Alienware 14 Gaming Laptop Review

The beast becomes the beauty. 

Over the last few years, Alienware's designs have grown stagnant with the company focusing primarily on spec refreshes and subtle tweaks. But now, Dell's enthusiast PC gaming arm is revamping its laptops with brand new designs, premium components, and state-of-the-art processors from Intel and Nvidia. The new Alienware 14 (previously the M14x) now acts as the entry-level model in the range, delivering significant punch in one of the category's more compact form factors. How does Alienware's smallest laptop stack up against its predecessor and the competition? Read on to find out.

Regardless of whether you're a fan of Alienware's other worldly aesthetic, there's no questioning that its new designs are a vast improvement over the previous generation. The company has traded matte black plastic casing for a predominantly aluminum and magnesium alloy chassis in a charcoal color palette. Its rounded edges, thin illuminated cutaways in the lid, and wraparound LED lining at the base give it a distinctly modern, yet futuristic vibe.
Despite its sleek new look, the Alienware 14 hasn't shed much in the way of thickness or weight. At 1.6-inches thick and roughly 6 pounds, it's a still quite a beefy laptop. Although the market is quickly moving toward ultra-thin, lightweight designs, like the MacBook Pro or Razer Blade, Alienware is still committed to maintaining power and customization. The Alienware 14 is designed with plenty of headroom to maximize airflow across its quad-core Intel Core i7 and GTX 750M or GTX 765M processors, driving peak performance and ensuring a longer livespan.

One of the biggest benefits of the larger chassis, however, is storage. The stock model comes equipped with a 750GB HDD, but can be upgraded to dual-hard drive configurations. With the ever-growing emphasis on digital distribution and next-gen titles certain to be significantly larger, the added storage capacity gives the Alienware 14 a distinct edge over the Razer Blade, which although significantly thinner, comes with a meager 128GB SSD and costs $600 more.
The baseline model starts at $1,199 and comes with a 1366x768 display, quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU, Nvidia GT 750M, 8GB of RAM, the aforementioned 750GB HDD plus an auxiliary 256GB SSD, slot-loading DVD-RW drive, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0. Many of the specs can be upgraded, and for my testing, Alienware upped the processor to a GTX-class 765M GPU, 16GB of RAM, a Blu-ray drive, and a full 1080p display, which retails for $2,029.

At those specs, the Alienware 14 was capable of running any title I threw at it at native resolution and high or very high settings. On average, Battlefield 3 drove around 41 FPS at high settings, while BioShock Infinite at very high hovered around 36 FPS, and Tomb Raider and Need for Speed: Most Wanted set to very high specs garnered 49 FPS and 40 FPS, respectively. I had to scale the settings back to medium on Crysis 3 -- a more demanding title -- but performance remained stable at 38 FPS.
Although it may not be the maxed out performance many PC players typically demand, the Alienware 14 delivers a considerable amount of power for its size.
Battery life, on the other hand, is expectedly limited. In PC Mark 8 battery testing, which accounts for gaming, casual browsing, and media viewing behaviors, the Alienware 14 lasted for anywhere between 2 to 3 hours. I tested the machine at 50-percent display brightness and with the LED 'AlienFX' system turned both on and off, which surprisingly, resulted in only a 10 minute battery life differential. Taking gaming or other GPU-taxing software out of the mix increases the run time, but only by an hour under the most energy-conscious of settings. Though hardly ideal, the Alienware 14's shortcomings in battery performance are common for the category.

Other less desirable elements pervasive in the gaming laptop realm and carried over to the Alienware 14 include a fairly noisy fan system. During gaming sessions, the fans run at full blast, drawing cool air from vents on the bottom and blowing it out the back. This is a stark contrast to the Razer Blade, which generates a fraction of the noise. But in exchange for the constant buzz of the fans, the Alienware 14 maintains a cool surface temperature for lap use.
Alienware has made a number of other usage improving features, such as implementing a textured matte plastic finish on the clamshell interior, which feels soft to the touch. There's also the drastically redesigned keyboard, which has traded the tall, rounded keys of the previous generation for a flatter, lower profile design. Although players lose some of the clear tactile differentiation, the new key design is more conducive for fast, on-the-fly finger taps and gestures. The trackpad also sports a soft-touch finish, but now lights up. Ultimately, however, most gaming situations will require a mouse or gamepad for accurate controls.

Naturally, the more compact configuration will take getting used to if you typically play on a fullsized desktop keyboard. It took several hours to get accustomed to the feel of the design before being able to net the same competitive multiplayer performance I achieve on my tower.
The glass-covered LED display of last-gen has been replaced by a more traditional matte finish screen, which helps reduce the overall weight of the unit and eliminates glare. While I still prefer glass panels, the upgraded 1080p display on the Alienware 14 looks good. The maximum viewing angle isn't quite as wide as some laptops, but it's more than sufficient for an intimate gaming situations. Colors are rich and vibrant, and only begin to wash out when you careen your head far to the side.
Each model comes equipped with a DisplayPort, fullsized HDMI output, three USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, headphone jack, and Ethernet port -- another competitive advantage of its robust design.