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Rick Rizner, John Goddard
If not quite extraterrestrial, the Alienware Area-51m 7700 is unique among multimedia laptops. Some notebooks offer better entertainment chops, such as models in Toshiba's Satellite and HP's Pavilion lines, but no multimedia laptops I know of flex as much desktop replacement muscle as the 7700. Alienware just needs to apply the finishing touches.
The early shipping model I reviewed packed enough attractions to send most entertainment laptop-loving earthlings into orbit: a 17- inch 1600 by 1050 wide screen, a Webcam, and four stereo speakers plus subwoofer, among other serious equipment. Conspicuously missing from the unit I looked at, however, were the Windows Media Center Edition operating system and a TV tuner, features that Alienware now offers in 51m 7700 models.
The 7700 is not your average desktop replacement, and not just because there's an alien face embossed on the lid. First, its 2.3- inch-tall case allows it to expand faster than the universe, with options for dual-RAID-capable hard drives providing up to 200GB of storage, two integrated optical drives and 2GB of RAM divided into four user-accessible memory slots. (My $3214 review laptop came with 120GB of storage and one fixed multiformat DVD burner with case space below for adding a second optical drive.)
The 7700 has a seven-in-one card reader, accommodating almost every type of flash memory card.
All the connections you'll need to attach almost every kind of peripheral are present on the 7700, including two FireWire...