Gaming laptop computer

Alienware's MJ-12m 5500 laptop

Alienware quickly made a name for itself with its powerful gaming systems. They know how to put together a strong PC for the home enthusiast and they are now taking that passion to the professional market. But how does knowing the needs of the power gaming computer translate to professional studio needs?

The Alienware MJ-12m 5500 laptop I got to play with is a bold move by the company to put portable workstation performance in the hands of professional editors. This is a tough market to try to break into. Apple has a stronghold on digital video creation, not just with its sleek, powerful and industry-accepted Final Cut Pro software, but its popular workflow and accepted pipelines. So I'm not entirely sure that's where this system review should start and end. I thought the best test of this system is to replace a workstation entirely and throw it headlong into digital production, not just editing. I think almost any respectable laptop can handle an editing job pretty well--especially DV. But where the system will stand or fall is in the hands of a digital artist charged with tough tasks and heavy deadlines.

To this end, I set up an artist station with the hyperthreading 3.4GHz Pentium 4 MJ-12m 5500, connected to a 21-inch CRT to complement the laptop's 1680X1050 resolution and 15.4-inch widescreen LCD. I first loaded the Windows XP Pro system with Maya, Photoshop and Apple Shake V.2.51 to test if this was a solid, all around workstation. And in short, I was highly impressed with the MJ-12m 5500's performance.

The artist running the laptop was charged with creating high-resolution texture maps based on huge images--around IGB in size and at 16,000X16,000 resolutions and up. These images were broken apart to be stitched back together within Maya as texture maps and were constantly updated and painted upon in Photoshop. We all quickly forgot this system was a laptop. Its 60GB high-speed hard drive, DVD-RW drive, 128MB Nvidia GeForce FX Go5700 video system, I GB of DDR400 RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and 3.4GHz P4 processor helped Alienware stay as productive as a desktop.

The FX Go5700 video card onboard allowed multi-displays and surprised me with its stability with a two-screen extended desktop, where we could lay down all the palette windows on the LCD screen and use the color-calibrated CRT for the color work. You can also expect to see this system with the Nvidia Quadro FX Go 1000 work-station-class graphics card or upgrade to the new MJ-12m 7700 platform which features the 256MB GeForce FX Go6800 card as well as the professional grade Quadro FX Go10400 graphics cards as options.

Dual displays worked great for Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects. There was good response with windows moving between displays, and no artifacting on either screen. The MJ-12m 5500's Nvidia FX Go5700 shined brightly through the unit's really nice LCD display. Having a CRT as a secondary display made it all the nicer with a spacious desktop with both displays running at 1280X1024.

But as soon as Shake and Maya entered the pipeline, we ran intro some OpenGL display issues forcing me to re-install the video drivers. Alienware support was very eager to help us out quickly. The driver set for the GeForce just was not adequate for running these apps reliably, so I tried my luck with Nvidia's Quadro driver set and found them to work nicely on this GeForce unit. Regardless, I would recommend the Quadro FX Go1000 option for this laptop--I am not a fan of putting pro applications on gaming-level hardware and drivers like the GeForces. Luckily, Alienware can configure laptop models with the Quadro.

Keep in mind that I am stressing this system quite a bit by using it heavily as a graphics workstation. The MJ-12m 5500 stayed perfectly on par with our desktop big guns and could do everything they could do, while staying portable. Its battery held a charge of about two hours at a full load, running a multimedia content creation benchmark, though with a dimmed screen.

One thing that did bother me was this particular unit's lack of wireless LAN. It is an option at the Alienware site, though I definitely missed it in this unit. One last minor bother is the unit's noise. It's not a loud machine, but you can hear a fan whirring to keep the components cool inside. It seems to run constantly, so it would be nice to see adjustable fan speeds to slow (and quiet) down when the laptop is not being taxed heavily.

I enjoyed the 3D positional sound from the four discrete speakers and the remote control, allowing you to playback video and music as well as run the cursor from afar. Although, I wonder if these offerings aren't more from Alienware's solid experience with gaming systems than from a desire to please media professionals. I have to admit though, being able to watch a DVD with great sound and a remote control at the hotel while on location is a nice touch.

Overall, this is an impressive computer--laptop or not. It's nice to see high-powered systems going portable, and the Alienware MJ-12m 5500 is a good offering to open with. I think Alienware will take some good ground in the professional market, and with more finely-tuned systems for pros available on their Web site, they will give a good run against existing professional mobile workstations.

In short, keep an eye on Alienware, they understand the concept of brute force elegantly, and are very aware of fine-tuning their DCC systems to cut sharp.