contained within them are now more than a match for many high end PC’s. The laptop we have in for review today is the Xtreme TI from Rock, and it is indeed a match for any desktop PC based going by its paper specs… for starters it has a 3.6ghz Intel Socket 775 CPU and Radeon X800 mobility graphics card running over PCI-Express… when you add to that DDR2 support you begin to get an idea of how serious a machine this is. Let’s see how it stacks up against a similarly specified desktop…
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by Zardon | 23rd March 2005
The last time we looked at an Alienware system was February of last year and my colleague Stuart came away with a warm fuzzy feeling as that particular system performed exceptionally well considering the limitations of the mobile sector. Today we have the opportunity to test one of the new Alienware area 51m gaming systems. As some of you might know when you order a machine from Alienware you custom build it on their website. So with a budget of £3000 we decided to go "balls out" and put as much top end hardware into the rig as possible. Ive been reviewing and testing so much ATI hardware lately I went the Nvidia route for the graphics, its a 256 GDDR3 megabyte, 12 pipe design running at 330 core and 1000mhz on the ram. The CPU is the hot running Intel based Prescott, id first looked at a Prescott based laptop in a Dell Inspirion machine mid 2004, as you would expect these need serious cooling, ill be dwelling on that later in the article.
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by Zardon | 2nd January 2005
Its not often on Driverheaven we review prebuilt desktops or laptops, but today we are going to throw a curveball into the works and look at one of Sony's sexiest computers available, the VGN-T1XP. This laptop is targetted squarely at those of you wanting long battery life, razor sharp screen quality, diminutive size with high speed wireless for maximum portability. Needless to say this wont be the ideal machine for portable gaming, so if you are on the lookout for a desktop replacement then look elsewhere. So how much does this super portable laptop cost? you can pick it up for around £1800 in UK stores at time of press, so its not for those on a budget.
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by Zardon | 14th August 2004
ATI have had a great history with mobility graphics cards and today ill be looking at their newest model recently released, the Mobility Radeon 9800 GPU. Currently DELL are supplying this card with their Inspiron series of laptops with more manufacturers to follow.
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by Stuart Davidson | 24th February 2004
Alienware are a company that are synonymous with quality systems aimed at the gamer who wants the best system money can buy. As well as the excellent desktops that Alienware produce they also make a several high performance laptop models which come equipped with components that most desktop users would love, Pentium 4 processor up to 3.2Ghz, DDR3200 ram, ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 pro graphics.
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