Alienware 17 inch laptop (review)
Does Radeon do a gaming laptop good?
The 17-inch laptop is a unicorn these days. But in the gaming world, the arguably huge form factor is alive and well. Alienware has doubled down on its colossal clamshell, simply known as the Alienware 17, with an AMD-powered variant.
With an AMD Radeon HD R9 M290X pushing the pixels behind its 1920 x 1080 anti-glare screen, this version of Dell-owned Alienware's notebook comes in $350 (about £207, AU$373) cheaper than its Nvidia-toting counterpart. Given that AMD's latest mobile GPU houses twice as much video RAM – 4GB to the GeForce GTX 860M's 2GB – that's not a bad deal at all.
Aside from that, nothing about the Alienware 17 has changed, including its gigantic frame. Both the MSI GS70 Stealth and Asus G750JX are thinner and cheaper, but fall on different ends of the spectrum in terms of hardware, design and overall focus.
[Editor's note: Since I have yet to test the latest Nvidia GeForce GTX 800M series versions of either of these Asus and MSI machines, I will continue to compare the Alienware 17 to the 700M series editions of these products. This review may be updated after testing MSI, Asus and even Alienware's most current Nvidia-equipped products.]
More subdued, but still a sore thumb at the coffee shop
Design
If you're familiar with Alienware's latest design ID, then none of this will be a shock. But for those coming from the Alienware M17x 2012 perhaps, plenty has changed. The pronounced curvature of the old has given in to a more angular silhouette throughout.
Not only did that make more custom lighting zones a possibility, but it allowed for an all-aluminum lid and magnesium alloy base. This grants the Alienware 17 an even more premium look and feel than before, one that's slightly more subdued – a much welcome change, frankly.
Alienware says that these and other revisions have increased the system's weight in metal materials considerably, while overall the unit comes in nearly 0.25 pounds lighter. Regardless, this is still a notebook that warrants its own line of custom-made backpacks and shoulder bags.
It looks as if it could take off at a moment's notice
The keyboard and its lighting received a welcome change as well, moving on from chiclet keys to a more mechanical, switch-based board sitting on an aluminum plate. And in place of the garish, front-facing speaker lights, the entire base is now wrapped in slim, sleek strips of light. Plus, the entire touchpad now illuminates – not just its border.
Flaunting it with AlienFX
Unique to Alienware's laptops is the wide variety of lights that line their chassis and illuminate their keyboards. The company calls this AlienFX, and it returns in full form on the Alienware 17 with incredibly deep customization, thanks to an app of the same name.
AlienFX allows for specific color profiles for each zone of lighting. For instance, if you wanted the Alienware logo and strips of light on the lid in a crimson red, with the lights lining the base shining a cool blue, there's nothing stopping you. Furthermore, four zones of the keyboard can be illuminated in different hues. (And that's not even close to all.)
Digging even deeper, the Alienware 17's lighting scheme can cycle through multiple themes at a certain tempo. And, through the AlienAdrenaline tool, you can create special themes for different games and apps.
The options are nigh limitless, and aesthetically set the Alienware apart from the lot of boutique gaming laptops. More importantly, AlienFX brings a bit of the custom flair of gaming PCs to laptops. Now, let's see what else about the PC gaming experience Alienware manages to emulate.
Save for the latest and greatest mobile GPU from AMD, there is nothing different between this version of the Alienware 17 and its Nvidia-toting counterparts. So, its bag-bulging dimensions and weight should surprise exactly no one.
You're looking at one beast of a mobile gaming rig here, measuring 16.3 x 11.8 x 1.8 1.9 inches (W x D x H) and weighing a hefty 9.15 pounds. The Asus G750JX comes in at an equally wide (but thinner) 16.15 x 12.5 x 0.66 1.9 inches, but tips the scale at 10.5 pounds. Naturally, the MSI GS70 Stealth is the slimmest of the bunch, at 16.5 x 11.3 x 0.85 inches and 5.7 pounds.
Keep in mind that the MSI model lacks the Blu-ray drive found in both the Alienware and Asus units. But lets see what Alienware manages to squeeze into such a bulky 17.3-inch laptop, compared with the slightly slimmer competition.
This is the Alienware 17 configuration sent to TechRadar:
Spec sheet
CPU: 2.4GHz Intel Core i7-4700MQ (quad-core, 6MB cache, up to 3.4GHz with Turbo Boost)
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD R9 M290X (4GB GDDR5 RAM); Intel HD Graphics 4600
RAM: 16GB DDR3L (2x 8GB at 1600MHz)
Screen: 17.3-inch, 1920 x 1080 WLED, Anti-Glare Display
Storage: 256GB mSATA SSD; 1TB HDD at 5400 rpm
Optical drive: Slot-loading, Blu-ray reader (9.5mm, dual layer)
Ports: 4 USB 3.0 ports (one with PowerShare), HDMI 1.4 (1.3 input), RJ-45 Ethernet, mini-Display Port, 2 ⅛-inch audio out ports (one compatible with inline mic headset), ⅛-inch line-in Microphone port (available for 5.1 analog audio output), Kensington security lock slot
Connectivity: Broadcom 4352 802.11ac Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.0
Camera: FHD, 2-MP webcam
Weight: 9.15 pounds
Size: 16.3 x 11.8 x 1.8 1.9 inches (W x D x H)
This is just about the base configuration available for the AMD variant of the Alienware 17, and it calls for a steep $2,449 (about £1,457, AU$2,644). That might seem like a borderline insane amount of cash to drop even on a product this jam-packed with high-end hardware, but consider what else you're paying for. (You can swap in a 500GB, 5400 rpm hard drive with an 8GB solid-state cache to knock the price down to a base $2,149, or about £1,279, AU$2,320.)
Alienware crafts one of the most premium builds in the gaming laptop world, and offers one year of phone support – plus in-home servicing – for its machines. Asus supplies a year of 24/7 phone support, whereas MSI provides neither (though, it does throw you a 2-year warranty).
Both the GS70 Stealth and G750JX are Nvidia-based systems, but since AMD isn't terribly common in the mobile PC gaming world, I'll have to make due. (Plus, it makes for an interesting comparison.) First up is Asus, which can sport comparable components for $2,274 (about £1,353, AU$2,455) – or $175 less than this Alienware 17 – on Amazon.
That gets you a near-identical 2.4GHz Intel Core i7-4700HQ chip, a whopping 24GB of RAM and a similar 128GB SSD coupled with a 1TB mechanical drive alongside an Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB of video memory behind an FHD panel. This setup also nets you a Blu-ray drive for parity with the Alienware at hand, but you're also stuck with Windows 8.1. (Alienware offers the choice of either Windows 7 or 8.1; this unit came running the former.)
As for MSI, a similarly configured GS70 Stealth – also available on Amazon – goes for even less at $1,805 (around £1,074, AU$1,948). That price nets the exact CPU found in this Alienware, 16GB of RAM, a lower-power GeForce GTX 765M with 2GB of video RAM, and a similar 256GB SSD (two 128GB units in RAID) and 1TB, 7200 rpm HDD combo. This is all behind an FHD screen as well, but again, no Windows 7 option.
What the Alienware 17 has above both of these systems is 802.11ac networking, which could prove vital in the coming years, especially in online gaming. But let's see how well this Alienware fares pushing the present's pixels first.
Performance
One reason folks buy Alienware is guaranteed premium performance, and this AMD variant generally delivers on the pedigree (but not without a few hurdles). The synthetic tests we run on gaming laptops say as much, and so do the games. Here's how it fared:
Benchmarks
3DMark: Ice Storm: 89,348; Cloud Gate: 17,444; Fire Strike: 4,727
Cinebench CPU: 627 cb
Bioshock Infinite: (1080p, Ultra): 47.08 fps; (1080p, Low): 146.38 fps
Metro: Last Light: (1080p, Ultra): 14.33 fps; (1080p, Low): 36.67 fps
PCMark 8 Battery Life: 2 hours and 15 minutes
As you can see, the AMD R9 M290X in this rig just about destroys 3DMark Fire Strike, not to mention its rival gaming laptops. The Asus G750JX scored a meager 3,123 points in comparison, while the MSI GS70 Stealth fared even worse at 2,211.
As for the games, the machine trounced the best of Bioshock Infinite at a smooth 47 frames per second on average, while the GS70's GTX 760M clocked a still-playable 42 fps. However, Metro: Last Light brought this Alienware to its knees – a reality check for those hoping for top- tier performance from a mobile GPU. (The Asus model was not tested on either game.)
Don't bother bemoaning the battery
Discussing the battery in a 17-inch gaming rig is almost moot, but the power-friendly Haswell chip inside did all it could to keep this monster alive. In my own test, the Alienware lasted a bit longer than on PCMark 8: 3 hours and 6 minutes. That was on the "Balanced" Windows power setting with the AlienFX lighting turned on, the volume at 10% and screen brightness at 50%. That also included streaming high bitrate audio via Spotify, running Google Chrome with 10 to 15 tabs, a heavyweight chat app and TweetDeck.
Cutting the lights and dimming the screen even further could eke out another 30 minutes or so, maybe, but that's not the point. The Alienware 17 wasn't designed to follow you from outlet to outlet, but rather for raw performance. (The included power brick weighs a pound or two on its own for a reason.)
The power light changes color to indicate charge level
Don't even bother trying to game on this laptop while on its battery. AMD's Enduro graphics switching technology will instantly turn the graphics chip off in favor the integrated Intel GPU, anyway. Speaking of which, how does AMD's latest handle, say, the Call of Duty makers' latest?
Driving me up a wall
There is one area in which Nvidia is clearly far ahead of AMD: drivers. Updating drivers on an Nvidia GPU, whether it's a mobile or desktop chip, happens with a single button press through the company's GeForce Experience app.
Given that Alienware equipped this laptop with AMD's best yet, naturally I fired up the latest major PC shooter, Titanfall. It was immediately noticeable that performance wasn't nearly where it should be for a graphics chip this powerful, even for mobile.
So, I attempted to update the driver through AMD's Driver Autodetect tool, which mistook the Radeon HD R9 M290X for the Radeon HD 8970M and overwrote the driver with an incorrect version. This led to a host of performance and detection issues that eventually forced me to reinstall the graphics adapter entirely.
The confusion is somewhat understandable, considering the only difference between these two GPUs is that the M290X packs double the video RAM. Nevertheless, AMD has plenty of work to do in simplifying this process for players.
Performance to match the panache?
After the dust settled on the driver debacle, the R9 M290X more than lived up to its $2,000-plus asking price as I stomped through the war torn streets of Titanfall. However, this was only after settling some nasty switchable graphics issues.
I've found that AMD's Enduro graphics switching requires some serious massaging, from flagging games in AMD's Catalyst Control Center (to guarantee that the GPU is active during play) to restarting to system. You know, just to make sure things are really in order – and it works.
While using FRAPS to read frame rates, I locked Titanfall's texture settings to "high" at 1920 x 1080 resolution, with vertical sync and 2x anti-aliasing enabled. The result was me staring down the boots of various robots at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second. Only in particularly chaotic scenes did the frame rate drop to 45 fps, but I'll take it.
As for MMOs with vast vistas and deep draw distances, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV ran at a silky 60 fps at high to maxed detail settings. With marquee shooters like Destiny on the horizon, this Alienware 17 should be able to keep up, so long as AMD gets Enduro in order.
BYOK (Bring Your Own Keyboard … and mouse)
The Alienware 17 keyboard, closer to the mechanical gaming keyboards of old than the membrane keys found on most laptops, offers near-perfect travel and spacing. However, typing on a surface raised nearly an inch off the desk was a struggle, especially in games that rely heavily on the WASD keys.
My fingers and wrist quickly cramped while conquering the dungeons of Azeroth, if only due to the extra height I had to lift my arm to reach the number keys. If your desk is tailored to typing at a certain height, put the Alienware 17 on a stand and pick up a gaming keyboard.
And while the backlit touchpad offers smooth scrolling and tracking throughout Windows 7, it's nothing to game on. That said, with comfortable, soft-touch palm rests, this keyboard should serve you well in a pinch. Plus, the lighting is simply brilliant.
Bundled software
Alienware is visibly aware of the stigma against bloatware, and as result only includes its own proprietary software. Collectively known as the Alienware Command Center, this suite of apps controls all of the system's unique features:
AlienFX: Control all of the lighting zones on the unit, giving each a unique hue and intensity. It's all done through intuitive color wheels for simplicity.
AlienTouch: Tweak the Alienware 17 touchpad's sensitivity and other features. You can disable the touchpad automatically upon using a mouse too, though I had trouble getting the touchpad to turn back on after resuming from sleep.
AlienFusion: Here, you can adjust how certain components, like the GPU and Wi-Fi adapter, behave under certain conditions or when running certain apps.
AlienAdrenaline: Temporarily get rid of extraneous Windows processes in one step upon launching a game with this tool, though the effect on performance is minimal.
Alienware TactX: Here is where users can program the four dedicated macro keys on the Alienware 17 keyboard. Users can also share profiles tailored to specific games.
Verdict
Before even opening the lid, it's crystal clear that this Alienware 17 is just as premium of a machine as the first edition that released summer 2013. The sole difference here is that shiny Radeon GPU, which is no doubt a powerhouse … after fiddling with switchable graphics and driver issues for hours.
But the onus is on AMD to fix these problems, and it's tough to knock this product down a peg for bugs that could easily be fixed by the time you read this very review. (Though, they're not yet on AMD's list of known issues for its Catalyst software.)
Price per part is the real roadblock that this gaming laptop faces. Sure, you're getting a premium product for that price. But at a back-bending 9.15 pounds, you won't be carting this rig around all too much. Plus, if you're ready to drop over $2,000 on PC gaming, and space is a concern, you might want to consider whether a micro gaming PC is a better path to get there.
We liked
Make no mistake, this is undoubtedly the complete package and then some, offering the glitz and glamor of a boutique gaming PC in the laptop form factor. Not to mention that this AMD graphics chip inches dangerously close to desktop-level performance.
Once past AMD's switchable graphics and driver issues, the differences between this mobile GPU and comparable desktop chips are negligible at 1080p. And that 1920 x 1080 anti-glare panel is a colorful dream of a screen. Set at 300 nits, the panel's brightness came in great handy while hiding from far better pilots in the darkest corners of Titanfall.
Alienware not only designed a gorgeous (if a bit gaudy) machine, but put its immense dimensions to excellent use. On top of a vast selection of inputs, the Alienware 17 keeps its cool quite well while gaming. Thanks in no small part to two massive vents placed in the rear of the device's base, I only felt the area closest to the hinge flare up during play.
We disliked
At the high end, this Alienware 17 will be the most affordable by a long shot for some time, with the GTX 860M-toting model starting at $2,499. Yet I can't help but question the asking price amidst the myriad space-saving desktop options, including Alienware's own X51 desktop. Also, there's a incoming legion of Steam Machines to consider.
While they're issues that are up to AMD to resolve, the company's switchable graphics and driver support solutions are simply not competitive. But again, because they're fixable, in theory, it's tough to punish this device too harshly for that.
Finally, the laptop's gargantuan size makes it tough to type on. Unless you somehow tweak your desk or chair to compensate for the inch-high keyboard deck, you'll be stuck bending your wrists uncomfortably to hit those WASD keys. Slap this laptop on a stand and hook up your own keyboard and mouse if you value your hands.
Final verdict
Save for some nagging (but ultimately fixable) problems, the Alienware 17 is one of the best gaming laptops money can buy. From its sharp metallic and soft-touch build to a host of powerful components, this is a one-stop shop for getting into PC gaming with a single click.
That said, over $2,000 is a fat wad of cash to put up in hopes of avoiding the perceived hassles of PC gaming. And again, if space is a concern, there are plenty of options that offer more power for less, given this isn't a laptop you'll want in your backpack for long.
Given that a 17.3-inch laptop, gaming or not, is a terribly niche product, consider every path before paying over two grand for the toll. Regardless, it's undeniable that this is the best-built mobile gaming PC around. If the fast lane to high quality PC gaming is what you seek, then the Alienware 17 will not steer you wrong.
Original Article http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pcs/laptops-and-netbooks/alienware-17-review-1158039/review#articleContent