Gadgetory

this video was brought to you by NCI X great technology selections and service Alienware is one of those brands with a distinct design and attention to detail of various lighting effects that gains you sort of a new sense of connection between your machine and game and so today we're reviewing the Alienware 14 where portability meets power with somewhat competitive pricing depending on configuration and that extremely solid design formula specs wise we have a GTX 765 M with 2 gigabytes of video RAM and desktop equivalent would be the GTX 650 Ti we have an i7 quad core 4700 mq at 2.4 base clock with a 3.4 gigahertz in turbo mode 16 gigabytes of the memory dual drive setup so a 256 gigabyte mSATA SSD combined with a 750 gigabyte mechanical drive and this configuration will set you back just shy or $2,000 when fully decked out and that might turn off many people based on competitive gaming offerings from Asus and MSI lately I find the outer shell aesthetically pleasing with accented illuminated strips and that staple alien head and I also can appreciate the direction to not include any brushed aluminum instead robust plastic that can be wiped down no problem the machine is just over six pounds in weight with a thick body but of course manageable for travel bags and backpacks on the left side we find a Kensington lock slot happy to see a mini displayport for high resolution monitors full size HDMI 1.4 to USB 3 ports and audio jacks and notice how everything is well spaced out to accommodate for all the connections on the opposite side we get an Ethernet port another USB 3.0 SD card slot and an optical drive the power plug is located in the back that's looma nated when plugged in for that extra effect and back facing exhaust so exactly where it should be the screen lid opens wide with the confident resistance and while there is some flex on the panel it still feels well put together and not like something is about to snap a 1080p webcam along with stereo microphones is included at top plus the illuminated Alienware text with the pretty thin bezels on the sides and slightly more conservative at the bottom now Alienware 14 by the name of course houses a 14 inch IPS anti-glare display with 1920 by 1080 p resolution that looks excellent with high pixel density and outstanding viewing angles and next to my TN panel notebook the TN panel looks pathetic colors are much more natural and accurate on the L anywhere plus the lack of contrast shifting is a really huge bonus for anybody who is into creative fields or requires any visual work and also notice the lack of green on the TN panel that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise there's just some brightness variance at extreme angles and I don't think it's bright enough at full power and the screen kind of got lost while outdoors on the opposite side in complete darkness while at the lowest setting it was way too bright so I'd really appreciate if a few extra brightness levels were added internals are fully covered in the rubberized finish that's really nice to touch and to the most part stays cool and clean Otto does leave handling marks the speaker grille is located right below the screen with a really loud and detailed stereo projection although lacking heavily in the low end region there's practically no bass in this thing so let's take a listen the power button is on the right side complemented by its own illumination that can be set up to indicate battery life and on the other side we get LED indicators for Wi-Fi caps lock and drive activity Alienware really should be praised for designing such an outstanding keyboard that's fully embedded into the body with respectable travel distance absolutely no flex and large keys but get a few function shortcuts inside the F keys along with the brightness and media control in the arrow keys due to size limitations the side numpad is missing but overall both typing and gaming on this set of keys was extremely satisfying the illumination here just speaks through the characters with a four zone color control that can be adjusted through the software and the trackpad is also well placed right in the center away from your left hand tracking is pleasing with physical left and right clicks that also have a satisfying response and also love the illumination that's consistent and of course multicolored plus the illumination strips running on each side curve nicely around the front corners and adds to the distinct Alienware look and of course plays a role in alien effects the notebook stands on tall rubber feet and notice two large intake ports and when it comes to user upgrades Alienware has always been excellent allowing you to access your two memory slots replace the M SATA drive and underneath the optical drive is another two and a half inch drive slot all easily accessible and upgradable so now how does it handle cooling and playing watchdogs for an hour despite only having one exhaust at the rear the body actually stays cool and notice how the left portion doesn't heat up allowing your left hand to maintain sweat-free nothing is exhausted through the sides and all the hot air is blown away from the user plus it helps to direct some that noise away as the fan ramps up to offer the audible levels alright so with everything covered let's get to the benchmarks the gtx 765 m is somewhat capable but don't forget about nvidia geforce experience to optimize your in-game settings for best global results of course I would really love to see in videos 800 M series graphics in this machine Crysis 3 is very demanding at high settings is basically unplayable which are - with high is playable + it's one of the games that supports alien effects valued for at Ultra is sluggish Wolfenstein new order maxed out is not a problem and watchdogs at high settings was actually playable and for relative comparison 3d mark firestrike benchmark scored over 2000 although these results are below the average gaming notebook and so it seems and quickly optimizing the games and we are back in business with playable framerates so you can sort of squeeze out the best results out of this machine so the integration of alien effects is sort of your cherry on top that changes the lighting zones based on the ingame atmosphere but of course the supported game list is still very small plus the API is not reliable in my experience and to the most part I did actually disable it the 14 inch form factor has been real nice adjustment for mobile use auto disappointing battery life with a 69 watt hour battery with just under three hours of casual use in balance mode gaming on battery lasted is surprising 65 minutes although the GPU is under clock to 600 megahertz to keep up with in power limitations so do expect a major hit on performance plus the CPU clocks were isolating resulting in choppy gameplay that was really unpleasant and so the Alienware 14 has got to be almost the perfect compromise between size performance and the price with an absolutely amazing IPS display clean and loud stereo speakers with excellent keyboard and trackpad lighting customization is pretty neat plus the notebook body stays cool when under load and I'm sure we can all appreciate the user-friendly upgrade design for RAM and the two Drive slots however very limiting battery life unstable gaming performance while on battery still disappointing list of games for alien effects and really my major complaint here would be the lagging hardware and videos latest 800m series graphics is just so much more appropriate and suitable for 2014 for better performance power efficiency and of course temperatures and I do hope these roll out soon as otherwise there's no point in investing in the aging hardware regardless of the truly enjoyable ownership you do get with an alienware but what do you guys think of this design and what are some of the advantages you can think competing gaming notebooks have that might gravitate you away from the Alienware line leave a comments down below we'd love to hear what you think and if you're interested in the bigger brother the Alienware 17 make sure to check out our review along with the msi ge70 featuring maxwell 800 series cards from Nvidia as always thanks for watching make sure you subscribe for more similar content down the line and we'll see you in the next one