Alienware M11x: 11.6-inch gaming behemoth

Dell has announced the 11.6-inch Alienware M11x, the closest thing to a netbook we’re ever likely to see from the company. It is much more powerful than any ION netbook we’ve come across and offers switchable graphics with its powerful Nvidia GeForce 335M that features a 35W TDP and 1GB of dedicated memory (more than my desktop GPU!)

Whilst specs are thin on the ground, we do know it will be powered by a Intel Core 2 Duo processor. According to various reports, build quality is very good and the keyboard is backlit. The 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) glossy display is also sharp and colourful. To give you an idea on 3D gaming performance, Dell says that the 3DMark06 score is in the region of 6000 to 7000 (4-5x faster than the 11.6” Samsung N510 ION that we reviewed recently).

Battery life is reasonable too, lasting for 6.5 hours, benefiting from switchable graphics. If you’re playing a game, expect to get around 2 hours of runtime. Unfortunately, the battery is non-removable though. It comes with every port you can think of too, including HDMI, VGA, three USB 2.0s and even DisplayPort. All of this yours for the princely sum of $999 when it launches in the US within a month. Check out the hands-on video below from Laptop Mag.