*OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R3 Owner's Lounge

You're probably right ! I'm just little bit frustrated haha


Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

 

It is, we all knew kaby was coming but this soon and for a £100 more.....
With the performance increase as it is I'm not fussed about it.

I spoke to Dell asking If they would give all us customers of the skylake version an incentive to keep the machine instead of returning for the kaby version......

Basically got (politely) told to bugger off!
As they have never given these kind of incentives before.

Worth a go I guess.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Lol. Nice try though.

 

Only asked for Dell credit for the difference in processor price........


Still 1400 for my oled model, happy with that!

Just need my battery to turn up now.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Just by way of comparison, how long are people planning to keep their machines?

I'm hoping for 4-5 years personally.

 

crikey your right I was thinking it was originally it was £1799. but it wasn't. with a discount it reduces it to a £64 increase at £1664.
my model was one down with oled upgraded and that priced priced at £1656 which is now priced at £1724 which is £67 increase for kaby lake (with a NVidia 1050 ti but can be upgraded to a 1060 for free). with discount applied it is £1554 which is £46.50 increase for kaby lake.
I spoke with a dell agent and he priced he agreed to put the price to £1506 which is what my unit costed with the 6700hq and everything else the same. so that was a 12.5% discount instead of the 10% I was originally given.
I took it since it cost me nothing extra to do so. that was 30 mins ago.

 

Don't do this to me!

Let me get this straight, you're getting in effect a free upgrade?

How long before hand do you have to send this machine back before you can get the new one?

 

Well had my last AW since release. m15x, still a beast now. Passed on to member on here.

This one will be a while, as has the option for the AGA.
My thinking is that in a few years I'll get an oled ultra wide and chuck a new gpu in the amp

Processor will still be good for years yet.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Agree with this 100%. Not worth the hassle of exchanging and getting an new one. Might as well wait and get the gen of CPU that follows Kaby Lake if your concerned about the processor, the improvements will be better. Kaby lake improvements are so marginal on paper that it doesnt seem worth it.

Ultra-wide OLED? You think theyll have an option for a screen upgrade?

 

I think he meant an external monitor

Sent from my SM-A510F using Tapatalk

 

Sorry, I did mean an external oled ultrawide.



Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

What other thermal paste should I try that isn't liquid metal? I may ditch the Kryonaut for something else like IC Diamond.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I've used Noctua NT-H1 with great results! (Line & Pea)

 

Had to put this in here from hmscotts post in another thread! Haha.

Come on AW, give us triple OLED?!!!

(need that 1080 and AGA though, heh)

 

Hahahaha, what the faaaaark?

That would be sweet though, get your finger out AW!

 

Not exactly portable but triple OLED?! Oh yes! Haha.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

So out of interest I went to AW and specced the same config I got through dell, but with the new Kaby lake, and its actually £40 cheaper if I return and reorder....

EDIT Ignore me! Forgot the OLED panel.

EDIT again: Although if I reapply the 10% discount, assuming I could get that, I got it would be £60 cheaper....

 

Keep in mind that the ETA on the OLED versions of the Kaby Lake are 24-28 days (at least in the US).

 

In effect it's a free upgrade. Reordering the exact same spec was £46.50 more WITH the same discount. It be about £70 more without it. But he said ok. I think it's cos he got he was certain I'd bite if the price could be done. He told me in a exception it be done.
I'll return my current laptop. I only got tomorrow to make the call. I'll just blame the slightly higher idle temps as a reason to make me send it back.
The only neg is the wait. But I'm hoping it be earlier than that since my current unit came a week earlier and that was 2 days before Xmas.
If you gonna do it. Just tell them you want to buy one but you want to see if they will price it the same as the your current purchase. I never mentioned the cpu differences. They will either do it or not depending on the difference after the normal 10% discounted price. But you gotta decide if they only take off a little bit more will you pay that extra.
Technically in function it's probably not.
But personally for me I wanted to be in front for change as it's the most money I spent. I don't want my cpu being "old" in 12 days of having a brand new model for the refresh.
I waited long enough when I ordered it 1st time. Used it a bit and love it enough to do the wait a bit more. It will give me time to catch up on stuff before I get it otherwise I wont do them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I suppose you haven't had it long, so you can wait a little longer. It would be nice to have a 'new' cpu, but I'm not going to bother going through the hassle for relatively very little performance boost. Although knowing that you've got the latest tech under the hood would make me feel better.

Fair play to you. Hope you don't have to wait too long though!

 

So this is interesting. I rang them up to simply ask what the procedure would be for returns and how long it would take purely out of interest (also perhas trying to finesse some kind of rebate haha). They said I had ordered through my company and so I have no rights to return according to their TnCs. I just had it shipped here, but they seem to have made up that they invoiced my company for the product and it is registered to them as a business machine. When I told them that was illegal and it would create a liability for my company, she told me to send them a letter from my lawyer.

Slightly baffled at this point.

EDIT: also concerned that they think my company has ordered this

 

And that 6% might be true in games only with a titan x.

 

Anyone else notice online that the customize option doesn't allow you to select windows 10 pro for the 13? Only the home version of windows is available. Looks like the 15 and 17 does allow windows pro to be selected.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'm considering ordering the Kaby Lake version with the IPS screen just to compare the CPUs and the displays. However, Windows 10 Pro does not seem to be an option in the configuration even though its advertised on the top end configurations.

 

LOL, I was just typing that as well when you post came in.

 

There is no more i5/1060 option anymore. I had a spec similar to the $1399 configuration except with an i5-6300HQ and OLED and it was $1420 after discount. Wish it was a kabylake though. The 1050 doesn't seem that great of a saver and there is no 4GB 1050 ti model.

 

Just got off chat with a customer service agent. Was told that the return period is 30 days after the order invoice, which means that my last day to return the unit is January 13th since I ordered the 13th of December. I'm hoping they aren't just spouting nonsense again, but I help this helps anyone! I'm in the US by the way, so it may be different for others?

 

If they keep the desktop cards with the same interface, then the AGA could hold you over that long. And still be playing games on Ultra.

 

Invoice date is usually the day it shipped, not ordered. If it was the date it was ordered, many people would not have a return window.

 

Yeah that's what I thought too based on what others have said. The agent must've gotten it wrong then, which is fine for me since it gives me a little more time

 

You may want to ask them to read this ..

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/19/campaigns/holiday-shipping-and-extended-returns-us

 

And with thunderbolt 3 you've also got the option of using other eGPUs, so I'd say we're fine for 5 years at least. Mine has to go on for 3 years since I bought 3 years of warranty

 

I'm sure for us uk guys it's 14 days on the day we receive the laptop.

For all those that want pro. It's probably well cheaper just to buy a key floating around. I got one and my bro one for about £7 no problems. Is be mad to press upgrade to pro unless it's free or within £20 difference to upgrade.
Save the cash buy a game and beer with your new machine


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

As I am going through the thought process of whether the hassle of going through the dell "lottery" is worth returning for the Kaby lake version....I believe based on all data pts mentioned the only benefits of kaby lake are:
1) slightly higher stock clock speed that in real world gaming is likely to be imperceptible (2%-6% perf gain) but only because of higher stock clock speed, at same clock speed to skylake there are really no perf gains
2) possibly 10% or so better battery life? Possibly 3x more battery life if running 4K video? Needs to be confirmed.
3) allows to run 4K Netflix videos

Other than the above based on all literature I've been able to read there are no other benefits?

Question - if the 13 oled screen is not 4K......then are the Kaby lake 4K related benefits not applicable?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'm looking at the 13's on the site now and the option for Pro is available...

 

For US? The AW13 page should have 8 configs. The Skylake configs have option for Win 10 Pro, but right now Kaby Lake does not. I have been in contact with them on Twitter and they are looking into it.

 

Brief update. I installed the new Intel 8260 Wireless card and ran an old 2013sh "killer cleaner" app. I also uninstalled all the Dell Foundation Services/Dell support apps I could find (because LatencyMon did not like Dell stuff). I hope I don't have to do a wireless card again. The little wire leads are crazy tiny and fragile feeling - so I'd say do this only if you are comfortable working with fragile parts! Because I broke one of the female connectors on the Killer board, i actually had to use a handheld microscope and a razer blade to remove the broken metal ring from the main white wire lead, and that was hella annoying. Then getting the wires mated to the new Intel board wasn't exactly confidence inspiring.

Anyways - was all this worth it? Answer - not sure. Bottom line: after testing both to an external monitor, as well as internal, I am not receiving any major and regular (on a specific rhythm) FPS drops like before. I still need to spend a few more days testing average use cases. This is with wireless active.

I can't tell anyone on this forum if studders/freezes are caused by Killer with any real authority. I could just as well make the case it was other background services and apps that were my main culprit. I do suspect my Killer card is the likely cause - mainly because of my aforementioned complete loss of WIFI connections at times with it. And I do think that Networking on this machine is a cause of latency in the system (despite using Killer wireless as well as the Killer E2400 Gigabit LAN). LatencyMON complained about NDIS.sys last night as a cause of many DPCs while gaming, but I'm not aware of whether this is a regular thing or not.

I do think I can say the delta in max performance for my system is being caused somewhere else. At times I feel like my 1060 is running 90% what it should be. For example, Overwatch HAS run at 90FPS solid at 1440P/Ultra, but usually I'm getting mid 60s to 70s. I noticed HWInfo says my GPU is maxing out around 1850-1900 Mhz? Is this what others are getting with max GPU utilization?

I don't want to obsess, and if swapping the Killer network setup with Intel removes the cause of freezes/FPS drops to the 30s, and I have a smooth 60FPS experience, I'll be happy moving forward, but the lack of benchmark compliance with my 1060 at times in SOME titles is baffling. Especially Overwatch!

EDIT: I'm not running in CPU performance mode, but I can't believe that really impacts in-game performance. Maybe I'm wrong about that though.

 

I'm looking at the UK site. Both Skylake and Kaby Lake have the Pro option.

 

Ok. reported issue is on the US site afaik.

 

Improvements in the refreshed AW 13

1. 8 programmable light zones instead of 4
2. Fingerprint coating applied to palm rest to deflect finger print smudges
3. Faster core clock (kaby lake)
4. Better battery life (3x on 4k video, while 15 R3 is claiming up to total 9-11 hours of battery life from 4-5 hours)
5. Larger and more effective speaker box installed
6. Improved thermals due to chassis design
7. Improved web browsing performance (kaby lake)
8. 4k streaming on iGPU (kaby lake) - (noticeable effect on battery life here)
9. No price difference for USA from 6700HQ (for my personal configuration)

Cons

1. 20-30 business days wait time for OLED
2. Manufacturing issues (battery, sound, etc) not present from currently owned (if you got lucky)
3. No coupon or ebates discount

Right now, due to the cons I'm still weighing my options. It'll be about a $200 premium I'll have to pay over my current model.

Source

 

Dell shipment arrived.

I'll give them credit for that. Rapid shipping!

I'll get this replaced later on, but if anyone wants I could take pics of the process for future reference if needed?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Please do. Would higly appreciate it.

Sent from my SM-A510F using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, no worries.

Be later on though as pretty busy tonight.

But excessive on the packaging, bigger than what my 13 came in!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Cool! Looking forward for the results!! Definitely take pics!

 

Everybody loves pics

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

I think folks are not reading NBC's notes right. NBC is writing the notes in comparison to last year's AW13 R2

1) The current AW13 R3 has 8 programmable light zones - not 4
2) I don't think this is any different that the one I just received 2 weeks ago
3) Yeah, we know, 6% different, no measureable difference in games though
4) OLED is such a driver on battery life that unless they can create a better way to cut OLED power consumption, it's not gonna change the AW13 much if at all
5) This is not a change
6) I don't think they've done anything
7) I don't know what that means
8) Ok, I'm sure the Kaby Lake is better for 4k, of which there is very little content
9) The deals do look pretty good today, need to find more though since I got the OLED for 1400sh last month (not including 10% rewards card)

The only difference is Kaby Lake - everything is 100% the same from the model I just received 2 weeks ago.

 

Kaby Lakes have been pulled from the US site. I hope this is because they are working on the Windows 10 Pro issue.

 

Whats this Windows 10 Pro issue?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

Whoever wrote the NotebookReview piece regurgitated a lot of the article verbatim from Dell's press releases without bothering to think about what they were writing or compare it to the original 13 R3 release and so there's a misconception that the new units have better cooling, more lighting, etc when, in fact, nothing has changed. It's nothing more than poor journalism and lazy writing.

 

People were unable to select that as an OS option. It's not really an issue and more of a bug in the website.