Alienware ended Press Briefing Day on Monday with a party and three new laptops. These of course are the Alienware 14, 17 and 18, all based on Intel fourth-generation Haswell processors and Nvidia GeForce 700M series GPUs. The new laptops were showcased behind closed doors, and are now available on the showroom floor here at E3 2013 in Los Angeles for all to see.
"The new laptops include the Alienware 14 for the enthusiast gamer who requires a laptop that provides enough performance for any task, yet is mobile enough to fit into a backpack; the Alienware 17 for an immersive, graphics-intensive experience with the latest technologies for desktop-grade performance; and the Alienware 18, the ultimate gaming laptop that commands respect among top gamers for its unparalleled performance and construction," the company said in a press release.
These laptops were running a number of upcoming PC games like Saints Row 4, Daylight, and even the MMORPG Wildstar. The portable gaming rigs are beautifully designed, featuring an anodized aluminum shell and a magnesium alloy body. They're smooth to the touch but extremely sturdy in the process, protecting the delicate yet highly powerful hardware inside. However the larger units were quite heavy to pick up: these weren't thin and light Ultrabook-style.
Outside the hardware specs, one of the features I found interesting was the illuminated touch pad. It's certainly not necessary unless you're trying to manage Windows in the dark, but still a cool feature nonetheless. An Alienware rep also showed how the overall lighting can be adjusted, allowing the user to set different colors for each illuminated component such as a pink touch pad, a purple Alienware logo, a green border and so on.
"DDR3L memory provides exceptional bandwidth with lower voltage requirements designed for increased battery life, and the laptops now provide support for up to three storage drives on the Alienware 14, and up to four storage drives on the Alienware 17 and 18," the company said. "For the first time ever, the Alienware 18 will feature Nvidia SLI dual graphics technology as standard, and the laptop will offer an overclocked CPU option with a maximum speed of 4.3 GHz. The laptops all feature Ethernet technology by Qualcomm’s Killer networks, Klipsch speakers and Dolby Home Theater v4 audio."
Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
Great, a chunky notebook with a low-res TN panel that can play games. WTH is groundbreaking about that? I would 100% pay the extra $800 for a Razer Blade over the AW14.
Nice refresh but the haters are going to hate on these. If I was to get one of these it would have to be the 14, since battery life is horrid on the 17 and 18.
I like the 4Gz haswell upgrade with a GTX 780M on a 17" would be nice but the redesign is like half baked. The bottom is silver? with hints of the generic Dell and the top is like an upgrade of the old Alienware. It's like they had to design teams going. The old Alienware team and the generic Dell team and someone said, hey lets stop the bickering and put the two together. A silver bottom does not belone on an alienware computer
They should really look at the Razer notebooks. Thin, Light, and Powerful is what a lot of people are looking for now. Hell I wish they would bring back the m11x. It was on the chunky side but portable.
Maybe if they spent more time on actually developing products and less time developing flashy product presentations, the gaming community would probably hate them less.
