Alienware m9700: Part Three - Practical Applications :

Nowadays if you work anywhere near the fields of gold that we call the “Internet”, you have to know the basics of design and image building. With that said, programs like Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro are large programs that take quite a lot of resources from your everyday desktop and laptop PC. Most web designers, graphic designers and designers in general – prefer to use Macs or insanely developed PCs for their work.

Strikingly evident, the m9700 can handle anything you throw at it without lagging your computer down with frustrations and computer slowdowns. Running Photoshop CS2, Adobe Dreamweaver, Skype, AIM, Yahoo and MSN all at once without a single problem. Once more, I kept all of those programs running and then booted up Oblivion. True, it’s not a practical application – but the fact you can leave all your programs up and still play such a graphically intensive game is amazing.

Before everyone starts chipping in with their ideal programs to try out and test – realize that this laptop giggles at resource-hogging programs. Quickly discarding the cautionary warnings of shutting down everything you have before the usage of your heavier applications, it opens up a new world of multi-tasking both home and in the workplace.

While tinkering with a couple of programs, I ran into a few minor issues. Quickly “Googling” the error message that prattled at me within the blue screen of hate, I came to realize it was a driver problem – most likely from the mouse that I installed. Checking through the Alienware support site, I found many fixes to this problem and didn’t have to worry too much about phone calls or bothersome attempts at tech support.

In the form of a DVD, Alienware gives you a system restore that can either bring you back to a point where the computer works normally or you can wipe the whole damn thing. It’s your choice. Many might say, “Hey – why not just use the Microsoft System Restore that’s there on the computer?” – and that’s not totally possible. Alienware did away with the apparently cumbersome folders for system functions, such as defragging and scandisk. Why? When I asked, they said that people generally didn’t care for it and seemed to have trouble with figuring them out.

However, I found that they’re still there – the folder is just taken away from clear view. So, I got onto my desktop and transferred the shortcuts to those programs to my Alienware laptop. There, now I could easily clean up and fix things as I so chose. A weird way around, but if you think about it – how many times have your computer illiterate relatives messed something up because they tinkered where they should not have?

The m9700’s price points are in graphic presentation and the sheer sake of it’s name. Alienware which is owned by Dell merely for number sake, sheds no quality in design. In every sense of the word, you get what you pay for and the m9700 deserves every respect for such. A sleek monster of a machine, a slender beauty in the eye of all who own one; the Alienware m9700 should be placed upon a placard as the must-own computer for last year, this year and many years to follow.

Stay tuned to TEK for the our Fourth and final installment of our Alienware m9700 Review!