Configuration: 4gb of ram, the i5, the matte black finish (definitely get this), and put a Seagate Momentus XT 500gb 4gb ssd drive in it.
Exterior: At first glace, the case is solid and doesn't feel cheap in any way. The keyboard is responsive (albeit slightly small for my larger fingers) and the textured touch pad may not be spectacular (no multi touch) but it gets the job done for casual use. I can't say I care for being forced to use the fn key to activate the hardware functions (sound volume and screen brightness), and if I find a way to change it, I most certainly will. I believe that the wireless switch disables Bluetooth and Wifi, so keep that in mind if you don't like using touch pads on airplanes. The screen is bright, crisp, and very, very glossy. This can be an issue depending on how much back light is present. The speakers are good quality and surprisingly loud. The lighting is awesome, although I'm a fan of blue and most likely won't change it very often if at all. The blue goes with my other peripherals anyway... The weight (4.5lbs) doesn't seem heavy at all, as it is easily transported in one hand around the house.
Interior: The i5 processor seems to be capable of anything I've thrown at it thus far. It's obviously not a champ at video encoding, but that doesn't come as a surprise. I had a few issue bumping up the factory OC to its max, so I settled for some OC. I believe this is a firmware bug which may be fixed in the future. The Geforce 335m is a great GPU that has been able to handle everything I have to give it. Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins, and Team Fortress 2 all work at high to very high settings without any issues. The Optimus switching works great, although Steam complains about the system performance and makes the default graphics settings low because of it. I imagine this is due to the low CPU clock (1ghz) and the integrated Intel video which Steam sees before I start up games. Just a little hitch that is easily resolved once the Nvidia GPU kicks in. The battery life is great on the integrated video and I believe that you can expect 2.5 hours of gaming with the Nvidia GPU (give or take). Assuming that it doesn't deem the Nvidia GPU necessary for watching HD video you can expect to get a few feature length movies in on a charge as well.
OS: I paved the HDD an put Windows 7 64bit Pro on it as soon as I got it. Even so, there wasn't any bloatware on the OS that it shipped with, aside from the Alien FX program. It seems a little unnecessary for me and I wish I could disable features without removing the whole program or disabling processes.
Final thoughts: I love everything about this laptop and I believe it was a very worthwhile purchase. Dell has great customer service (I know from working with the Enterprise level of Dell) and their Alienware line is no exception. Go ahead, get one and you won't regret it.
Source: http://www.dell.com
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