New M17x R4, M14X R2 and M18X R2 are coming - Speculation thread.

[SOS4DELL]

1: No
2: The M14x R3 or R4, in about a year. For now, all gaming is done on my desktop and my E6400 suffices for portable work. Portable gaming is Diablo 2 for now
3: Most of all, a matte 900p screen. I can live with a not-so-powerful GPU as long as the stock cooling is good.

I took the liberty of creating an idea at Dell's IdeaStorm website, please go there and promote it so we can get matte screens on Alienware laptops. I'm sick of delaying my purchase because of these excuses (a glossy screen has prevented me from buying the M11x R3 already).
Idea Storm

Hi HerrKaputt,

A lot of IdeaStormers here have asked, demanded... a matte screen option (particularly for the M18X(n) or, at least, a non-glossy (or antiglare) display panel. We do not had get any answers so far... We feel "ignored".

There is a simple way to solve the issue: Someone (Aikimox @ the notbookreview forum), not so affraid like most of us of loosing the warranty, has researched more than a bit and found that actually the display panel behind the E2E glossy cover is non-glare screen panel... So, he caaaarrreeefffuuulllly removed the E2E plastic cover and enjoy the non-glossy screen panel.

What we can learn from this is that if Dellienware really want to listen to the costumers and solve the issue for all of us, they can implement a Snap-in / Snap-out E2E glossy cover (similar to those color covers they offer for the lid of some laptops) and let the user decide when he want to use the glossy cover and when it's better for her/him to snap-it out... Now that will be designer/bussiness intelligence @ work!

But even that easy solution propossal never received any reaction or answer from Dellienware people. Sad, very sad indeed.

[custom90gt]

just as an example last year Clevo was still using the D9T or D900 chassis Alienware used back in 2006 with a laptop known as a Alienware aurora M-7700

where is the graphics switching on clevos ?

where is HDMI-in ?

nice design ?

good sound system ?

good battery life?

You do know clevo was the ODM for the first alienware laptops right?

Clevo has graphics switch, decent sound, and good battery life in the p150em/p170em models. They also look nice too.
Just because they didn't have a illuminated keyboard (which stayed off on my M17x R3, M11x, and M14x), doesn't make them less of a feature proof design. Look at Alienwares current lineup and their screens, talk about terrible. I'd rather have a great screen and a non-illuminated keyboard.
In terms of design, my G73JH had a better cooling design than any of my alienwares. Both clevo and AW fall behind in that category.
Alienware has some good competition, which means in the end it's the customers who win.

[widezu69]

^^Some very good points however, I'm not sure that the Asus does have better cooling, granted everyone's experiences differ and I'm not saying that the Asus ones are bad or anything. Healthy competition is great and I like where the gaming market is headed for all brands although Alienware innovation is slowing down a bit.

The new Clevo models do look really nice for someone that is looking for a gaming machine with very subtle aesthetics. I mean I bet I could take a P150em into a conference and no one would bat an eyelid but if I took in my M17x R3, I'm sure I'd get a few odd looks.

The problem lies with the fact that Dell own AW. Because Dell like keeping all their products spearate, all their lines suffer due to lack of overlap. For example, I doubt Dell are ever gonna give us anything other than WLED screens and the 3D one in the M17x. Their B+RG ie 95% gamut AUO panels will only be for their XPS line and the RGBLED IPS displays will be exclusive to their Precision line. The AWs will get the newest GPUs and the beefiest CPUs and that's about it. Dell spreads their premium components across their product range as does Clevo and resellers, the problem is that Dells range is way too large with no overlap.

I'm sure if AW was privately owned like they used to be, we'd see the top of the line components as options.

I'm not dissing Dell owning AW because the warranty they offer is without equal but I'm just bringing up the up and downfalls of being owned by a large corporation.

[nimbat1003]

hes right about the asus cooling they are very efficient and also quiet but they only go up to the gtx 560m which is fine but not competition for alienwres and clevos its more in compotition with the dell xps etc

my clevo has a 95%gamut matte screen which i beleive trumps alienware

also i found something similar to the razor blade(except better)
that one is the $2200 but there $1300 with the same gpu i just chose the one below because it it gives the most information
better than the m14x i believe

1.7kg with a gt 555m

LG XNOTE P330-UE7UK Laptop 13.3" i7 2640M 4GB 750GB HDD | eBay

yeah another good thing about clevos looks is that there much less likely to be stolen lol

an image of the asus cooling http://www.google.com.au/imgres?um=1...2&tx=111&ty=48

[Mackan]

At least Asus ROG laptops are more quiet. After hearing the leaf blowers on the Alienware ones, can't help but feel something is not right. Sure, there's powerful hardware under the hood. But if they can make the fans more quiet by improving their thermal design and fan curves, AW would be more attractive to me.

[SOS4DELL]

(...) all their lines suffer due to lack of overlap.

Indeed, you simply hit the nail on the sore spot!

[nimbat1003]

i don't mind the sound of my clevo while gaming because i don't notice it(headphones etc) but during idle clevos fans fluctuate from off to on a bit to on more then off which gets a little anoying

edit:
there will never be a laptop that has it all(apart from mabey the origional alienwares) for example this asus wins handsdown in style(better than alienware it has leather for f*cks sake) and cooling but the gpu etc are nothing superfancy
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Specia...mborghini_VX7/

while the clevos have performance, the screen and price etc but the quality isent great(y touchpad mediocore keyboard etc) and not great style.

the alienware has style and performance but lacks a great screen is, is too expensive and also has alot of problems keyboard ghosting, 580m throttling, bad customer support etc

[custom90gt]

Well this is a speculation thread, let's hope that they offer RGBLEDs on their next stuff. I'd love to see the return of the m15x...

[jinda]

edit: wrong post

[Aikimox]

You do know clevo was the ODM for the first alienware laptops right?

Clevo has graphics switch, decent sound, and good battery life in the p150em/p170em models. They also look nice too.
Just because they didn't have a illuminated keyboard (which stayed off on my M17x R3, M11x, and M14x), doesn't make them less of a feature proof design. Look at Alienwares current lineup and their screens, talk about terrible. I'd rather have a great screen and a non-illuminated keyboard.
In terms of design, my G73JH had a better cooling design than any of my alienwares. Both clevo and AW fall behind in that category.
Alienware has some good competition, which means in the end it's the customers who win.

2hr isn't decent when talking about battery life. It's very mediocre even for 17" notebooks. Look at the Precision M6600 which gets up to 6-7 hours. With my M18x I can work in office mode for almost 6 full hours or about 4hrs of video playback. As for the screens, I wouldn't say Clevo's have a serious edge there, except for the 15" 95% gamut screen and only because of the fact that AW didn't offer anything in that category last year. As far as the M17x and M18x goes the screens are very much on par. In the 18.4" category AW uses the best panel on the market as of now. Yes, we lack the possibility to go matte and upgrade the panels aftermarket, but that's a downside of the design which is great for the looks but bad for the DIY diehards.
Now when you talk about Asus and best cooling, don't forget that Asus never used the most powerful components on the market both the CPU and GPU wise. How about an Asus with 580M SLI + 2960XM + BIOS OC'ing to 4ghz? There are many notebooks that are more quiet than M18x but what about the components? just as an example I'm using a 2-piped heatsink (meant for a 29x0XM) with my 2630QM and the max ever gaming/load temp was around 65C with the fan never even reaching 50%. 80% of the time the fan is OFF. Now that's quiet So when comparing different systems, we have to compare the components as well. BTW, I have seen a bunch of G73JH owners with dead-from-overheating GPU's. So, what good is the quiet cooling design if the real load temps are way higher than normal?