What do you want/think will be in the next M14x?

There are threads similar to this on both the M18x, and M17x forum, and I thought it would be good to make one here.

My thoughts:

Better build quality, an aluminum chassis would be fantastic, but its unlikely.

Better cooling.

Thinner, possibly get rid of the CD drive to do so like the new Asus 14 inch laptop did.

Better graphics cards options. Right now the current gen is only able to use a 650, but the Asus 14 inch, which is thinner, allows up to a 660, an over 15% increase in performance. I know that AW is probably finicky about allowing the M14x to be able to have the same card as the m17x starts with (because it might cannibalize some m17x sales). But i think it would be an excellent business decision overall. Otherwise Asus will be able to claim they have the most powerful 14 incher on the market, and will take marketshare.

Better resolution panel options.

better battery life. Which could also be improved easily if the CD drive was gotten rid and the battery expanded.


What do you think/want in the next M14x?

 

A 1080p screen is almost certain with most of the premium laptops having a FHD screen now. If it happens an M14x R3 might be my next laptop .

 

I have mixed feelings about losing the optical drive. However, I did remove the optical drive from my Fujitsu P770 and replaced it with a hard drive holder, and have only used an external USB optical drive two or three times since then.

The weird part is that there is no demand for BluRay discs any more, so having a BluRay burner - which SHOULD be useful - is no longer so.

Alienware is not about portability so much, so losing the optical drive will not make the system smaller - they are more likely to redesign it to allow more features, not reduced size. Having two 2.5" drive bays as well as a mSATA would be good.

A display that can compete with Retina would be good. After all, Alienware is also about bragging rights, and screen resolution is a growth field right now.....however, I presonally don't like 16:9 screens on laptop. Most of the stuff I do would benefit from more height than width.

The BIG thing I would ask for is the option of a touch screen. In some instances, that can be a major convenience. Good for Win8, but also good from a functionality viewpoint for some types of applications. I would love to have a touch screen when working with my DJ application.

I am using the Fujitsu P770 for DJing and limited video editing. It is getting a bit long in the tooth. I am considering an upgrade to either the M14x or the Fujitsu P772. The P77x series, being a 12" screen, is much smaller and lighter than the M14x, and provides a much longer battery life given the ULV components. The extra power of the M14x is very tempting. The size of the M14x is close enough that it would fit in with what I am doing. When kitted out, the two are very close in prize.

At this time, I am kind of waiting to see what the M14x R3 will be like, and if there will be a Fujistu P773.

 

I wouldn't care about losing the optical drive, it is nice to have but mine is disabled and I have used it once to burn windows 7 only because the machine wouldn't boot to usb.

A full HD screen with the option of touch screen would be awesome. A screen that doesn't double as a mirror when it's bright outside. I would love a 16:10 screen but know it is unlikely .

I would also like the screen to be able to be folded all the way back instead of stopping at 120 degrees or so.

Fans that are quieter would be really cool and the ability to upgrade the GPU without soldering would be pretty sweet.

 

A few things ;]

-Modular optical drive that can be swapped with secondary HDD module, either can be connected externally via USB 3
-Matte screen option (stop being cheap-asses)
-Higher quality screen assembly, maybe some g glass? (stop being cheap-asses)
-HQ display instead of current 40% gamut junk (stop being cheap-asses)
-SHIP IT WITH GOOD THERMAL PASTE (stop being cheap-asses)
-metal exterior would be sexy
-legacy mini firewire connection
-include the correct dongle to adapt the MDP to HDMI (stop being cheap-asses)
-longer power cable (stop being cheap-asses)
-HQ packaging like the r1 (stop being cheap-asses)
-REDESIGN FRONT EDGE TO MAKE IT SMOOTH AND MORE COMFORTABLE FOR LAP WORK. NO ONE CARES ABOUT NON-FUNCTIONAL "ALIEN" "BOOSTERS" IMO

let's make it happen!

none of this is a tall order.

 

rfielder,
true, the m17x and 18x are not about true portability, but the m14x is definitely supposed to be. Or else they would have kept the m11x and the m15x. The m14x is supposed to be a happy medium between those two.
As for the optical drive, if they toss it they can make the machine thinner, have better cooling, and even throw in another hardrive bay so you can have raid 0 and make your laptop really shine. There are plenty of cheap USB plugin optical drives, so that shouldn't be an issue.
I think it should be a while before they start tossing the built in optical drives on large notebooks and desktop replacement, but for small ones, it shouldn't be a big deal at this point in time.

 

If they ditch the disc drives, I think they should use the space to expand the battery

Also, I would love a slimmer power supply.

 

Better gamut vivid display and matte option, Quieter and cooler fans, nomore screen touching keyboard showing vertical marks. That's all thanks very much and have a nice day.

 

Oh yeah, forgot about the screen hitting the keyboard thing... I have a tissue between mine to keep it from happening.

 

more powerful gpu, better cooling, and the screen+keyboard. matte options but im ok w/glossy. unlocked bios. better battery life (hello mbp retina?)

 

If alienware won't offer a better thermal paste option then the least they can do is make it easier to repaste ourselves, I've repasted 5 laptops in the past year and accessing the CPU and GPU was as easy as removing the back panel. Repasting the m14x r2 seems like a laborious task.

 

indeed.

it's a strange combination of choices on the part of AW ...

 

if anything, m14x is light enough to get some sort of built in legs to lift it up (it's not hard or costly to make quality stuff like this.)

or ship with 4, 4x2 lego bricks

 

Idea Storm

 

There are several things that could be improved.

-make it narrower
-make it lighter!
-remove DVD drive
-new design (its cool, but something new would be welcomed)
-FullHD matte screen
-2 vent cooling with GTX range GPU

 

I totally agree about the 2 fans / vents stuff. This system would be much cooler by doing that. Give up on the plastic / glass top of the screen as it makes it 1 - heavier and 2 - thicker! Better resolution is a good deal as well and by removing the dvd-rom, you definitely will be able to put a mobile gpu in there. Let us have power in this beast. There is plenty of place...

 

Interesting idea = reduce the actual size of the display shell to better match the actual lcd panel. this might allow for unusual new designs with a smaller screen that can pivot and whatnot. playing my 14x tablet-style would be amazing with my 360 controller plugged in, etc.. AW needs to innovate large things like this, not just HQ chassis design w/ the same parts as the comp (worse displays even).

And DEFFO implement a modular bay of some sort, so we can have an ODD, HDD, GPU range of "modules" to put in the second bay. And modules can be connected via USB3.0 or a Thunderbolt? port when external? It seems like the tech for this should be very very close, and notebooks have already featured modules for years now. That would be amazing to click in a 680 or even do a sli gt class gpu?

Push your engineers!

 

SLi? ) Don't push your luck!

 

I recently returned my m14x r2 and the things that I want on a potential R3 is the opposite of the Cons section at the bottom

Good:
- Great performance of ddr5 gt 650m at 900p resolution
- Good contrast ratio and black levels and 900p resolution ( check the bad thing about the screen at the bottom)
- Great lighting fx especially the front grill and alienhead
- Good battery life of around 4-5 hours

Bad:
- Terrible screen, it has a very washout look to it and it lacks color and gamut is only 40% and is not even 75% of SRGB
- Squeaky keys on the keyboard that you won't notice at first then the Enter Key, Shift Key, Backspace Key started squeaking
- Keyboard touching the monitor leaving vertical marks where you have to wipe it everytime you open the lid, also leaves permanent scratches ( can be remedied using a shaggymac microfiber cloth or razer kabuto)
- Very loud fans when gaming or benchmarking and it sounds like a hairdryer or jet engine with a high pitch tone to it
- When idle, the fans are mostly silent/off but even when not doing anything, the fan will come on and off for several seconds or longer and although not as loud as when gaming, the fan can be annoying since it has a different tone to it compared to other gaming laptops or laptops in general.
- It is thick and quite heavy for a 14" laptop at 6.5 lbs

 

Well, I was stuck repairing an XPS 1730 notebook recently that has an SLI module. i had to take the chassis apart some of the way, but the entire dual GPU is one block that interfaces with the mobo. so imagine if Alienware was actually trying to be cutting edge... we could have an SLI module that could plugin, maybe go three way SLI with the third inside GPU :] i wonder what a gt650m could do in three-way SLI? but ideally i would like to see only the CPU and iGPU inside. with the two SLI GPUs in the bay module.