Should I get an 2013 Alienware 18

Recently I purchased a 2013 Alienware 17, but I am not very impressed with the screen. It looks okay but the color is on the cold side and just doesn't pop much.

So I am thinking getting a 2013 Alienware 18 which packs 18 inch PLS screen. I read some reviews and it seems like this PLS screen is pretty good. However, some reviewer also praised Alienware 17 screen as well so I am not sure how much better it is to TN matt screen 17 has.

So my question is how much is it better？

Also how much is the sound system better than AW17？

 

Can't comment on the screen, it's ok, nothing special except the bigger size is nice.

The sound, this is the worst sounding laptop I ever bought out of the gaming laptops I had before. It is loud, but 0 bass unless you turn off the Dolby Digital enhancement then the bass starts to get heard, but then the overall sound sucks if you turn off the Dolby Digital enhancement, so it's a choice between low quality bad sound but with bass (Dolby Off) or high quality loud sound but no bass (Dolby On)

 

The screen on the new 18 is excellent, probably one of the best notebook screen I've ever used.

 

Thanks for the reply! I guess it means it is significantly better than the AW17 screen then?

 

that's a bummer. I heard some good things from reviewers about its speaker tho. I personally like AW17's speaker. It surely lacks base but overall quality is good. the volume is also a plus. AW18's speaker should be basically the same right? Except it has a subwoofer?

 

I'm a little confused too. The AW 18 has the same sound as the m18xr2. It's hands down the best system I've heard on a laptop.

 

That means you probably never heard how an ASUS ROG laptop sounds with their built in subwoofers. Although I am a big anti ASUS person after owning 4 ROG laptops that were simply lacking of any sorts of quality and ran into many troubles with them. The built in subwoofer they have is night and day better than what I had on my three Alienware 18 laptops no questions asked.

Try this expirement, while playing some music that has bass in it, turn off the dolby digital sound effects (if you have that in your laptop that is) then run it back on and see the difference. With it off, the bass is rich and deep like it should, if you turn Dolby On again, the sound is louder and crisper but 0 bass

 

I've owned an ASUS gaming laptop before their ROG brand came out. Back then I was using it primarily for music production so I used an external sound card and monitor speakers and can't really say either way.
The ROG's most definitely could have superior sound but calling the 18's out for the worst sound is a total exaggeration don't you think?

Also keep in mind the OP is asking if it's better than the m17. Which with the addition of a small sub I've seen reports of that to be the case.

 

Please... lets not speak of the abomination that is the asus ROG laptops' speaker systems. I have owned the g75, before upgrading to the msi gt72, and my friends had the 73 and 74, the sound systems were all universally garbage. I will never buy any product that has VIA audio systems ever again.

That being said after getting my parents the m17xr4, i can safely say the klipsch speakers are the best in any laptop, rivaled only by the dynaudio from msi.

 

G73Sw = Creative sound card, that was the best sounding one of them all
G75VW - VIA crappy chipset, but with some tweaking of the sliders, you could get some decent bass out of it
G750JX = Realtek Chipset, better than the G75VW, worse than the G73Sw ,sort of average but much better than the AW18
Alienware 18 = Awesome Klipsch speakers with the worst built in subwoofer in any gaming laptop

just my 2 cents

 

I had a G73JH and I can say 100% that the sound on my Alienware M17x R4 sucks monkey balls compared to Asus.. if there's one thing, they do Creative and Audio correctly unlike Alienware...

 

I can't imagine ever being swayed one way or another by the "quality" of the built-in speakers on a laptop. I don't care what they throw in there and what jargon they use to talk it up, built-in laptop speakers will never be truly satisfying. lrn2headphone

 

They can get the job done if right to be fair, so if watching a movie while away or similar you don't have to resort to headphones.

 

Oh haha my mistake i only had the g75 and really disliked the audio from the get-go, my friend who had the g74 also really disliked his sound system and i assumed they all used the same sound chip manufacturer. The g75 though, oh man i spent forever tweaking those settings till i got them to supposedly "sound good", but when i got the alienware for my parents it was like instant realization how sub-par the asus sound quality was

 

Yes, I agree with you dawg, the Klipsch speakers are seriously loud and clear! Love em, my gripe was only about the bass! With such a humongous laptop, they ought to have some bass.

Plus, it DOES have bass, because as I mentioned, if you turn off the Dolby Digital sound effects, the bass is superb and deep, but the speakers go low on volume and richness in sound, thus it's a compromise between either proper bass with crappy sound or superb sound with no bass. It's probably a setting or driver issue but I have been testing every driver DELL releases just hoping one of them might suddenly give me bass + Dolby at the same time but each time get disappointed.

 

Alienware 18 screen is vastly superior to the Alienware 17 that's the one thing my Mrs is disappointed with with her AW 17. Colors on AW
18 pop much more far more saturated though Nvidia control panel digital vibrance setting does help. Compared to my Samsung PLS desktop screen in terms of color and viewing angle not all that different with the same Nvidia control panel settings but the backlight bleed on the AW 18 is much worse than my monitor.

 

Thanks! That really helps!