I had briefly mentioned the M11x once before when Alienware first announced it, noting it was an interesting product. Then shortly after its debut, NVIDIA launched Optimus, which is the leader of the Automatic power-saving faction fighting the evil forces of the Deceptively power-hungry opposition. What the power savings actually are I'm not too sure, but I think the main point is that it's about twice as convenient as the manual switching types from before, and it'll be getting all the driver support going forward. So current owners of manual switching discreet graphics laptops are pretty much screwed, and that includes early adopters of the M11x.
It was only natural that people started hoping for an updated M11x that supported the new technology, and while they're at it, updated to the new Core i-series CULV CPUs, and maybe given some tweaks to the aesthetics. But of course there was some fear that we'd have to wait until the next wave of products to see such changes, if they ever came at all. It seemed silly to release the M11x as it was, so close to the introduction of Optimus technology, when surely they must have been informed by NVIDIA ahead of time of its approach. A lot of tech companies will do that to ensure early adoption of new products. It reminds me of a time several years ago when Alienware put a lot of R&D into making a custom multi-GPU graphics system, complete with custom motherboards with multiple AGP slots and software hacks, touting it as the return of SLI. Then about a year later NVIDIA announced the actual return of SLI, coinciding with the launch of PCI Express. Alienware just has a history of doing things at just the wrong time.
But our prayers were answered and the M11x was refreshed not only with Optimus, but Core i5 and i7 support, and even a matte finish for those who criticized the glossy one (though it still looks gaudy). It seems they were listening to the consumers (and website editors), and that's always nice to see. Undoubtedly they must feel they've got a hot product on their hands, and rightly so. All the appeal that the M11x had before was still there, with all the big problems that were holding people back now fixed.
The M11x has the devilish characteristic of being a device you really want but have no purpose for. It's a solution looking for a problem, an idea looking for a niche. It's not a full laptop, it's not a netbook, it's not an extremely capable gaming laptop but then it's small and inexpensive. It's really portable PC gaming without the crappy battery life and sticker shock. Its an innovative prospect and to be fair, there are some people who have a use for it. Those who travel a lot, those who go to a lot of LAN parties, those who want to game in another room in their house without setting up a permanent station for it. Unfortunately I'm none of those people, but I still find it really interesting and find myself helplessly drawn to it.
I'm not the only one from what I've read in my daily forum perusals. There are people who sheepishly admitted to buying one when they didn't have a need for it, often very soon after finding out about it. It's just one of those things, sort of like the iPad for some people, it has a crippling effect on your financial discipline. Much like me, they probably already have a nice gaming desktop, and either a laptop or a netbook that they can use when they're lying in bed or sitting at the TV, and in either case they probably don't have the pressing desire to play a quick match in TF2 or run an instance in WoW. Most laptops and netbooks are more than capable of 90% of the tasks you'll want to do with a computer, it's just that other 10% that the M11x caters to. It's also that other 10% that a lot of people like myself find the most exciting.
So what if you want a laptop that you can play games with should the urge suddenly arise? What if you want a laptop that you can play HD movies on and probably even encode them, even while you sit in front of a monitor or TV with better colors and full 1080p? What if you want to spend $900+ right away for something that will only really come in handy when you make your yearly trip out of state (God knows when)? Or for when you want to play Quake 3 with your cousin at his house because that's the only game he can run?
If you think hard enough, you can justify anything, and it's especially easy when you only have yourself to convince, and you already know you want it. Hell if you make enough money, you might not even have to wait for that. I know people that upgrade their gaming laptops on a bi-annual basis mainly just to play WoW or for when a friend comes over. For the same price, you're looking at laptops at either a fraction of the performance, or a fraction of the battery life, and none of them will be easily totable in your offhand. Did I mention it's just really, really cool?
