Since I’m speaking at a couple of conferences next year, as well as doing more travelling in a single year than I’ve ever done before, I thought it might be good to look at a laptop. Main reason being that if I don’t have one, I have to take time off, which means less income. So, this means that on months where I travel (which is shaping up to be about half of them next year) the laptop will end up paying for itself.

But what, pray tell, does an aspiring author, vaguely prominent blogger and learning writer get himself? Has to be a PC, no Mac’s. Has to be powerful enough to replace my current desktop (2.0GHz, 1GB RAM, etc). Has to look very, very good (conferences, but also for potential client meetings).

Oh, and it has to be available in financing, preferrably not a lease (so that we can make extra payments if we’d like).

While I’d normally like Dell, they don’t qualify from a financing perspective. Mac’s are sexy. Toshiba has some sexy models. I always said I wanted a Tablet, but is a tablet really ideal for doing book writing?

These are all thoughts that were running through my mind.

Until I remembered Alienware.

There are few laptops that will make anyone, especially Mac users, drool. Alienware makes one. Toshiba makes one (designed by Ferrari).

Plus, Alienware has arguably the best service in the business, some very cool extras and they have financing which is effectively a loan, and thus something that can be paid off early – saving me and my wife loads of cash.

So, what’m I looking at?

An Alienware 51-m 5500.

3.4GHz P4. 2GB RAM. 128MB Video card. 20GB internal and 200GB external storage.

Mmmm…

Here’s the full specs:

Warranty: 3-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service Bundled with AlienAutopsy and Respawn
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Case: Area-51m 5500 Case with 15.4″ WideSXGA+ 1680×1050 LCD Display – Saucer Silver
Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor w/ HT Technology 3.4GHz 800MHz FSB w/ 512KB Cache
Motherboard: SiS648FX + SiS963L AGP8X Chipset
Memory: 2GB DDR PC-3200 at 400MHz – 2×1024 SO-DIMMs
Video Card: Area-51m 5500 NVIDIA GeForce™ FX Go5700 Module with 128MB DDR
Video Optimizer: AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance Optimizer
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA
Hard Drive: Seagate Momentus 20GB 5400 RPM – Nearly Silent
Smart Bay One: 8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo w/Software
Ethernet NIC: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Wireless Network: External Wireless 802.11a/b/g PCMCIA Card
Bluetooth: Belkin® Bluetooth™ PCMCIA Type II Adapter
Modem: 56K Modem with V.92 Technology
Security Software: Norton™ AntiVirus™ 2005
Productivity Software: Microsoft® Office 2003 Small Business Edition
Mobile Transport : AlienArmor 17″ Silver Aluminum Notebook Case
External Storage: IOGear® 200GB Combo ION™ Drive
Free Alienware T-Shirt: Free Alienware® T-Shirt – Black
Area-51m Multi-function Infrared Remote control : Free Area-51m Multi-function Infrared Remote control (a $39.95 value)
Desktop Enhancements: Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager
Free Alienware Mousepad: Free Alienware® Mousepad

And the price comes out to a cool $125/month, which is just what we were hoping to pay (between 100-125 anyways).

I have to get financing approved, and I’ll need to pay duty on it. And it’ll take a month to get here.

But then I can fly out to Northern Voice and feel like I’m compensating for something ;-)