Toshiba Tecra Z40-A1401 review: Too little for too much

Business computers usually cost more than consumer machines. But if you’re a small-business owner, you need to determine if the features in a laptop designed for the enterprise are worth the added cost. That question is particularly pertinent when comparing Toshiba’s Tecra Z40 to considerably cheaper consumer-oriented laptops from the likes of Dell and Lenovo.

What features might you see in a business laptop that you won’t find in a consumer machine? You first need to look at the processor. The Tecra Z40, the Dell Inspiron 14, and the Lenovo Flex 14 are all powered by Intel Core i5 processors, but the CPU in the Toshiba is a Core i5-4300U while the Dell and the Lenovo pack the Core i5-4200U. What’s the big diff?

Toshiba's pick delivers Intel’s vPro technology. A CPU with vPro includes a set of security and manageability features that make the computer easier for an IT department to manage. It also includes capabilities designed to protect the computer from rootkits, viruses, and malware, as well as remote and local monitoring and repair of the PC.

ROBERT CARDIN

The Toshiba Tecra Z40-A1404 has plenty of I/O ports, but DisplayPort isn't one of them.

The Core i5-4300U is also outfitted with Intel’s Small Business Advantage (software monitoring, backup and restore, USB port blocker, and a few other features), Intel Smart Response Technology (a feature that leverages the use of a small SSD with a higher-capacity mechanical hard drive), and Intel Stable Image Platform (a program that ensures that the PC platform you deploy will remain standardized for at least 15 months).

Business-oriented laptops also tend to be lighter in weight. At 3.24 pounds, the Tecra Z40 is more than a full pound lighter than either the Dell Inspiron 14 or the Lenovo Flex 14 (both of which tip the scales at 4.4 pounds). If you’re on the road a lot, you’ll feel that extra pound on the Dell or the Lenovo every step of the way.

Finally, business laptops typically have an optional docking station or port replicator that enables rapid switching between desktop and mobile modes. Toshiba offers a $200 port replicator for the Tecra Z40 that adds four USB 3.0 ports, as well as HDMI, DVI-D (or VGA, with an adapter), and DisplayPort 1.2 with multistreaming (a particularly valuable addition, since, unlike most business laptops, the Tecra Z40 doesn’t support DisplayPort on its own). You can buy third-party docking stations for almost any laptop that uses technology such as USB and DisplayLink, but they’re not always as elegant.

The eval unit Toshiba sent came with Windows 7 Professional, but a Windows 8 Pro license is also included, in case you’d like to switch. I’m actually a fan of Windows 8, but the Z40 lacks the touchscreen needed to take full advantage of that newer OS.

The Tecra Z40 relies on the Intel HD Graphics 4400 integrated into its CPU to drive its 14-inch display, which has a native resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels. The display feels a little dim even at the brightest settings, and while the viewing angles aren’t bad, colors start to look a little washed out if you aren’t staring dead on—stick to projectors if you want to show off that presentation.

ROBERT CARDIN

The Tecra Z40’s 1366-by-768 display is disappointingly dim.

The integrated GPU shares some of the machine’s 8GB of DDR3/1600 memory with the CPU. Considering the Tecra Z40’s price tag, I was surprised to find that it arrived with just a 320GB mechanical hard drive and not a zippy SSD. The drive does spin its platters at 7200 rpm, but $1229 is a lot of lettuce for a business laptop that doesn’t include an SSD. On the upside, Toshiba included Intel’s Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 network adapter, so you can take advantage of the speed of the 802.11ac router in your office (it’s a 2x2 device, so its physical link rate will top out at 867 megabits per second).

The keys on the Tecra Z40’s backlit keyboard are comfortably sized, albeit a bit cramped. Its top row of function keys default to that purpose, so you’ll need to hold down a second key to adjust volume or screen brightness, or to control any media-player software. There’s an old-school pointing nub in the center—the kind of nub that was de rigeur on “serious” laptops back before Apple showed us trackpads didn’t have to be uniformly terrible. It’s smaller than the red pointing nub you’ll find on Lenovo’s business laptops and a bit more prone to picking up lint, but it’s plenty accurate and comfortable to use.

The Tecra Z40’s trackpad is an odd beast. The left and right mouse buttons sit above it, as if to suggest that the pointing nub should be your primary means of mousing. A solid silver bar below the pad harbors a fingerprint reader, but my brain sees the contrast between the silver bar and the dark gray trackpad and assumes “button,” which inevitably results in a thumb repeatedly mashed against an unforgiving slab of metal. No, you’ll want to click the left and right corners of the trackpad. The fingerprint utility can store up to 20 fingerprints, and it recommends that users store at least two “in case of a finger injury,” which is amusing in a morbid sort of way.

ROBERT CARDIN

Fabricated largely from magnesium, the Tecra Z40 weighs 3.24 pounds.

Toshiba’s machine has three USB 3.0 ports (one of which can be used to charge a smartphone or other device, even when the laptop is sleeping), an SD card reader, and a full-sized ethernet jack (oriented upside down, so you can press down on the retainer clip with your thumb). Video outputs include HDMI and VGA (useful mostly for connecting to old video projectors), but it lacks DisplayPort—a common feature on business-oriented laptops.

If you intend to listen to music while you work, you’ll want to rely on the Tecra Z40’s combination headphone/microphone jack. The anemic pair of speakers located on its front edge sound sadly tinny and are nearly devoid of bass response. They’re also not very loud, which will be a problem when you need to share a video with colleagues in a crowded conference room.

The Tecra Z40 is a decidedly average performer, producing a WorldBench 8.1 score of 156. That’s a little higher than Dell’s $650 Inspiron 14, which scored 132, but far behind the $750 Lenovo Flex 14’s WorldBench score of 278. The PCMark 7 productivity suite and storage test results were the biggest factors here: The Dell scored just 982 on the productivity suite, versus the Lenovo’s 2662 and the Toshiba’s 1703. The Dell and the Toshiba also lagged on the storage test, scoring 1479 and 1626 respectively, compared with the Lenovo’s 5103.

The presence of an SSD in Lenovo’s Flex 14 boosted its WorldBench score high above that of the hard-drive-powered Dell Inspiron 14 and the Toshiba Tecra Z40. The Toshiba, on the other hand, is outfitted with a business-oriented Intel Core i5-4300U. (Click chart to enlarge.)

Why such a disparity when all three machines have roughly the same CPU? The Lenovo Flex 14 is outfitted with a 120GB SSD. The Dell has a mechanical hard drive that spins at 5400 rpm, and the Toshiba has a 7200-rpm mechanical drive. The Inspiron 14 also came with 6GB of memory, versus 8GB for the other two machines; nonetheless, the scores on the balance of the benchmarks that factor into the WorldBench score were all much closer.

The Haswell-class CPUs in all three machines contributed to great battery life. Here again, the Lenovo Flex 14’s SSD helped it win this round. (Click to enlarge.)

Since all three machines feature a Haswell-class CPU, battery life was excellent across the board: at or above 7 hours. The Flex 14, however, lasted a full 26 minutes longer than the Tecra Z40.Toshiba provides a bevy of its own utilities for managing your power consumption, among other things, which some buyers will find useful. For example, the HDD Protection utility automatically moves your hard drive’s head to a “safe position” to prevent damage when the laptop detects vibration. But at the risk of beating a dead horse, that utility wouldn’t be necessary if Toshiba provided an SSD instead of a mechanical hard drive.

If you need a business laptop with a business-oriented CPU, you’ll find better values in the marketplace than the Tecra Z40 at $1229. And if you can get by with a consumer-oriented laptop, you’ll find some great machines for hundreds less.

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

HP Color LaserJet Pro M177fw review: Great output, but little else

HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M177fw $350.00 This color laser multifunction printer offers the usual compromises for this bargain price range: slow performance, minimal features, and high toner costs. If you don't print much then you might not mind...

HP makes some very capable, feature-rich color laser multifunction printers. The HP Color LaserJet Pro M177fw isn't one of them. It actually has impressive output quality, however, its low purchase price brings compromises in speed, features, and toner costs. Unless you print very little, you will come to spend far more on this product than you'd probably like. 

The M177fw may be attached via USB, 10/100 Ethernet, or Wi-Fi. Setup was easy in my hands-on and the driver dialog is nicely laid out with the ability to create shortcuts for your most often used settings. The HTML management pages for checking on the printer across the network were also easy to use. HP provides capable software for all the MFP basics, as well as the now-usual array of remote and Internet printing options.

The M177fw has a 3-inch touchscreen display that makes it easy to operate. Paper capacity is limited (though in line with the low-volume, 250- to 950-page recommended monthly usage for this product). There's a 150-page, open-faced input tray, a 50-page output tray, and a 35-page automatic document feeder (which was very noisy on our test unit). There's no automatic duplex copying, printing, or scanning. HP provides assistance for manual-duplex printing, but none for two-sided scanning or copying.

The scanner lid doesn't telescope, even slightly. Even most non-telescoping lids have slight give in their hinges, but the M177fw's lid canted upward even when scanning a mere 100-page magazine.

The M177fw's overall output quality is a highlight. Photos are rendered exceptionally well for a laser printer, with little graininess and a cool, but still attractive palette. Text and monochrome graphics are equally outstanding—sharp and black. An econo-mode which saves a lot of toner, but still produces legible text. When you see the toner costs, you'll see the need for it.

The M177fw has the slower performance that's typical of low-cost color lasers. Text and monochrome pages exit at 9.9 pages per minute on the PC, and 7.7 pages per minute on the Mac. Snapshot-sized, 4-inch by 6-inch photos print at just under 2 per minute to plain paper, and 1.5 per minute to glossy laser stock. A full-page photo exits in about 55 seconds. Copies proceed at about 4 per minute, and scans speeds are equally acceptable.

With most office printers, higher-capacity cartridges can save you money. Not so with the M177fw. The only available supplies are the $55, 1300-page black and $58, 1000-page 130A series, forcing you to live with 4.2-cent black pages, and 21.6-cent four-color pages. The latter is a real ouch. The M177fw ships with 500-page starter cartridges, so you'll be feeling the pinch sooner, too.

By way of comparison, $500 color laser MFPs usually offer black pages for under 3 cents and four-color pages for under 15 cents with high-capacity supplies. Business-class Inkjet MFPs using high-capacity supplies—and costing about the same as the M177fw—run you less than 2 cents per page for black, and 7 cents per page for color.

The cartridges are mounted on a carousel inside the printer. To access a cartridge, you press an icon of the cartridge in the supplies menu on the control panel. It would be fun to watch, but unfortunately the hatch has to be closed while rotating.

There's no disparaging the LaserJet Pro M177fw's output—it's top notch. But as with all color-laser products at this price point, the toner is too expensive, and the features are just adequate. We suggest you start at the $500 level if you really want a color laser MFP. The toner will still be expensive, but at least there will be duplexing and more capacity.

If you're truly stuck shopping at the $300 level, a  business-class inkjet MFP is the better option, offering better speed, features, and output quality. 

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

Dell XPS 8700 Special Edition's review: A little less performance for a lot less cash

Dell’s take on the performance PC doesn’t hold a candle to some of the over-the-top machines boutique vendors build, such as the $8000 Maingear Shift or even the $2571 Digital Storm Virtue, but Dell picked all the right components to build a reasonably priced ($1650) performance rig for mainstream gamers.

The Dell XPS 8700 Special Edition features one of Intel’s most powerful fourth-generation Core processors, the Core i7-4770 (from the Haswell family). Unlike its pricier sibling, the Core i7-4770K, this CPU cannot be aggressively overclocked, but that’s probably for the best considering that it’s housed in a chassis that sports just a single cooling fan.

The upscale CPU is augmented by 16GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory and a midrange video card based on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 660 graphics processor. Dell stuck to the middle of the road for storage, too, providing a 32GB solid-state drive as cache for a 2TB mechanical hard drive (tapping Intel’s Smart Response Technology).

Like HP’s mainstream gaming rig, the Envy 700-030qe, the motherboard in Dell’s XPS 8700 has limited expansion opportunities. There’s only one PCIe x16 slot, which means you won’t be able to add a second video card to take advantage of Nvidia’s SLI technology. Of course, Dell’s meager 460-watt power supply couldn’t support a second card anyway.

ROBERT CARDINThe XPS 8700 Special Edition's motherboard has just one PCIe x16 expansion slot—no SLI for you!

The XPS 8700 held its own in our benchmarks, delivering a respectable Desktop WorldBench 8.1 score of 337. That makes it more than three times faster than our baseline system, Acer’s all-in-one Aspire A5600U-UB13, and slightly slower than HP’s Envy 700-030qe. The Envy has the same processor as the XPS 8700, but its dedicated SSD boosted its Desktop WorldBench 8.1 score to 352, even though it has less main memory (12GB of DDR3/1600) and a lesser video card (an Nvidia GeForce GTX 645). But that SSD is the only storage the Envy has, which isn’t optimal for real-world use.

Dell's XPS 8700 Special Edition falls just short of HP's Envy 700-030qe in our Desktop WorldBench 8.1 suite, because the HP has an SSD.

The superior video card in the XPS 8700 enabled it to deliver much better gaming performance than the HP Envy. When we ran Dirt Showdown and BioShock Infinite at 1920-by-1080-pixel resolution, with visual quality set to Ultra, the Dell churned out 44.6 and 40.6 frames per second, respectively, while the Envy 700 struggled to produce half that frame rate: 20.5 and 18.9 frames per second, respectively. While those frame rates fall short of the coveted 60 frames-per-second mark, both games are enjoyably playable at those rates, and the system remained pleasantly quiet while rendering both games.

The beefier video card in Dell’s machine helped it deliver much better gaming performance than the HP Envy (but boutique builder Digital Storm’s Virtue crushed both mainstream machines).

The XPS 8700 is equipped with a Blu-ray reader/DVD burner, Bluetooth capabilities, and an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 dual-band 802.11n, 2x2 Wi-Fi adapter that supports a maximum physical link rate of 300 megabits per second. The system sports two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and a 19-in-1 media-card reader built into the front, plus four USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports in back.

The included wired mouse and keyboard are the definition of standard. The keyboard offers some dedicated media controls but is not backlit. The long, curved mouse is comfortable enough for everyday use, but is otherwise unremarkable. Dell offers its wireless KM714 keyboard and mouse combo as a $75 upgrade.

If I had to choose between Dell’s mainstream gaming rig and HP’s (each configured as the manufacturers sent them for review), I’d pick Dell’s because it has the better video card, more memory, and more storage. HP’s Envy, on the other hand, costs $200 less and comes with a 256GB SSD (HP also offers more configuration options, although you can’t upgrade to a better video card). Neither machine is a gaming powerhouse, but both provide good price/performance ratios and reasonable headroom for down-the-road upgrades.

Alex covers desktops, everything from fancy to practical. He's also an avid (addicted) gamer and loves following the industry.
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Digital Storm Marauder review: Good gaming, little else

Digital Storm’s Marauder gaming desktop is perfectly named, but for all the wrong reasons. The only thing this system is going to plunder is your bank account, and it will leave little to show for the pillaging. True to its design, the Marauder is decently geared for gaming given its budget appeal ($999). And if you're buying the PC simply as an affordable gaming system, you'll do fine. But in nearly every other respect, this system suffers from critical deficiencies that make it less appealing for general use.

In our review unit as configured, a 3.1GHz AMD FX-8120 Zambezi processor and 8GB of memory serve as the brains and heart of the system. However, with a less-than-impressive score of 77 on our WorldBench 7 suite of tests, the Marauder barely had a pulse, as it was soundly bested by comparably priced, Intel-driven budget desktops such as the $999 Asus Essentio CM6870 and its WorldBench 7 score of 106.

Gaming is the Marauder's specialty, though. Armed with a Radeon HD 7700 graphics board, which launched in February of this year and uses a single 28-nanometer “Cape Verde” GPU, the Marauder pumped out 80.4 frames per second on our Dirt 3 benchmark (1920-by-1080-pixel resolution, high quality). On this test, the Marauder even scaled as high as 2560 by 1600 and retained playability, achieving a frame rate of 52.6 fps. Our Crysis 2 benchmark is a tad more demanding: The Marauder was able to run it at a maximum playable resolution of 1928 by 1080 (high quality), hitting a rate of 42.8 fps.

In gaming, at least, the Marauder trounced the aforementioned Essentio CM6870, which eked out only half the Marauder's frame rate on the Dirt 3 benchmark run and looked completely overwhelmed by its trip through Crysis 2.

But when I say that gaming is this system’s only bright spot, I mean it. The single 500GB hard drive in this machine is a low-end choice even for a budget desktop, especially when lined up against the full 2TB of storage that the Essentio CM6870 bestows. And that’s not even the worst item on the Marauder’s spec sheet: This Digital Storm desktop sports a simple DVD combo drive, whereas Asus manages to pack a full Blu-ray player into its sub-$1000 system.

We’re big fans of the Marauder’s lovely Corsair Vengeance C70 chassis. The military theming carries well across the olive-green chassis, up to and including a reset switch (with a finger-flip cover) that makes you feel a little like you’re taking the country to DEFCON 2 instead of power cycling your system; the case’s convenient carrying handles and side-panel latches are a nice touch too. We love the fact that we don’t have to fiddle with screws to pop off the case’s windowed or solid sides, even if it’s a bit loud to do so. Two side fans, two front fans, and one rear fan circulate air around the Marauder’s interior, but you can add two more on the case’s top—or a liquid-cooling radiator—if you want to change up the cooling.

You'll find plenty of room for upgrades within the Marauder, and the Vengeance C70 makes that process as smooth and streamlined as possible. The system’s three 5.25-inch bays (two of which are free) use built-in locking mechanisms to secure your components sans screws. The case can hold a total of six hard drives, and easy-to-operate, slide-out trays transform the process of adding and removing storage into a task you can measure in seconds, not minutes.

A single PCI Express x16 slot remains free on the motherboard (we’d use it to install another graphics board in CrossFire), alongside one open PCI Express x1 slot and two PCI slots. Thumbscrews secure the Marauder’s PCI-based components in place, a practical but imperfect solution for a case that’s almost entirely screw-free.

The biggest drawback of the Vengeance C70 case is that it allows for only two USB 3.0 connections on its front. Four would have been better, and we even could have settled for a mix of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. The system’s rear is more USB-friendly, with two USB 3.0 ports and six USB 2.0 ports joining an optical S/PDIF connection, a gigabit ethernet port, and connections for 7.1 surround sound. The Marauder’s Radeon HD 7700 graphics board supports one DVI-I, one HDMI, and two Mini-DisplayPort connections. In total, the Marauder presents an average assortment of connectivity; a bit more, and some extra diversity, would have been appreciated.

Digital Storm didn’t include a mouse or keyboard with our system as reviewed, but you can select from a variety of options when customizing a system on the company's site.

You’d have to be a pretty enthusiastic gamer with barely a budget to work with for Digital Storm’s Marauder to appeal to you. Digital Storm has recently upgraded this system to include an AMD FX-8150 processor, so the CPU performance should be marginally, but not substantially, better. Otherwise, there’s little about this $999 gaming desktop that similar systems don’t thoroughly squash. Unfortunately, at the bottom, choosing a PC often involves a trade-off: You get great general performance or good gaming, but rarely both.

WorldBench 7 benchmark results
Games at 1080p Games at 2560 by 1600

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Trails Web App Combines a Little Bit of Pinterest, Quora

Trails is a little tricky to explain. The site, in alpha version for now, was one of the web apps we saw being demoed at SXSWi’s Startup Spotlight. It looks like Pinterest, but functions very differently. Essentially, Trails lets you curate bookmarks which are filed under topics or used as answers to questions others have asked, and these “trails” take the form of pins spread out on your web browser.

Each Trail initially has a topic or a question that acts as the main item “pinned” to the browser spread. “How do I learn to make a website?”, for instance, or “Easy Eats in Downtown Austin.”  When you click into a Trail, you’ll see all the bookmarks by a curator, collected across different places on the web—they can be sites, videos, images, lists, etc. These either serve as the answers to the initial question asked, or act as a collection of items catalogued under the cover topic. Curators also have the ability create a “path” using these bookmarks, defining the particular order their audience will see the web items they’ve collected. 

Trails has high aspirations, including eventually building a database of respected curators who will act as authorities on certain topics, and the ability for regular people—with continued use of the app—to increase their influence on others. But do we really need another bookmarking website, even if the premise is slightly different from what we’ve seen before? Only time will tell if Trails will catch on to a crowd of adopters and make it out into the mainstream.

If you’re still confused and would like to try Trails yourself, you can check out the Alpha site the team is using to demo the app at the conference: http://trails.by/sxsw.

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Twitter Client Blu Takes Just a Little Desktop Space

Many of today's best Twitter management applications--from TweetDeck to HootSuite to Seesmic Desktop--take up a good portion of your desktop real estate. If you're looking for something a little smaller, consider Blu. Developed as a concept application for Windows 7, Blu is a slick little Twitter client that leaves you with plenty of room to get some work done.

Blu lets you see @replies and mentions in a conversation view, which makes it easier to understand them in context. Blu's rectangular shape is reminiscent of the dedicated AIM client I've always relied on for instant messaging. But is attractive interface is far superior: It features a muted blue and white design that manages to look both simple and sophisticated at the same time.

Blu's default display shows you Twitter timeline, while icons at the bottom of the Blu client make it easy to view @mentions, favorites, retweets, direct messages, and your own Tweets. I especially like how Blu lets you see @replies and mentions in a conversation view, which makes it easier to understand them in context. It's a handy feature.

Additional icons let you access Twitter search and compose new tweets. Blu's singular column design means that you can only view one of these categories of information at a time. Rival TweetDeck, meanwhile, features a multi-column design that lets you view multiple information streams at once. This omission is the trade-off for Blu's slim footprint, though, and it's one that I'm willing to take.

Blu's social media support is limited to Twitter, and this app only allows you to manage one Twitter account. If you can live with those limitations, you'll find that Blu is a whole lot more than just a pretty face.

Note: The Download link takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

-- Liane Cassavoy

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Alienware X51 Review: The Little PC That Could

Among built-to-order gaming PCs, Alienware is about as close as one gets to a household name, and the brand is largely synonymous with huge black boxes covered in garish blinking lights. The new Alienware X51 ($999 as configured, as of February 3, 2012) is a marked departure from that routine, cutting both costs and girth to deliver a machine that’s palatable to the masses but doesn't lose any of that gamer cred.

The Alienware X51’s specs aren’t especially impressive on paper. The model I reviewed is equipped with a 3GHz Intel Core i5-2320, 8GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 555 discrete graphics card, and a 1TB hard drive. Of note: Despite the system's (relatively) small size, those are all desktop-class components, and they perform well. On PCWorld’s WorldBench 6 test suite, the X51 earned an impressive score of 147, landing at the top of the budget desktops category and giving some of the lower-end performance desktops a run for their money.

The X51's gaming performance isn’t exactly mind-blowing, but it is strong. On our Crysis 2 benchmark, it posted a frame rate of 46.2 frames per second at a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels and fairly high settings. You can certainly eke out more frames if you turn the visual details down a bit, but that’s excellent performance for a PC at this price. On Dirt 3 at the same resolution and settings, the X51 produced a rate of 84.3 fps.

But the real story here is the case. It’s small--just over a foot tall and long, and 3 inches wide. It looks quite a bit like an Xbox 360, and it can operate lying on its side or standing upright; you can turn the alien-head badge on its front to match the case’s orientation, if you mind those sorts of details.

The real feather in the X51’s cap is its upgradability. A single screw keeps the side of the chassis locked down, and two more guard access to the innards. From there, you’re free to swap components in and out, with the expected reservations. The Mini-ITX motherboard offers only a pair of DIMM slots, and things are so tight inside that you’d be hard-pressed to fit some of the taller RAM sticks available without jostling the SATA cables sticking out of the optical drive. The power supply is also meager, and limited to 150W graphics cards. That said, with existing Intel Sandy Bridge motherboards promising drop-in support for upcoming Ivy Bridge processors, Alienware has positioned the X51 as a gaming-PC offering that’s also a smart investment for tinkering types.

A slot-loading DVD burner sits on the front of the X51, though options on Alienware’s site include a Blu-ray player. If you’re planning on using the X51 as a media center machine, that Blu-ray upgrade makes sense. You'll also find two USB 2.0 ports on the front, as well as audio and microphone jacks.

The rear offers a few more choices, namely 5.1-channel audio from the motherboard, optical and coax S/PDIF outputs, an HDMI port, four more USB 2.0 ports, and a pair of USB 3.0 ports. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 555 GPU has two DVI ports and a Mini HDMI port. You’ll find the standard gigabit ethernet connection as well, but all models also pack 802.11n Wi-Fi as a standard feature; that’s really useful in a PC that’s as likely to be tucked into an entertainment center as on (or under) a desk.

The Alienware X51 is light on bundled software; installed on the machine are AlienFX and AlienFusion. The AlienFX app lets you tweak the lighting on the X51’s chassis. For this purpose, the machine is split into three “zones”--the alien skull on the front, and 7-inch plastic panels on either side. The interface is simple and intuitive: A representation of the PC shows up on your screen, and clicking on the individual zones brings up a color wheel. If you’d like to get a bit more technical, advanced settings let you drill down. I’ve set the X51 to switch into a lovely pink-and-purple motif for particular games, but you can also set it to change color based on specific system events, such as receiving email messages. (Of course, if you prefer to keep things mundane, you can turn the lights off entirely.) Meanwhile, the AlienFusion app manages power profiles, providing many of the same options you can find in Windows’ power-management features, albeit in a fancier interface.

My biggest complaint about the X51 is the lack of a solid-state drive option. We've heard no word on whether SSDs will be available later on, but nothing is stopping you from cracking open the case and replacing the hard drive if you’re so inclined.

I had a chance to check out the X51 a few weeks ago at a launch event here in San Francisco, and I’m as impressed now as I was then. The X51 is a step in the right direction for Alienware: Large, imposing gaming rigs aren’t going anywhere, but one of the many reasons given in support of the oft-repeated “PC gaming is dead” mantra is cost--and shoppers who aren’t ready to roll up their sleeves and build their own PCs are likely to turn to recognized brands. However, if you need more power, you can find plenty of PCs to choose from on our performance-desktops chart (with the requisite bump in price).

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