Close encounters of the nerd kind

The 'little green men' colour scheme is long gone, but Alienware's latest Area-51 gaming laptop still pays homage to the original's otherworldly styling

- [Words Tom Morgan-Freelander]

Alienware effectively gave birth to the modern gaming laptop with the original Area-51m of the early 2000s, so bringing the name back for a modern audience carries a lot of weight.

The new Area-51 has soft, almost organic curves and a 'liquid teal' colour scheme that gives the anodised aluminium lid an iridescent sheen – one that shifts colours in changing light. The RGB lighting is done tastefully, a single strip of LEDs casting a diffused glow over what Alienware calls the Thermal Shelf - essentially a chunky rear 'chin' behind the screen hinge that contains ports and cooling kit.

There's more character here than you'll find in other gaming laptops, without going fully overboard on the alien thing. And that's before you flip the thing over: a glass window in the undertray lets you gaze into the heart of the system. It looks fantastic, even if you'll rarely see it in use.

Alienware clearly expects this PC to take up residence on your desk and has positioned the ports accordingly: SD card reader and headset port aside, everything is at the back of the unit, which will keep visible cable mess to a minimum.