So in closing my week-long trial run with the Alienware M17, I leave you with four things that bugged me at first, but that I eventually learned to love and accept. These aren't necessarily pluses or minuses. They're just observations. And one of them is probably too anthropomorphic, because I don't think the M17 is sentient enough to plot murder. That would require one of the more expensive CPU options.

Read about the M17's quirks after the jump.

1) The keyboard
The M17 puts a whole lot of computer in front of you before you ever get to the keyboard. The keyboard is plenty big and it has a nice tactile feel, hitting that sweet spot between clicky and mushy without being either. But it's a long trip to reach the keyboard. There's an expanse of laptop between the edge of the computer and the space bar. It's roughly the size of Nevada, with the touchpad being no more than one of the state's many mini square counties, albeit conveniently located in the center.

At first, I wasn't crazy about this arrangement. I felt like I was having to reach too far to type. But I eventually hit upon the ingenious solution of sitting closer to the M17. At that point, the vast Nevada-sized apron became a broad flat place to rest my wrists. On other laptops, I've got a hard corner pushing into my radial arteries so that my hands are free to type without the distracting sensation of blood bringing them oxygen. But the M17 is much better about working concurrently with my circulatory system.

2) The volume control
There's a little volume wheel on the right side of the M17, situated near the earphone and mic jacks. It doesn't do anything. I'd be watching some YouTube video of a kid freaking out because his mom cancelled his WoW account (Seriously, have you seen this video? It is awesome!) and I'd decide that I wanted a hardware solution to lowering the noise level before my hearing was damaged. It's easier to reach for a wheel than it is to wrangle the mouse pointer over to a teensy slider bar. So I'd frantically spin the wheel to no avail. The kid's freak-out continued to give the M17's fine rich hearty speakers a real workout. Ha ha. Teenagers sure are loud.

But what I later realized is that the volume control has some sort of weird sensitivity calibration. If you spin it frantically, it will not adjust the volume. It will just ignore you. However, if you turn it slowly and patiently and carefully, you can precisely control the volume however you please. I'm not sure what you call this kind of control scheme. I'm calling it the "Hey You, Settle Down and Stop Spazzing Out" control scheme. I gently turn the wheel, the volume adjusts, and I never have to hunt down a tiny volume slider bar in You Tube.

3) The security measures
The M17 is set up with a couple of built-in and presumably high-tech security features. The first is some sort of facial recognition software that won't let you into the computer unless it recognizes you. I was going to test this by seeing if I could get past it by using a big picture of my face. I thought that would be a pretty clever way to fool the computer. In fact, I was so convinced of my own cleverness that I entertained thoughts of going on some sort of heist afterwards. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to get the camera working. "They must have sent me an M17 with a bum camera," I concluded and wrote in my notes. Once I figured out that I had to turn the camera on by pressing the function button with the picture of the camera, I had lost interest in trying to spoof the facial recognition system, much less setting it up.

I had moved on to wondering how to spoof the fingerprint security. There's a gold contact strip on the surface of the computer that someone who didn't know any better (i.e. me, until I looked it up) might mistake for the place you plug in some sort of extremely proprietary cord that has some sort of USB-esque function, such as copying pictures directly from a digital camera or maybe syncing a Zune with an iPod. But such a person would be an idiot. It is, in fact, a fingerprint sensor.

Now these security measures are rather cute to me. I'm sure they're helpful to people who might want to keep NSA files on the hard drives of their gaming laptops. But the most you're going to get out of logging into my M17 when I'm not looking is that my Steam password is picard420. And you're not likely to find that out, because if I ever haul this thing to a LAN party where you can get your Grabber McNasties on it, I'm sure not going to be leaving it unattended long enough for you to mess with it.

4) The way it tried to kill my Asus
My other laptop is an Asus. I bought it mainly to play Civilization IV during long plane trips. It doesn't handle other games very well. It's old. The hinge on the lid is cracked and Asus wanted to charge me big money to fix it. I opted for the cracked hinge and convinced myself it gave the Asus "personality". The fan sometimes makes clicking noises which briefly terrify me by making me think it's the death rattle of the hard drive.

The traditional arrangement while I've been reviewing the M17 is to have it open and running some game. It sits to the left. The Asus is open on the right. I use the Asus to type notes about how the M17 is powerful, overpriced, and sexy. Side by side, the two computers are quite a contrast. The Asus is like R2D2 after the Jawas found him; the M17 is like the torture droid that's going to stick needles into Princess Leia. The Asus is Saturn 3; the M17 is Transformers 2. The Asus is Danny Glover; the M17 is Mel Gibson.

One day, I had the arrangement reversed on my dining room table. I was trying the latest Civilization IV patch on the Asus. I'd moved it to the left while I was messing around with The Sims 3 on the M17. I'd expand the borders of ancient Greece while my sim was at work. When he went to the bathroom, I'd choose my next tech. I'd found another city when my sim slept. The afternoon proceeded apace. I got up to play The Conduit for a while in the living room. I'm a busy guy.

When I got back, Civ IV had crashed and the Asus was showing me some dire error message I'd never seen before. Something about the CPU's core temperature. It was overheating! Maybe even on the verge of exploding. Nooooo! Asus, don't you die on me! You never backed away from anything in your life. Now fight! I quickly shut it down and wondered if I should administer an ice pack. It had never overheated like this before. Is this how laptops die?

That's when I realized it might have something to do with the heat vent on the left side of the M17. Previously, this vent was simply blowing hot air off the edge of the dining room table, with the Asus situated on the other side of the M17. But for a couple of hours, the M17 had been blowing superheated gas directly into the Asus, compounding whatever heat had built up by crunching the numbers that comprised my ancient Greek empire. I've since cordoned off an area to the left of the M17 with yellow-and-black striped tape and big stenciled letters that read "Danger: Blast Area". Now you might wonder how I've come to regard this as a "lovable quirk". Let's just say the M17 comes in handy when it's time to make dinner and you realize you forgot to thaw the chicken.

(Click here for the previous Alienware M17 game diary.)