Have I made a mistake in buying the stock Alienware M14x R2 with the i5 CPU and 1366 x 768 resolution?

I got this laptop sent to my house about a month ago, but I am currently on vacation so I have not had a chance to use it yet. I got the i5 version with the stock 1366 x 768 resolution. everywhere I read online, people say this resolution is terrible and the i5 is underpowered and weak, which makes me feel like I've made a huge mistake. I mainly want to use the laptop for schoolwork and a lot of music production, recording, engineering, and editing on programs such as FL Studio, Cubase, Reason, and Pro Tools. I plan to use a larger external monitor, will that be affected by the "poor" resolution? Also, I do not intend to game very much with this laptop at all. So will this laptop be a good choice for music production and schoolwork?

 

I doubt the i5 will be much of an issue unless you're using programs that would use all four cores of an i7, the i5 only has two, and the resolution will not harm anything (although it does provide less space to work with).

 

I have exactly the same configuration (i5 3210m, 1gb 650m and 720p screen). I know that a lot of people would never take this configuration and there are a lot of negative posts about it (mostly about the screen). I can just talk for myself. I'm very happy with this configuration.

Screen: The screen is ok. It is good enough to enjoy gaming on it. The contrast and viewing angles are not very good. But thats the case with alot of displays on the market. I already had worse screens on other laptops. Its just a very average screen. I'm happy with it. Of course it has just a 720p resolution. But can still use a bigger screen over HDMI. And you can enjoy high fps in games because of the lower resolution.

650m with just 1gb: No issue at all. 2gb would be useful for very high resolution which the 650m can not handle anyway. You will not notice any difference. I also use HD texture packages and everything and 1gb is enough.

i5 cpu: Was a good choice for me. It is fast enough for all tasks and it runs very cool compared to the i7. My graphics card is fully overclocked and it still runs very cool because of the i5. No issues with high temps at all. You will find a lot of posts of people with the i7 which have throtteling issues because of high temps.

You will be happy with this configuration

 

i5 is fine, won't bottleneck you. 650m 1Gb is enough to run most games on Ultra. The screen is the only thing that I would have upgraded but it was not a mistake.

 

Screen can always be replaced aftermarket

 

There is really no need to replace the screen. It is good enough... if you play games like Tomb Raider or Far Cry 3 you will be very happy to "just" have a 720p screen because the 650m would not be able to handle a higher resolution with high settings.

And most people have a TV or big screen anyway. Just use the big screen for the big working tasks.

 

Opinions differ. I myself couldn't handle 720P on a 14 inch laptop. There's supposed to be quite a bit of difference between the 720 and 900p screen on the m14x,

i have no problems running games with at 900p either, a small overclock helps quite a bit too.

 

comments. enjoy.

 

I got the same screen and feared that it would be a problem as well...but I must say that if this screen "sucks" as many say, then I've got to see what the upgrade looks like because I've been perfectly happy with mine so far in all uses and applications.