Alienware M17

The basics

Beam us up Scotty! The Alienware M17 is Alienware's beefiest, most massivest gaming laptop. It's got everything you could need in a gaming desktop, but none of the wires. The base version of the 17 inch laptop comes with 160GB of hard drive, 2 gigs of RAM, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and ATI Radeon HD 3870, while the maxed out version comes with a full HD screen, quad-core chip, two of those graphics cards and 1TB of hard disk. That's one pimped out UFO.

The good

Even in the entry level Alienware M17, the specs really are out of this world. We love the HDMI port to hook up to a HDTV and optional Blu-ray, while the Intel processor, dual or quad core, moves at almost light speed. Yeah, we know that's actually a distance. And it really is the ultimate gaming laptop: pop any of the latest titles in and the M17 will belt them out at the highest setting, on the highest resolution, like it's powered by kryptonite.

The bad

No complaints about what's under the bonnet, but the M17's anything but a sleek, aerodynamic vessel, more a clunky box you'll never take off the desk or remove from the mains, with a pricetag just as big. Put it this way: it's the whale the Star Trek team have to rescue, not the Enterprise.

The bottom line

If the recession seems about as far away to you as the planet the Alienware M17 claims to be from, this is the gaming laptop you need. Better start saving.