Alienware m14x

[Yas786]

Right so am in the market for a new laptop as my old one, been going for the past 5-6 yrs is now finally giving up the ghost so to speak.

Im looking at the alienware m14x at the moment, have it specced and its coming out to just over £1800. Which is a lot of money to be splashing on a laptop in all honesty but i want something that will last me awhile before i decide to buy a new one.

Anyone have any thoughts, good or bad on these laptops??. I dont know how how noisy they are ie the fans on them. At the moment my old one sounds like a cat being strangled.

So anyone have one of these?? Been looking at a few reviews on the internet and they seem pretty good but wanted to know from the good folk on OCUK is they are worth it or are there better laptops out there.

One thing i am looking for is a 14" screen at least, dont want to go bigger than 14" if i can help it.

 

[roughavoc]

Posts: 35,432 (HOW?!?!)

Anyway, so what is your budget? £1800?
Also, what are you planning on using it for? Gaming or just work that requires a good amount of power

You have limited yourself to only the M14x or a Clevo 11" from what I know as there arent any other gaming or high power laptops that have a good GPU that screen size.

The Clevo system with the highest specs:
i7-3840QM
16GB 1600Mhz RAM
Nvidia 650M
480GB SSD
Killer Wireless
£1,390.00. You can knock this down a hell of a lot by going for more mainstream specs:

i7-3630QM
8GB 1600Mhz RAM
650M
120GB SSD
£647.00

This laptop as far I as know, gets pretty hot when playing games and so Im guessing the fans kick in and would make a fair bit of noise, like any gaming laptop. It doesnt have brilliant build quality, screen quality isnt all that great and from what I have read it does not feel or look high end (because it isnt)

EDIT: If you wanted to go for the Alienware system, as you have bumped the specs up a hell of a lot to get it to £1800, Google: "Saving £££ in the UK buying ANY Dell/AW system" and I recon you will be able to save a good chunk of money on the M14x (pls OCUK staff dont kill me for saving people money)

 

[thedinks]

Right so am in the market for a new laptop as my old one, been going for the past 5-6 yrs is now finally giving up the ghost so to speak.

Im looking at the alienware m14x at the moment, have it specced and its coming out to just over £1800. Which is a lot of money to be splashing on a laptop in all honesty but i want something that will last me awhile before i decide to buy a new one.

Anyone have any thoughts, good or bad on these laptops??. I dont know how how noisy they are ie the fans on them. At the moment my old one sounds like a cat being strangled.

So anyone have one of these?? Been looking at a few reviews on the internet and they seem pretty good but wanted to know from the good folk on OCUK is they are worth it or are there better laptops out there.

One thing i am looking for is a 14" screen at least, dont want to go bigger than 14" if i can help it.

Thats quite expensive, can you list the spec?

I've had mine since Christmas. It doesnt get really hot, but can be a little bit noisy when the fans get to full speed (which doesnt last long). Its a nice little laptop im happy with mine

 

[Yas786]

Thats quite expensive, can you list the spec?

I've had mine since Christmas. It doesnt get really hot, but can be a little bit noisy when the fans get to full speed (which doesnt last long). Its a nice little laptop im happy with mine

Spec is this:


COLOUR CHOICE Alienware M14x Cosmic Black

PROCESSOR 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3740QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)

OPERATING SYSTEM English Windows® 7 Ultimate (64 BIT)

GRAPHICS CARD 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M

MEMORY 12288MB 1600MHz Dual Channel DDR3 (1x4GB + 1x8GB )

HARD DRIVE 750GB 7,200 RPM + 32GB mSATA Caching SSD

LCD 14.1" WideHD+ (1600x900) WLED with TrueLife

OPTICAL DRIVE Blu-Ray ROM (Blu-Ray read only, DVD, CD, read and write)

WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 with Bluetooth 4.0

PRIMARY BATTERY Primary 8-cell 63W/HR LI-ION

SECURITY SOFTWARE Anti Virus Not Included

SERVICES AND SUPPORT 1 yr Next Day In-Home Hardware & Premium Software Phone Support

ACCIDENTAL DAMAGE PROTECTION No Accidental Damage Protection

Accessories
ALIENFX COLOUR Quasar Blue

AVATAR Alienware Logo

OS CUSTOMIZATION Alienware Logo Wallpaper

PRE-INSTALLED SOFTWARE Steam® Factory Installed and Steam Extra Content

PRE-INSTALLED SOFTWARE Skype for Windows

SOUND SOFTWARE Creative Sound Blaster Recon3Di with THX TruStudio Pro Software

Comes out to £1808 in total...like i said its a lot of money for a laptop but then its not like i upgrade or buy a new laptop every yr or so.

Dont mind the noisiness, as mine at the moment is noisy and i run it 24-7 in my room.

 

[Sootie]

Have a look at dmxdimension - if you use the 10% off code, pick the most expensive one and spec it up with the details you've given you can get it down to £1556 (with 16GB instead of 12GB and a KillerNic).

I'd probably avoid the upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate (£120) - get the Windows 8 Pro upgrade for £15 and turn off the metro stuff if you don't like it.

I'd also buy an external bluray rom - a lot cheaper than their upgrade price (the model they use is apparently a 9.5mm Panasonic UJ167)

I'd also avoid the hard drive upgrade (£90) - a mechanical in a performance laptop seems wrong these days! I'd replace it with a full size SSD bought elsewhere - unless you have particular space issues. The new Crucial M500 (due this quarter) could definitely be worth waiting for if the prices are to be believed.

 

[Raikiri]

MacBook Pro Retina? If you go via the HE site you can get the same specs, except a proper 256gb SSD instead of a hybrid drive and a marginally slower CPU (3.6 boost vs 3.7) for £1749.

It's considerably thinner, lighter, better quality (IPS + higher res) screen and has a longer battery life. I know it's a weird choice when you're looking at a gaming laptop but it seems to fit your needs.

Edit: Just seen you don't want to go over 14 but the MBPr is not as deep and only about an inch wider.

 

[DAnDan]

There's also the new ASUS U500/UX51. Admittedly it's a 15", but it's a LOT smaller in every other way than the M14X, so would work out a lot more portable because of it.

It's got a 3612QM processor, 650M GPU, full 1080p IPS screen, and a 256GB SSD, for a fair bit less than the M14X you priced up. Worth taking a look at if you're willing to go to a 15" ultrabook sized laptop. It's tiny!