Alienware seems to have gotten all the "little things" right with this laptop. The form factor is large enough to game or do "real work," yet it is small enough to be portable. The strange-looking beveled keyboard is actually very pleasant to type on fewer errant keystrokes and better speed. The trackpad has discrete buttons with nice tactile feedback. There is no annoying bloatware (trial AV, toolbars, etc) like you might find on an HP. I was worried that the styling would be garish and distracting/embarassing, but it really isn't that bad.The components, are, of course, top notch. You could probably get them in other computers as well, though.
Overall, no complaints.
All in all, the laptop performs well. I did have an issue with Windows no longer being able to install drivers, which led to my graphics card no longer having a driver, which led to me having to respawn the system to factory settings to fix the problem after Dell's tech support was unable to correct the problem. However, all that is really due to problems with Windows rather than the laptop itself.
Pros:
Excellent performance, and the price isn't too steep for what you get.
The m14x is a nice looking laptop, and garners quite a few envious glares from people who see it.
The keyboard feels great, but bears a certain issue I will touch upon in the cons.
The touch pad is good, and has a lot of customization built into the Alienware control center software, from touch
sensitivity, to settings that help mitigate accidental palm grazes.
The keyboard back-light customization is a nice touch, though it can be so distracting I usually have most of the lights
off.
The screen is crisp and performs well.
Cons:
The screen has a very high gloss. I've gotten used to it a bit, but I can literally use it as a mirror in even low-
light conditions.
The keyboard, while it feels nice and responsive, squeaks a lot while typing. Yes, squeaks, like a bunch of little
rusty hinges. It isn't a deal breaker, but it is an oddity one doesn't usually see in keyboards.
It's a laptop, so it doesn't perform like a desktop gaming rig will. You'll find plenty of games that run at their
highest settings, but most newer games won't.
Since Alienware specialized in gaming PCs, I feel their laptops should come with a mouse. Mousepads aren't even
adequate for flash games.
All that being said, it is still an excellent laptop for those who want to be able to game, but need a laptop. The larger versions have some nice options on them, and prices to match, but the m14x nails the combination of balance and portability nicely.I really wanted to love this laptop, I really did. The AlienFX thing is pretty cool with the whole keyboard lights and the rest, the screen was great (1600x900). It was nice and fast, although, booting it up took about 4 minutes before you could actually do anything on it, and that's WAY too long for a brand new top of the line computer. The video card (GT555m) was great and games looked great and the frame rate even at high detail never really took a nosedive. The klipsch speaker set up in this thing was awesome too, had a tiny little woofer in it that brought some great sound with it.
All these things kept me wanting to like or, or even to use it, but the ONLY thing stopping me, was the fan. Any other review that you read, if someone says the fan isn't that bad, is lying or borderline deaf. I'm sorry. I've been building and repairing computers for at least 15 years now, and never have I heard any fan that gets THIS loud. I understand that things need to be kept cool, but things also need to be designed better to keep the airflow going. The fan noise was unbearable playing a game to the point you had to use headphones just to hear what you were doing, even just browsing webpages in chrome fired the fan up and got it spinning, albeit not as loud as when gaming.
I tried everything I could to get the fan down to a comfortable level. Updating the BIOS to the latest one (which dell wrote specifically for the fan complaints), flashing an unlocked BIOS from the guys over at bios-mods, changing fan heat thresholds, propping it up on a book, using a laptop cooler. I even went as far as ripping the ENTIRE laptop apart and re-applying the best thermal grease I could find. The old stuff that I cleaned off looked like colgate. That was actually the only thing that showed any significant improvement, it actually dropped the temperature down by about 5-7 degrees celsius at idle and 10-15 degrees celsius at load.
Bottom line, this laptop needs two fans, or a shorter heat pipe to the CPU/GPU. the heatpipe had to be at least 6 or 7 inches, and for this dinky little fan to keep up it has to spin like a 737 taking off.
So after my issues with the fan I decided to return it using my "30 day money back guarantee" which turns out to cost about $250... those idiots at dell sell you a laptop with an obvious design flaw, and then tell you "oh, yeah, just box it up, pay for shipping, then we'll just go ahead and charge you an additional 15% restocking fee"
I will NEVER recommend this laptop to anyone, and probably tell people to just stay away from dell completely. That re-stocking fee is just plain robbery.
Just sold this laptop on craigslist about an hour ago, so technically, Dell still has my money, how depressing.Like with anything you buy, you should do plenty of research about it BEFORE you buy so there are no surprises. People who leave poor reviews about this product obviously did not look into it very much. Yes the fan is noisy during gaming... many laptop fans are. But it really is not that bad. Also 90% of people who are gaming either have on their speakers or headphones. And let me tell you the speakers on this machine are absolutely amazing... crisp and very loud. The audio jacks are very good as well, both of which can very easily cover the fan noise while you are gaming. Other than that the fan is almost silent during normal day use. And I have yet to find the machine getting very hot while playing BF3, F.E.A.R 3, or other games for an extended period of time.
The build may seem bulky but it is very portable and if you adjust your power settings correctly, you can squeeze about 6 hours of battery life out of this machine in power saver mode. I use this when I go to class all day and my machine still performs very well despite being on reduced performance settings.
Gaming and entertainment wise this machine is amazing. F.E.A.R 3 runs perfectly on max settings, and when using auto-settings for Battlefield 3 the game sets all settings on medium quality with texture quality on Ultra and the game runs perfect. The machine is fast, portable, and even without the HD screen games are still very clear and very easy to play.I ordered a new Dell laptop. I received it and the hard drive could not be found. Called Dell and after several attempts it booted up.
Then the fans became very loud and provided a high whistling sound.
The hard drive is very slow, taking the software minutes to respond to commands.
I, at this time, have had the system for 2 months. I contacted Dell within 21 days and they will NOT provide a refund or take the system back.
The LCD screen has imprints from the keys on the keyboard. I was told it was a design flaw. The touch pad quit working.
I am now, finally after two months of trying, getting them to repair it, but they will not exchange or refund, and I bought a NEW system, now I will have a refurbished lemon.
They are replacing the LCD screen, the keyboard, the frame around the keyboard, the touchpad and buttons, the fans, the hard drive, the battery and charger. I think with all of this additional cost to replace these things, and frustrate a customer, that they should just refund and let me wipe my hands of this.
THIS IS NO WAY TO TREAT CUSTOMERS!
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