Well, it’s time to retire my Alienware m15x laptop.  I’ve had it now for 3+ years and it’s time to move on.  I’ve certainly gotten my run out of the old 1st gen Core-i7 CPU 1.73GHz quad-core system.  I’ve done some fun upgrades on it over the years, put in a 256GB SSD, upgraded from 8GB of DDR3 RAM to 16GB.  The one upgrade that always evaded me was never possible and that was lighter weight and better battery life.  Doh!

To replace it – I have moved on to a Dell Latitude E-6540 laptop.  I miss the multi-colored backlit keyboard, but I get an added 10-key on the 15.6″ laptop that was missing on my Alienware.  I don’t miss the glossy screen in lieu of the matte screen on the Latitudes.

So my replacement is just about configured the way I wanted it.  I have a 512GB SSD from Samsung, 16GB DDR3 RAM, Dual graphics with the onboard Intel 4600 and an AMD Radeon 2GB DDR5 card, 9-cell 3 year warranty battery, Intel 6300 WiFi card, 4th Gen Core-i7 Quad-core, DVD-RW…I’m missing my Blu-Ray drive and I get about 5.5 hours of battery life running on my 9-cell batt.