Alienware 14 a good laptop?

[Eeezee]

I've been offered a 25% discount on the Alienware 14 on the Dell website, which is a great deal so I'm thinking of buying it. I'd mostly be coding on it, so the discrete GPU won't get much use, but I'd love to have a laptop with a Haswell CPU for the extended battery life. Some reviews that I've read have indicated a poor battery life, but I'm assuming that this is with the discrete GPU rather than integrated graphics.

How's the laptop in general? Is 6 pounds and 1.5 inches thick too heavy/thick for a portable coding laptop that is only sometimes used for playing games? I've been considering waiting and just buying a laptop without a discrete GPU, but this discount may be too good to pass up

 

[Fox5]

I've been offered a 25% discount on the Alienware 14 on the Dell website, which is a great deal so I'm thinking of buying it. I'd mostly be coding on it, so the discrete GPU won't get much use, but I'd love to have a laptop with a Haswell CPU for the extended battery life. Some reviews that I've read have indicated a poor battery life, but I'm assuming that this is with the discrete GPU rather than integrated graphics.

How's the laptop in general? Is 6 pounds and 1.5 inches thick too heavy/thick for a portable coding laptop that is only sometimes used for playing games? I've been considering waiting and just buying a laptop without a discrete GPU, but this discount may be too good to pass up

What does the discount apply to? Dell has 3 other Haswell laptops, a 12" convertible, a 15.6" latitude, and a 15.6" inspiron.

The Alienware 14 should be pretty good, but it's heavier than most 15.6" laptops. Specs are good otherwise though, especially with the upgrades. It is a gaming laptop though, if you want something dual purpose yet running Haswell, one of the HP Envy laptops or the Lenovo y410p or y510p would be a good choice.

 

[Eeezee]

What does the discount apply to? Dell has 3 other Haswell laptops, a 12" convertible, a 15.6" latitude, and a 15.6" inspiron.

The Alienware 14 should be pretty good, but it's heavier than most 15.6" laptops. Specs are good otherwise though, especially with the upgrades. It is a gaming laptop though, if you want something dual purpose yet running Haswell, one of the HP Envy laptops or the Lenovo y410p or y510p would be a good choice.

It only applies to the Alienware 14, 17, and 18. I'd prefer to get something without a discrete GPU (integrated graphics on a Haswell would be fine for most of the games that I play), but it's hard to walk away from 25% off. 6 pounds does seem somewhat heavy...

 

[kogunniyi]

I think that the Alienware 14 and Clevo W230ST are the best 13-14" options. Both have 1080p IPS matte screen options, GTX 765m GPUs, and many customization options. The Alienware is larger and its PSU has a higher capacity, so it should have a better performance threshold, but it's almost a 15" laptop. The Clevo is smaller and much cheaper, but it won't cool or perform as well.

 

[Eeezee]

Thanks for the tip. I'm leaning strongly toward getting this laptop now. I have a whole extra day to consider before my discount expires, so I still have some time to think and gather opinions.

I also spec'd out an XPS12 and an Inspiron 15R, but both were more expensive (I get a 15% discount instead of 25%) for fewer features, so I'd be shooting myself in the foot just to save a pound in weight. At this point I'm leaning heavily toward buying the Alienware 14 unless I start hearing some pretty bad complaints

 

[Throckmorton]

Anybody know how grainy the matte on Alienware laptops is?

 

[JWade]

I have a M14xR2, absolutely love it. I have no complaints about it, I know its not the newest 14" by Alienware/Dell.

 

[Throckmorton]

Why is there a 14" and an 18.4" but no 15.6"?

 

[hans030390]

I have a friend with one of the earlier revisions of the 14" Alienware (might have been the first revision). I really like it...seemed solid and was a good performer all around. I think the only real trade off was the thickness and weight, which was still quite acceptable to me. I think it got maybe 4 to 5 hours of battery life with the integrated GPU, which was pretty good for a gaming laptop at that time. Basically, the laptop hit a nice blend of being a decently powerful gaming laptop without being too big, bulky, and heavy.

Edit: Oh, wow...I guess the newer Alienware laptops, at least the 14", are thicker than their predecessors. Hm...

 

[kushy26]

Alienware 14 very new to me and you are lucky too.I haven't listened about but recently I have also bought Dell laptop inspiron 15 windows 8 laptop only.No offer in India on this.