A couple of the guys at Notebookreview forum commented the same too, but so far none has come up with the response on checking them together. Nobody had the Latitude and Area-51 together I guess.

well you can ask alienware tech support for verification

And I'm sure their answer would be no, since it is not utilising the approved Alienware accessory. If you do choose to use the Latitude Smart Bay batteries, and something happens, warranty will not be covered.

stringfellow - is the ram user-upgradeable? did u chose the 4gb option or upgrade by yourself?

User-upgradable. So does the HDD. Chose the 4GB by myself, lazy want to open up and screw around. It's a long way from Dublin.

In fact, the graphic card and in some cases, the processor is user-upgradable as well, provided you get the cards/processor from Alienware. They have this special component identifier that is need to match up before they can run. However, at Notebookreview forum, there have been several successful attempts by members there at buying components themselves at cheaper price and emulating the identifier to make these component run in the Alienware. Of course, they do this at their own risk.

Alienware now owned by Dell if i am not mistaken.. it will be surprising if they have not shared any components..

stringfellow, i do the calculation for the laptop of the same models,and it just cost RM6k including shipment, can you tell me why?

Boss, you did it at Alienware US or Alienware UK? I did it at www.alienware.co.uk and I still get the figure I paid for. Alienware US may be cheaper due to their aggresive pricing, but they don't ship outside continental US.

You sure you configured it as according to my specs, or are you tAlking about other competing brands?

6K on an Alienware? How can you get that price anywhere?

Where's the guy who asked about the RM6K Alienware? Gone and hide already? Meow?

Okay, just received the M15X Smart Bay 6-Cell Battery as well as the empty Smart Bay HDD Kit. The KDD enclosure is already fitted with a 500GB WD 5400rpm SATA notebook HDD, and registers a 465GB space free. Am currently charging the battery, the charging process charges the main battery first before trickle-charging the Smart Bay battery. Pictures, and screenshots of battery life to come, with the MINIMUM battery life would be around 7 (yes, SEVEN!) hours! Now, which gaming laptop has that much battery endurance again?

Pics to come!

The three Smart Bay accessories. Left is the Blu-ray Writer, center is the HDD Kit fitted with 500GB 5400rpm SATA notebook HDD, and the right is the 6-cell battery.

Battery indicator with blue LEDs. The three Smart Bay accessories stacked on top of each other.

Not calibrated, the battery already gives 6hrs 8 minutes at 96% capacity. Calibration will only happen later once I'm in Adelaide. It will take mucb time to drain the power completely and recharging it back again.

Price? EU97. A gaming laptop with 6 hours battery endurance? Priceless! The best thing about all this? It all stays INSIDE the SAME chassis, no overbloating of extended batteries and all. Awesome!

EDIT: Pictures of battery life to come, the screenshots upload does not come out as it should. Stay tuned!

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Dec 15 2008, 05:16 PM

I don't think any competing brands can do that for 6k

Mind posting the of the connectors for each of the bays? wanna do a rough visual check against the bays for my Latitude.. still think one and the same..

Will do. Just arrived in Adelaide. Need to take a breather, didn't sleep the whole night working to come here.

Even if the connectors are the same, would the dimension of the Smart Bay enclosure be the same too? If we could find Dell's spec-ed dimensions of the Latitude Smart Bay against Alienware's, that may decide once and for all if they are interchangable.

I'm intrigued as well, since if these fit, I can simply order from Dell, instead of having to call up Claire in Dublin.

I guess u drove an "air" busses eh bro, no wonder can easily afford all these

even if i got the money i would go for voodoopc or alienware..but still more years to come

I'm so god damn jealous

Lawl, insane lappie at insane price... Hey stringfellow, how's the value for money for you in terms of build quality?

From your 212th post, the wrist pad area seems plasticky, or isit just the pictures?

Alienware compensated with the build quality, they traded off metal enclosures to save up on weight. It is easy to look at the material and simply say "Plastic!" since anything that resembles or looks like plastic , people will always claim it as plastic. The chassis is built using mylar composite, not plastic, otherwise the heat from the exhaust of the 8800M GTX would have melted the vents off. The bad part of that wrist pad area is that the trackpad is also built using the same material, so the only way you can identify whether your fingers are gliding on the trackpad area or not is to glance at it, not by feel(since the trackpad area feels the same as the wrist pad area).

The philosophy with purchasing Alienware is "always go for the best , or dont go there at all", so if you plan to skimp on things, might as well stick with the local brands. So the "value for money" statement does not apply for Alienware, it is after all a boutique brand. Same reason why people dont associate "value for money" with Louis Vuitton or Hermes.

Lawl...Well said, but honestly if I were to pay for that price, I'd expect excellent feel for the materials, and plastic (or mylar as you've said) would not be something nice to feel... I think so far only HP puts importance in that, in the sense that their lappies have that metallic feel to them, which can be seen in their DV series.

About your lappie, it's full hd right? Can it match Sony's full hd lappies in terms of video quality when you run a blu-ray movie on it? If possible, do post some benchmark shots here, thanks!