Alienware in an Alien environment

I'm eyeing getting an Alienware m7700 laptop to take with me when I go overseas for a year. Where I'll be is a rugged, dusty environment with a lot of hot and cold. Anybody have one of these or another Alienware laptop? Had good luck with them? Anybody taken them out into the wilds?

Thanks for any comments on this.

Decided to go with a different laptop instead. The thing is heavy (looking at the weight) and does have poor battery life (which all of these with a desktop proc seem to). Biggest thing that changed my mind was that I found out that it is made by Dell. Don't like Dell. I guess they're the reason that this level laptop is $1000 buck cheaper now that Falcon Northwest or Voodoo.

Here's what I'm getting instead:
Voodoo Envy m:732 medium weight. Has most of the same as the other - GO 7800, 2 gig ram, 7,200 rpm drive, dvd burner, 17" screen. But since it's uses the Pentium M740 and a smaller case it weighs almost four pounds less and I'm hoping to get another hour of battery life.