Australian Review: Alienware Area 51 – Straight outta Hangar 18

Design 
Alienware's longstanding range of purpose-built machinery has always boasted a unique aesthetic – the kind of design that screams "I'm for gaming". To be honest, I've never been of fan of Alienware's stylings, but the Area 51 is a different story; it's easily one of the most interesting PCs on the market.

The Area 51 is a hexagonal behemoth that could easily pass for an escape pod or some of intergalactic relic, but despite this, it isn't quite as in your face as some of Alienware's prior machines. It won't be mistaken for anything other than a gaming rig, but it doesn't come across as gaudy. I'd described it as "subtle excess".

As you'd expect with a gaming machine, the Area 51 has customisable lighting. To be precise, there's nine different zones, each which can be lit up in 20 different colours. Each zone can be configured as static, to fade from one colour to another, or to pulse. It sounds tacky, and it can be, but I actually had a bit too much fun playing around with the various options.