Recommend me an Alienware laptop

Hi

So it's time to retire my M11X R3. It's been a great machine and served me well. I feel it's time to upgrade to a newer model.

I quite fancy getting a VR headset, so need a GPU that can handle it. Is the 1070 is a lot faster than the 1060? I would like to get the lastest GPU but cant stretch to the 1080 as I don't game that much. I wonder if the 1060 will be too slow for VR in the future.

My M11X was silent when I was playing movies and I hope the new models are the same?

I would like a good screen, is a 4K screen required nowadays? I watch a lot of MKV movies but they are all 1080p.

As for size i fancy the 13" but they don't do that model with a 1070. The 17" is too large so that really leaves the 15.6.

Any advice please? Thanks for reading.

 

Before you dive into the cold water, just be aware of the issues surrounding the current AW laptops:

- Thermal issues due to uneven heat sinks
- Screen banding/watermark

Although there are some tutorials in fixing the thermal issue by repasting, readjustment of thermal pads and probably bending the CPU arm, but I think paying for such an expensive laptop and doing those maintenance right out of the box is just unacceptable. As for screen banding/watermark that plagues most AW screen panels, especially the QHD panels, there are no fix for that. Don't despair though, AW is looking into all these issues and probably going to announce some good news (hopefully) by the end of February or mid March.

 

I will certainly hold off for now. With the price of those machines I certainly don't want to do any fixes myself and wouldn't attempt it. Many thanks.

 

I would still consider it. AW 13 is the only OLED gaming machine in the world. And by Gorge its worth it!

Most work fine out of the box, but if you are worried about thermal issues, a re-seller like HIDevolution will do all the thermal fixes for you if you are uncomfortable with doing it yourself.

 

You can also send you laptop to @iunlock or another member of LHz for re-pasting if you didn't want to use a re-seller or wanted to save and get an outlet unit (I've sent mine out and should have it back soon and I'll post a full review then). The OLED screen is definitely worth it though.

 

The Oled is the best screen I have seen on a laptop. It will be hard to go with anything else for me at this point in the future unless there is something even better then Oled.

 

OLED = screen burn/mura effect

Even worst than screen banding/watermark.

@ Rannochuk I'd wait for now if I were you.

 

Can't beat the color saturation and quality though.

 

I've seen those OLED screens in AW 13 and in PS Vita 1000, gorgeous as they looks but they will end up ugly. I'd rather choose an IPS screen w/GSYNC than OLED.

 

I've yet to see an example of burn-in with the 13 R2 or R3 although I'd be very interested in seeing cases if you have examples.

 

Search "OLED screen burn" and you'll see examples of it. You wouldn't see the screen burn in your AW 13 right now simply because it's new but let us know after 2 years of use.

Also if you want to run games as smooth as butter but still want an excellent screen quality then a GTX 1070 + IPS w/GSYNC in the AW 15 is the way to go, it's more future proof. But like I said...AW 15 and 17 is not worth the buy right now, therefore I advice OP to wait a few months before getting one.

 

Again, I've yet to see an example from a laptop - maybe I'm looking in the wrong place or they've not been in use long enough for this to be an issue but it might also be the case that laptops are less likely to burn in than other devices.

 

OLED in devices and in laptops are the same technology regardless of the manufacturer they will suffer screen burn.

 

I ordered the 13" OLED. I needed to as I gave my M11X to my GF as she's not giving it back. Got a deal through chat. I have a 2nd hand Oculus Rift that I'll hook up later.

I'll also use the laptop when I'm in my observatory so it fits the bill. I'll be posting here as I didn't just sign up for advice then not post again.

Thanks guys.

 

GL with screen burn

 

I'm sure that people will post here if that becomes an issue.

 

It will but Dellienware doesn't care anymore. They will force you to buy new 500$+ screen

 

I ended up getting a 17 R4 with a 1080, 120HZ, Love it so far, nearly as good as my rig

 

Good choice, where did you bought from? Can you run some benchmarks and show us you temp?

 

It's broken (see my other thread) completely dead, only had it 3 days. I went to power it in yesterday and nothing. I called Dell and spoke to someone in Slovakia who asked me to remove the back, then memory and do a cmos/bios reset. Nothing......

They are getting back to me tomorrow, it has on-site next business day support, if they cant fix it within a few days I'll return it to the supplier. I bought it from eBay, it have bought many items from this business who have offered a full refund if I return it.

I'll see what Dell say tomorrow. They think the MB has gone but who knows. I wonder how many spare motherboards they have with a 1080. I can see this dragging on, if that's the case it's going and I'l build a desktop pc instead.

 

If you do not need something portable and a desktop will serve your needs, that would definitely be the smartest move you could make. It will destroy your defective Alienware in terms of performance and your money will go a whole lot further. The only laptops that are worth a damn are quite expensive and don't use soldered garbage for CPU and/or GPU. Quality control seems to be a growing concern with all brands now. Almost everything is either crippled, a thermal abortion, or both. To end up with something truly special in a laptop requires modding of firmware and user intervention with hardware at some level. It's a shame and a crime, but that's the sad world we live in now. Too many smartphone jockeys and console converts clamoring over something cute but adequate to play games with, and too many ODMs with no pride in their product. It seems that none of them actually give a rat's butt if the products they sell are reliable or work right. The primary focus seems to be concentrated on aesthetics and marketing propaganda far more than results. All brands deserve to be painted with the same brush in this regard and only fanboys will disagree. Some are clearly worse than others, and some choose to use fundamentally inferior components, but all are guilty of similar incompetencies where QC and engineering failures are concerned.

 

I see laptops as all compromised machines. You simply cant have it all. Want everything socketed, then it becomes large, want everythign running cool, it becomes large, want it portable? It starts to run hot. So it really depends your wishes and what comes the most close.

I do like the latest AW's a lot but that problem with uneven core temperatures sucks though. Every machine should be checked more carefully when it leaves the factory and tolerances should be much tighter.

I hate it that with products these days there is always a slight flaw somewhere. I rather would pay 100 bucks extra for better quality control than to have the feeling i should fix everything myself. Which I am capable off. But it hurts the warranty.

 

Try your AW 13 OLED screen in a pitch dark room preferably at night with the lights off and load up some game with black loading screens and see the splatters in it is called Mura Effect in all OLED screen.

 

Doesn't exists my AW OLED. Played Limbo, and seen quite a few pure black screen in pitch dark room with no "mura effect" pretty sure that is only a problem on 40s -50s" TV's

You seem to have some sort of vendetta vs OLED?

 

Not 40-50s only, so you're wrong about that...many latest devices with OLED suffering from mura effect and later years - burn in.

I like OLED but it's degradation that I don't like, as a matter of fact I own a PS Vita with an OLED screen.

 

You do know that OLED technology has improved since the Vita came out, right?

 

Nor mine, at least not that I can tell.
But I'm sure he'll find some new thing to bring up since this one isn't an issue.

 

Try to quote me next time so you don't look like you're sneaking up your comments.

OLED didn't improved since it came out. I'm just warning other people about the issue with OLED so if you're not experiencing any issue atm then good, it's your funeral in the end. Again, you're wrong about me bringing new issues about AW --- lol it's got plenty of issues atm that the company supposed to fix long time ago.

 

Except that's not true. OLED screens produced now are much less likely to suffer permanent burn in than older units.

No. You're playing the part of a fear monger and posting extremely broad claims without a shred of proof and then ignoring evidence that disproves those claims.

Maybe, maybe not. Only time will tell. What is true is that every one of your complaints about the OLED, or at least every one I can remember off the top of my head, have either been disproven or seem highly dubious to say the least.

 

Okay. Enjoy your 13 then.

 

It has improved in terms of brightness and color rendering. BUt the issues still exist unfortunately. Even recent Samsung smartphones exhibit burn in and color degradation over time. These are viewed as the best Oled panels of this time. The LG TV panels are different however. They degrade in a more uniform way. But burn in is still an issue.

 

I enjoy how you cannot refute anything and instead give this type of response.

The only real issue with oleds is the blue oled, which is massively improved, and is supposed to be fixed with ink jet printing (Supposed to of course). Oleds todays (Esp. the LG oleds) mostly do image persistence, you really have to intentionally damage them to get actual burn in.

With that said, stationary icons can eventually cause burn in. I suggest auto-hide the taskbar, changing the background image every so often, and not having icons on the backgrounds. Basically if you ever used a plasma tv as a secondary (or primary) monitor, you know what to do.

 

You still have uneven white balance issues with samsung panels i experienced those myself until this day. LG panels only can have burn in or brightness loss issues but not the uneven white balance issues from the blue led wearing out more quickly.

 

OLED is a fairly new technology and it looks georgious, but it's as some people say here. They are not as stable yet. Personally i'd not go for OLED just yet, since it will make problems faster than a good IPS screen, however if someone can live with the fact that he should send the notebook for repair here and then but in trade have a very nice looking screen, then be my guest. It's not like they will charge you for a detect that happens because of technology.

Also, obviously Midas Touch is being very dramatic here, but he still has a point. It's not like the screen will literally break down in the first days of usage, but it will likely cause issues after a couple of months depending on how much you use it, so you have to be able to either deal with the defect or be able to send the notebook for repair a couple of days.

 

It is well known that plasma TV's are horrible, that's why they got replaced by LED TV's a long time ago. How long do u own that OLED?

 

You know I should've read some of your earlier posts just to get an idea of how little you know.

1. The mura effect hasn't been around in oleds for several years.

2. LCDS HAVE THE MURA EFFECT

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-remove-the-mura-effect-on-an-lcd

Which is kinda funny since you act like this mura effect is way worse then the problems with the lcd screens while conveniently ignoring that lcds have the same problem (And any of them can get it, just turn the brightness level up really high).

It's painfully obvious that the only oled you've messed with is the psvita, and that you listened to a bunch of over dramatic nonsense about oleds (Which is no different then the paranoia of plasmas having screen burn in) without doing any research on your own.

 

and what does a PC have? a ****load of static objects on screen. Browser windows, icons, start bar. NO matter how people try to spin it, its still not maturized enough. YOu have to adjust your PC usage to make it last long without burn in. LIke moving windows around instead of keeping them maximized, minimize the taskbar, have an uniform desktop wallpaper etc.....


I wish it was mature enough but it isnt.