Merom-Powered Alienware Area-51 m5550 Review Quotes

Alienware Area-51 m5550 is one of the first company’s laptops to feature new Intel Core 2 Duo Merom processor and one of the first Merom-powered notebooks reviewed by PC Magazine and Notebook Review.

Older Yonah Core Duos are no more an option when configuring the m5550, so you can choose one of five Merom processors. The cheapest among them is Core 2 Duo T5500, which is included in the Area-51 m5550 basic price of $999 after $100 instant rebate. The basic Alienware Area-51 m5550 configuration with mid-range Core 2 Duo T7200 costs $1249 after $100 off, while its basic price with top of the line Merom T7600 CPU is $1699 after rebate.

The 15.4 inch screen Alienware Area-51 m5550 is based on Alienware Intel 945PM + ICH7 chipset and it features 512MB, 1GB or 2GB DDR2 memory and a SATA hard drive with storage capacity from 60GB to 160GB. Regarding graphics, you can choose ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 with 128MB memory or NVidia GeForce Go 7600 with 256MB memory for additional $200. The m5550 has Internal Intel PRO Wireless 3945 a/b/g Mini-Card and a combo box optical drive or DVD burner.

The Area-51 m5550 still comes with Windows XP Home, Pro or Media Center Edition.

Here are the quotes from Core 2 Duo Merom powered Alienware Area-51 m5550 reviews with links to the full stories.

Alienware Area-51 m5550 review by PC Magazine
Having been bought by Dell has its privileges, and the Area-51 m5550, one of the first notebooks to receive the latest Intel Core 2 Duo mobile CPU (code-named “Merom”), perfectly illustrates these benefits. The laptop’s 2.33-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 processor is the fastest one available so far, but this performance-driven media laptop is hot in more ways than one.

Alienware Area-51 m5550 with Core 2 Duo Performance Evaluation
Even in single CPU mode, the Core 2 Duo T7600 (in Alienware Area-51 m5550) is almost one-third faster than the Pentium M. Rendering does depend on the CPU’s clock speed, so some of the difference in scores can be attributed to that, but the Core 2 Duo clearly is faster clock-for-clock thanks to its wider and deeper pipeline.

Alienware estimates that will start shipping this laptop starting from September 14.