Dell has officially brough the Alienware brand fully under its 35-country wide wing today with the launch of the M17x aka “the most powerful 17-inch laptop in the Universe”. The gaming behemouth was lauched this morning at E3 but I was lucky enough to have sneak preview of the 5kg beast at the end of last week. Here it is…

The final specs on this monster are up to dual 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M graphics processing units, Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-core factory overclockable mobile processor (which Dell expects you to overclock by up to 3 bin speeds), 8GB DDR32 1333MHz RAM, 1TB 7200RPM HDD or 512GB of SSD in Raid formation, WUXGA 1200p (1920 x 1200) edge-to-edge gloss glass LCD and integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M G1 GPU with HybridPower technology for all your day to day needs. Naturally, you don’t get all that for the starting price of £1,699 but you get the picture.

It comes with Windows Vista 64-bit as standard but were Windows 7 to come out on, say, 23rd October 2009, then Dell has confirmed that they would provide the same kind of free upgrade service to the new OS that they have on the past with only shipping of the new disc to pay. Good on them.

But the service doesn’t stop there. It’s easy for some hardcore elitists to have a go at these kinds of pre-packaged machines but if you’d rather get a tailor made option then I’ve been really impressed by the lengths that Dell goes to take care of you.

There’s a metal plate on the underside of the anodised steel chassis which they will engrave with whatever you like in both your native alphabet and the alien language too, and there are all sorts of other customisable options when you go to order yours online. The idea is that it’ll be ready to go precisely to your needs as soon as you take it out of the box.

You can pick one up as of today with delivery included in the price. Enjoy.

Alienware