Most Irritating Part About the M14x

Just thought.....ill break the regular monotony of the forum with people just posting either good things about the m14x or problems they are having...Which is one feature which you miss the most on the m14x or anything about the m14x that really irritates you(lets not be fan boys and lets be honest)??

IMHO ..i would say i miss independent volume controls ...wouldnt say fan noise...cause i already knew that and it dosent bother me all that much

 

Lack of a Blu Ray Drive was a major issue for me.

This was to be my 2nd laptop and I wanted a Alienware for myself. The portability and the other high performance specs tipped the scales towards the M14x.

 

Thickness

Not weight, I'm not 7, just the thickness.

 

Lack of a GTX series for this money is a very disappointment to me, and this also made me a new decision to get the M17x next year too. At least they could have throw in a GTX 560.

 

A higher res display along with better manual fan control. Something you could have expected with them using all that propriety software/hardware.

 

does not come with aluminium case option.. i like the soft touch.. but need to pay more attention taking care...

aluminium would be nice like the m17x... of course it'll be more expensive i get it...

 

no matte screen option!!! 200% biggest issue for me

 

I got myself a minicd with drivers...

I was happy when I got it out of the slot.

 

This is my first laptop, so maybe this is stupid, but I wish there was some way of knowing which GPU was activated at any given time.

Something like a small, two-coloured LED in the upper right corner of the keyboard.
Green for NVidia, red for HD 3000 or something.

The glare is my major gripe with the M14x. I need to be in complete darkness so that my ugly fat face doesn't stare back at me.
I watch vids in my car before work, and even on a very rainy day, I need the black Alienware fabric envelope on my shirt to see something on the screen.
I'm seriously thinking of buying an antiglare screen, but I don't know what good it would do.

Love everything else, though.

 

The graphics card should be better. As I understand it this is only a medium-sized card and this laptop can cost up to about $3,800 fully upgraded -- it better damn well play every game available on Ultra-SUPER-MEGA-HIGH settings (which it doesn't) For $2,000 to $3,800 I wanted this to handle EVERY game at MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE.

Also no blu-ray but if dvd's are still widely used then I don't care about that.

 

I want a replaceable video card. I'd be OK with ditching my optical drive for a replaceable GPU and a dedicated fan for it.

 

I agree with most people here. I came from using a 13" macbook pro and the weight compared is a big difference. Aluminum feature would be really nice...

Also I really don't like how there's air vents on the bottom of the laptop. I can never just use my laptop in bed/couch or on my lap. I'm strictly stationed to a desk where there has to be enough air getting vacuumed into the computer.

 

I guess...i started a great thread...wiht so many people giving out thr opinions...anyway we can get this to dell ...so that they might incorporate some suggestions...??just an idea

 

as others have said i would love if it included a blu ray drive.
the hinge also seems a little flimsy but thats not really a problem
overall its a great laptop

 

I think the Bluray option will be available at the later time. At the moment, there is no Bluray drive in production that is thin enough to fit. Not even in the after market.

 

- The glossy screen (Why the hell would anyone need that, ever?)

- The mic quality (Use it for Skype a lot and my old Dell Studio has a way better integrated mic but wasn't as high end as this one is).

I'm fine with the GPU, as it's doing an amazing job and also has substantial overclocking potential.
Everything ils in there would take too much space and generate too much heat and make the hole thing a lot more noisier.. (I just love how this thing is completely silent at a low load).

 

I love everything except the keyboard honestly

 

Right click the desktop, go to the nvidia control panel. Look at the upper part of the window and click on "desktop". Then check Display Gpu activity icon or something like that. It'll show in the system tray in the bottom right. When you click or hover over it, it'll show when its in use, you'll be surprised about how much it kicks in.

And What I dont like about the m14x is the heat. Overall its a great laptop, but it heats up no matter what you're doing.

 

The glossy screen, mainly. I tend to have to play games in the dark to avoid seeing my own reflection when the content on the screen is dark (for example, fog of war in Starcraft 2).

In the interest of fairness, playing in the dark is pretty sweet because of all the lights on the computer and keyboard.

 

I just wish the matte screen protectors weren't like $20... iPhone matte protectors go for like 2 for $1... Once you screw up placing the screen protector or have a ton of bubbles, youre out $20 and you only get one try...

 

Where are you getting this price from??? The M14x isnt anywhere close to the 3800 you quoted. everything upgraded even with 4 year isnt that high. For the 1200-1300 you pay for the laptop the price is fair.

 

Thank you!

Now how do I know when I'm playing full screen?
Is there an app somewhere?

 

No I meant as in what do you mean playing full screen? Like windowed..?

 

You can download a widget called gpu observer, it'll also show the clocks of the gpu, (how fast it is) and the percentage it's using, but you'll still have to exit fullscreen, but you can check when you're at the game menu before you start gaming, it most likely wont change after that.

 

The track pad trim leaving a imprint on the screen

 

Windowed is the opposite of fullscreen.

One irritant for me is that there is no way of knowing which GPU is used while gaming, unless alt-tabing out of the game. So, a little dual-coloured LED somewhere would be nice.

 

humm Blue-ray will be awsoem, the reflection sucks, and aluminium will be ok =)

 

the speakers attract a lot of dust and debris and sometimes it gets lodged into the speaker holes....also the keyboard and tpad leave marks on the screen when it id closed. besides this i love everything about the m14x specially the keyboard.....best keyboard ive ever used imo

 

soul me nd u got it on the same day right i agree with you the marks on the screen because of the keyboards are annoying...i got a 2$ for 120 wipes....i use them to clean...not bad since they should last me for 3 -4 months
...the speakers attracting dust is an issue...and i feel my keyboard gets really oily because of my hands which is irritating too

 

With everything upgraded and 4 year warranty, along with a few accessories like the laptop bag, it can come in at approximately $3,600.

 

Or you can get a base model and then add a printer and then add a dell ultra sharp monitor to go with it. Come on and come to grips with the real world. Cause by going by your statement you can boost the price of an M11x or any laptop for that matter when you buy everything you can including stuff that isn't in the laptop. If you dumb enough to buy a laptop and put more into it then what its worth you deserve to be ripped off.

 

Yeah, just clarifying you said you wanted to know how to know when games are running full screen. I thought you meant you couldnt tell if they were windowed or full screen lol. You meant which GPU is running correct?

 

Yes.

And it's because I'm wondering if it's normal for my M14x to run Portal 1 at only 25-30 FPS all maxed (drops to 10-15 when the flames show up at the very end). It's smooth gaming, but shouldn't it be more like 60 FPS? So I wish I could know at a glance which GPU is running the game.

 

Yeah youre definitely running on the Intel GPU. Just go into the control panel and change portal.exe to the 555M. Most source games except older ones (ep1 and below so far for me) use the nvidia gpu natively.

 

I don't know why you think putting upgrades into the m14x makes someone stupid...

 

the m14x upgrades, at least some of them, are either useless (3GB VRAM) or overpriced (SSD).

 

I think its priced just fine....maybe a shade over the competition but look at the form factor...its highly portable and powerful

 

the most irritating thing is having to call tech support a bagillion times and then have to wait for replacement parts to come in before proceeding to fixing my 6 day old m14. ::sigh::

 

I have deleted a few posts
Try to be civil, and no name calling
This is your only warning

 

Kurth, Fallout4. Hey guys this is about the irritating things about the M14x Not what irritates us about each other. We are all entited to have a opinion about what we find good or bad about this computer. Shake hands, let's call it a day.

Fallout4, ignore the squeeking go to sleep. Yes I can agree with you the price could be a few dollars cheaper, after all this computer is assembled by people in China making 2 dollars a hour.

KurtH I thank you so much for being in Afghanistan. I understand the sacrifices that you make to do the best you can in a difficult situation.
thank you.

 

Another thing that irritates me I guess is actually design. Dont like it as much. I would kinda like a 14 inch version of my G72GX really, except one that didnt scratch as much

 

Although I liked the looks of My Asus G71(BBY model) The performance of the M14x is impressive compared to it. There are sometimes that i wish the back and front were not at so much of a slant.

 

haha ...i had no idea...a simple thread would go on to become this big Why dont we have a design your alienware kinda competition here ...lets see who can come up with the best design

 

I think the most irritating part is the fact that it will not work with my SSD and that I have to reboot the machine about 30 times to get it into windows.

 

That was hilarious.


Most irritating part bout the M14x? The heat and the lack of GPU utilization indication. The fact that components arent as durable as everyone claims them to be. For example Ive had subwoffers blow their fuse on me at 50% volume. Compared to the Xps 15, the sound really is a low point for me personally.
Im currently undecided about the need for the CD drive and whether or not it should have been scrapped. Technology wise I very rarely if at all use the CD drive other than a movie but tbh, they can easily been downloaded these days.

Would you sacrifice the CD drive for better GPU, CPU or even just a bigger battery?

 

bigger battery, better cooling, space for more solid components; in reverse order of importance to me.

 

I picked up a matte finish screen protector, seems to help 10x with the glare issue. I'm happily posting here without staring at a reflection of myself posting here.

 

I have a few little pain points that are irritating:
- no light sensor for ambient light...maybe I'm spoiled by other laptops I've used over the years, but that would be cool to have
- no independent volume controls, at least soft touch please?
- stock screen finish has so much glare that I threw my mirror out. Now I just flip the laptop open every time I need to check my hair