From Alienware m11x R1 to Series 9?

I currently use an Alienware m11x as my main notebook. I don't mind the small screen, but I don't do much gaming. I do a lot of design work with Photoshop and some coding (HTML and C++) for my job, so I'm thinking the Series 9 would both look a bit more professional when meeting with clients and be a bit easier to use with regards to the larger screen size. (I'm aware that the Samsung does run at 1366x768, same as the Alienware, but the larger screen itself will be nice to have -- I'm not getting any younger!)

I bought a Macbook Air and tried it, but I'm pretty firmly rooted in Windows, and I'd rather not load it on the Mac as a workaround. The Series 9 looks to be my next best bet.

My biggest concerns appear to be with the following:

1. The touchpad. Given that this machine will do a not-unsubstantial amount of Photoshop work, how well does clicking and dragging function? I hate to double-tap-and-drag, but on the flip side, I don't really want to turn off the tapping feature and disable single-tap clicking for when I'm not using Photoshop.

2. Battery life -- right now I get about 5.5 hours when doing routine web surfing and typing code (not compiling, obviously). Should I expect about the same here?

3. I know it's not released yet, but does anyone know if the current model will support the newer 1600x900 screen panel going into the revised version? It's not a deal breaker, but if the screen will work with it, I'll probably upgrade at some point in its life.

On weekends I do a bit of DJ work and so this thing would have to be able to run Virtual DJ or similar software without stuttering, but I'm sure that's no problem at all.

I'd rather jump on this now while it's relatively inexpensive (currently $999 via Microsoft Store with a $200 future-use discount that I'll be using anyway) as opposed to waiting until the refresh comes out which will almost assuredly be quite a bit more money. I just figure this is the best place to help decide. The m11x does do everything I need it to do, but it does get some weird looks when dealing with some clients. Wi-Di would be a massive bonus for what I do as well.

Thanks!

 

The new S9 display is 1600 x 900. More details here. See this thread for detailed discussion of the current S9. Be aware that the current S9 has a weak WiFi signal problem which you may encounter unless the model in the Microsoft store has the Intel 6300 WiFi adaptor with the third antenna.

John

 

The Microsoft Store model is supposed to have the 3x3 antenna, so I'm assuming I won't run into any wireless connection problems. I'm aware that the new display is 1600x900; my question was whether or not the screen should be able to be swapped between the two should it be desirable to do so later. If both laptops are using the same video chipset, I'd assume it can handle the higher resolution no problem (unless it's being locked out in BIOS). I guess I'll need to wait to know the answer to that, but I didn't know if anyone had tried replacing their screen with a higher-res one already.

I did a little more research and it looks like the 3DMark scores for the Series 9 are about four times' the m11x when running in Intel graphics mode, and about half the m11x when it's using its nVidia card. But the PCMark scores are massively in favor of the Series 9, so I'm guessing I'll be seeing a pretty dramatic improvement overall.

 

The Intel chipset will support resolutions much higher than 1600 x 900 (up to something like 2560 x 1920, IIRC) so no worries there. However, my concern would be whether the current and new displays share the same connector, etc.

For the Intel GPU graphics benchmarks, one key factor is the RAM configuration. Having a single RAM module will pull down the performance as shown by my table here.

PC Mark results are boosted by an SSD (no surprise really) as shown by my benchmark results here. Did the M11X have an SSD or HDD.

John

 

m11x had a 320 gig 5400, so I'm sure there will be a huge perceived benefit there.

My biggest complaint about the m11x was boot time, both from hibernate and full off. When I do work at a client's house or meet with someone, waiting 3-4 minutes for the system to boot was just getting a bit unacceptable. Even trimming things down from startup, it just seems sluggish.

The m11x is still under warranty and still has a decent eBay resale value so I'm not too worried, just figured I'd fish for opinions here.