So basically, your stance is that any criticism of Alienware, no matter how throughly justified, is illegitimate? Stop with the ad hominem arguments and stick to the hardware specs.
"The Nvidia Geforce gt 555 is a powerfull top of the spectrum in the middle class of graphics cards and have never been seen in small laptops like a 14 inch m14x."
Is the difference between 14" and 15" really that big of a deal? Really? Because you can get somewhere around triple the graphical performance of a GeForce GT 555M if you move to a 15" form factor. For example, see here:
15" laptop with a top of the line Radeon HD 6990M available. Now, that's rather expensive, of course. But if you can get triple the performance in a 15" form factor, then is the M14x really such an impressive engineering feat? At most, only in the sense that some things can be hard to do, but would still be pointless even if they were easy.
And if you want to go cheaper, you could try this:
Outfit it with the same Core i5 2410M as the Alienware M14x, a 1 GB Radeon HD 6770M, and a 7200 RPM hard drive and it comes to $835, or $265 cheaper than the Alienware M14x. That gets you the same processor, a considerably better video card, and a Blu-Ray player, for $265 less than the M14x. Is losing an inch on the form factor really worth paying so much more for a system otherwise so far inferior?
If you want more memory, then HP will charge you $60 to upgrade to 8 GB. Alienware will charge you $120. If you want a higher resolution, then HP will offer 1920x1080 for $150. Alienware doesn't even offer anything above 1600x900.
"Fitting in a 540 card into an m11x is extreme and very powerfull. I think your reasoning behind TDP(thermal design power) in laptops is a bit off. You should be praising alienware for making such small laptops with the amount of power they have in them, no other company has been able to do that. Its an achivement that should be looked upon with delight not dismany."
Sure, fitting a GeForce GT 540M into an 11" form factor is quite a trick. The problem is that it's a pointless trick. Stick an A8-3530MX into the same form factor and skip the discrete card and you'll have a little better processor performance in exchange for a little worse graphical performance, while using far less power and far less physical space.
Now, that wasn't available when the M11x launched, so it had a point in its day. But if anyone else decides that they'd like to offer an 11" gaming laptop and does a Llano system configured right, the M11x will be thoroughly obsolete the day that the competition launches. The hardware to do it is out there already. The question is whether anyone will bother, as gaming laptops in an 11" form factor is a very narrow niche market.
"Saying that most people think that laptops are the same as desktops is mind boggeling."
I've seen a lot of people start threads saying they want a gaming laptop. Ask about their intended usage model and a gaming laptop only makes sense for a relative handful of them. Some should just get a desktop instead. Others should get both a gaming desktop and a cheap laptop. Explain the reasoning behind it and a lot of them agree, and weren't aware of the drawbacks of laptops.
Now, you're likely aware of at least some of this, but let's rehash it here anyway. As compared to desktops, laptops offer:
1) Far less customizability. In a desktop, you can get exactly what you want. In a laptop, this usually takes modding it yourself. Sometimes, you can't even get something close enough to what you want in a laptop to be able to modify it yourself to get what you want.
2) Far lower performance. The smaller form factor of a laptop means it's safe to dissipate far less power, and that means clocking things much lower. Some high performance CPUs and GPUs aren't offered in laptops at all, and those that are usually have to be clocked much lower.
3) Far less upgradeability. In a desktop, if you think it would be good enough except that one part is insufficient, you can upgrade that one part. In a laptop, that often means replacing the whole thing outright.
4) Far less reliability. There are several reasons for this. One is that in a desktop, you can pick high quality parts that will be reliable. In a laptop, you're stuck with whatever cut corners that the OEM decided on. Another is that it's much easier to keep everything properly cooled in a desktop form factor. Yet another reason is that laptops get jostled around a lot, while desktops tend to just sit there, and it's only practical to do so much to accommodate this without pricing getting way out of hand. (Look up fully ruggedized laptops if you want to see pricing way out of hand.)
5) Far shorter useful lifetimes. This is a direct consequence of items 2, 3, and 4.
6) Far less useful monitor space. In a desktop, you can easily get a big monitor. Or two. Or three. Or six, though that's getting expensive. In a laptop, you're stuck with just one monitor, and a tiny monitor, at that.
7) A very limited ability to reuse peripherals. If you like your keyboard, monitor, and speakers, and replace a desktop, you can keep the old ones. Sometimes you can even reuse the old case. In a laptop, replacing the laptop means a new keyboard, a new monitor, a new touchpad, new speakers, and so forth. That adds to the cost.
8) Far worse ergonomics. In a desktop, you can position the keyboard and monitor wherever you want. Hardly anyone presses them up against each other, as among other things, that's ergonomically terrible. It's also awkward to use. In a laptop, you have to do that, as it's dictated by the form factor.
9) A far higher price tag, if you need high performance. At the low end, laptops and desktops can be competitive on price. But once you get into high power parts, the demands of the form factor mean it costs far more to get a given level of performance in a laptop than in a desktop.
10) Far less security. The portability of a laptop makes it easy for a thief to grab one and walk off with it. Desktops don't get stolen nearly so much.
So what advantages do laptops offer in exchange for all of the drawbacks?
1) Far greater portability. For some purposes, this genuinely does outweigh all else. Gaming is rarely one of those purposes, however.
2) Lower power consumption. The demands of the form factor mean that vendors go to great lengths to reduce power consumption. This does mean that laptops use less power to offer a given level of performance. For most purposes, this isn't a big deal, and even if you're into saving the environment, it's likely that a desktop would be more environmentally friendly due to its longer useful lifespan, which means using energy and resources to replace it less often.
And that's it.
Ill start off from the top. Yes I think its classless that you say the m14x is junk for no reason. Its one of there most popular models and was a very exciting time in mobile computing seeing that much graphics power come into a 14 inch.
I want to doubly make you aware that, yes indeed, you said it first, there is a huge huge difference between 14 and 15 inch and if you were any kind of enthusiast then you would very well be in the known which of course your not. The differences are pounds of weight and a much smaller form factor. Its the same thing as saying theres no difference between 15.6 inch laptops and 17 inch laptops. not only that but alot of 14 inch laptops like myn are closer to the 13.3 specifications. Its a very big deal indeed and is one of the main attractions to what makes notebooks in general so unique.
Fiting in a 540 card into an m11x is obviously not pointless to the hundreads of thousands of gamers that already use them for gaming, are you going to sit there and tell all of them that. Youd make alot of people angry by classless statements like that. There is a great market for the m11x and your belittleing it only makes what you have to say less credible.
Its nice you have ideas about how you think it should be hardware spec wise but its not reality. In reality no matter what you buy there is going to be cons and pros. Its basicly comes down to how people want others to think about something. Obviously people here dont like gaming on laptops other wise they wouldnt make it there lifelong journey to tell everyone they come in contact with the cons of laptops and why there less usefull in everyway imaginable compared to desktops. If it was the opposite and everyone listed the cons of gaming desktops all the time then more people would rather buy laptops for gaming.
All im here to do is to let people know that instead of buying a gaming desktop, they can buy an laptop that can do so much more then just game. I hook my laptop up to a 42 inch sony bravio all the time, you can do that with a desktop. I take my laptop with me at night and read sometimes when i got out excercising, I have bluetooth, advanced power options, wireless card, switches for wireless and switching between graphics cards from discrete to integrated, beatifull LCDs, great keyboards and trackpads, multimed'ia buttons, most come standard with all this. You fail to identify the things that make laptops great besides your childlike "oh there only usefull cause there mobile". Really when and where did it take you the time to think of telling everyone that, like everyone doesnt know that laptops are mobile and can be moved around. People dont all live under rocks, you arnt talking to degenerate hippis that never read a news story in there life. Honestly when you make people read dribble like that what else do you expect to acomplish then to be asinine. Im sorry, Im not a asshole, I wouldnt be arguing about something I dont care about or know anything about.
ps: Im not going to go over your reasonings you marked at the end of your post cause by just glancing at them I dont like what I see. I told you im a laptop fan and you somehow pulling 10 different reasons why desktops are better then laptops and only puting 2 for laptops is plain silly.
I really dont mean to be rude but its painfully obvious to me that people are just wanting reasurance that buying there gaming desktop is right when in fact its not. Its just like when your parents yelled at you to stop standing so close to the TV or when your partner hounded you about getting out of the lawn chair and doing something constructive. Buying a gameing desktop is insanly illogical and people need help with that when they do that especially with how things work at the present time. Laptops are more socialy used and accepted and its far more likly a regular business man is going to be chating over his latee about his new laptop then the gaming desktop he got, same goes for most other people as well.
Its like your trying to make in the norm that grandmas and moms some how need gaming desktops, which is funny cause Im sure they would be more likly to get a laptop cause its far easier in its lifetime to take care of and be able to use. I know your targeted crowd is probubly younger, even so kids going to collage find it far easier im sure using laptops to get around with, Im just here to let them know, yes in indded they can game also.
"I want to doubly make you aware that, yes indeed, you said it first, there is a huge huge difference between 14 and 15 inch and if you were any kind of enthusiast then you would very well be in the known which of course your not. The differences are pounds of weight and a much smaller form factor."
Here's the problem. What you can get in a 14" is only a little faster than what you can get in an 11", but dramatically slower than what you can get in a 15". Meanwhile, the form factor on the 14" is much closer to the 15" than the 11". To top it off, the 14" is more expensive than both the slightly slower 11" and a much faster 15".
Is there a very narrow niche market where the M14x makes sense? It would have to be people with very peculiar needs. Anything I can come up with to justify it is rather far-fetched. The most plausible thing is someone who needs modest gaming performance but not that great of gaming performance, and thinks that 14" is much better for its own sake than both 11" and 15".
And "pounds" of weight? A quick check of 15" laptops on New Egg finds that the overwhelming majority of them are 5-5.9 points. Switch that to 14" laptops and 5-5.9 pounds is still the most common weight, though there are a lot of 4-4.9 pound ones, too. That's an average difference in weight of a little over half a pound. I guess you could call it 0.6 pounds and have the fractional plural, but that's too pedantic for my taste. And I'm very pedantic.
"Fiting in a 540 card into an m11x is obviously not pointless to the hundreads of thousands of gamers that already use them for gaming, are you going to sit there and tell all of them that."
You're failing to distinguish between what people buy and what makes sense for people to buy. In the prebuilt computer market, the two don't coincide that often. Most people who buy a prebuilt computer, whether desktop or laptop, don't know what to get and pick something haphazardly.
To prove my point, I would like to cite hardware that is sensible to use for exactly zero people in the world: Diablotek power supplies. Okay, maybe it makes sense for a few review sites to buy them to see how awful they are, but not for any actual use. And yet enough people buy them to keep Diablotek in business.
Are there people for whom the Alienware M11x makes sense? Yes. But not that many of them. And even for them, it's not a "this is the ideal hardware" but "this is the least bad option on the market". Stick a properly configured A8-3500M APU in an 11" form factor and that would be a more sensible purchase than the present Alienware M11x for the overwhelming majority of people for whom the M11x makes sense today.
"There is a great market for the m11x and your belittleing it only makes what you have to say less credible."
If it's such a great market, then why is Alienware the only company that can be bothered to care about it? Sticking a GT 540M in an 11" form factor is something of an engineering feet. Sticking an A8-3500M in the same form factor wouldn't be so hard, though. And yet Alienware is the only company that can be bothered to care.
There is a market there, and it's a big enough niche market for Alienware to find it profitable to fill that niche. Kind of like there is (or was) also a niche market for a Radeon HD 6870 X2, or a Radeon HD 5770 that supports five monitors. Those aren't bad products; there just aren't very many people for whom they make sense (and likely fewer than the M11x, for that matter), which is why only one company could be bothered to care about them (PowerColor, in both cases).
I'm not against companies making products that meet the needs of small niche markets. But I do think that we should recognize that's what they are, and not pretend that it's a sensible purchase for everyone and his neighbor's dog.
"If it was the opposite and everyone listed the cons of gaming desktops all the time then more people would rather buy laptops for gaming. "
Very well then. List them. Go on. Let's see if you can come up with anything important other than portability.
"I hook my laptop up to a 42 inch sony bravio all the time, you can do that with a desktop."
And it will perform a lot better on a similarly priced gaming desktop, too.
"I take my laptop with me at night and read sometimes when i got out excercising,"
You can do that better on a netbook (Brazos, not Atom) in the same form factor. Lower power consumption, less heat, lighter weight, cheaper price tag.
Laptops have their uses. Don't get me wrong. When someone wants a gaming laptop, I often recommend getting both a gaming desktop and a cheaper laptop. But I also believe in using the right tool for the job, rather than trying to cram all of your tasks into a single tool that isn't very good at any of them.
"great keyboards and trackpads"
Great for a trackpad is not the same thing as actually great. There's a reason why basically no one uses trackpads for desktops, even though it fits the form factor just fine.
And the M11x doesn't have a proper, full-sized keyboard. It doesn't fit the form factor. For that matter, it doesn't fit a 15" form factor, either. I guess if you've got the QWERTY area full sized, that's enough for some purposes. That's no good if you need to do anything numerical, though.
"I told you im a laptop fan and you somehow pulling 10 different reasons why desktops are better then laptops and only puting 2 for laptops is plain silly."
It's not the number of reasons. It's how compelling they are. As I said, for some purposes, the portability advantage of a laptop can outweigh all else.
But if you have more advantages for laptops, then how about if you list them? Portability is the obvious big one. I gave you lower power consumption for free. I'll even add a third one, even if, like the second, it is only infrequently useful: a laptop takes up less desk space, making it viable in some very small spaces where a desktop wouldn't fit.
One caveat: an advantage of laptops isn't merely something that a laptop can do; it's something that a laptop can do better than a desktop. So go on. Let's see what you've got.
"Buying a gameing desktop is insanly illogical and people need help with that when they do that especially with how things work at the present time."
Proof by assertion, apparently.
"Laptops are more socialy used and accepted and its far more likly a regular business man is going to be chating over his latee about his new laptop then the gaming desktop he got"
It's also far more likely that his business laptop isn't a gaming laptop at all.
"Its like your trying to make in the norm that grandmas and moms some how need gaming desktops,"
Now you're really grasping at straws. Check the name of the web site you're on. Gaming desktops (as opposed to non-gaming desktops) get a disproportionate amount of attention here precisely because this is a gaming site.
Gaming desktops only make sense for people who play games. I guess a Trinity-based system could arguably be called a gaming desktop, too, and could make sense for people who don't play games, but we aren't there yet. (Llano desktops, on the other hand, don't make much sense for anyone.)
Theres a big difference weather weight or not when it comes to 14 inch laptops and 15.6. If you owned each like I do you might know better.
The 11 inch is much closer to 14 inch then you might think compared to 14 and 15.6 inches. Remember 15 inch laptops arnt just 15 inch, most go to 15.6 inch and closer to 16 inches. The 11 inch laptop is actually 11.6 inches which is closer to 12 inches. There just different form factors is all, weather one is closer to the other makes no difference.
Every new idea and invention takes tough times and criticism. The new idea here is that smaller form factor laptops between 13.3 inch and 14 inch and even the m11x are getting more graphics processing power that hasnt ever been touched on before.
Laptops are an evolving machine. Each year we see new ideas and new inivations which make it a prosperose business to buy into. Desktops basiclly have stayed the same, you can only change the color and deisgn of a desktop to so much extent and even then, 99% of the time its going to be some where hidden to where no one can see it in the first place. Your making me look like a desktop hater or something, Im not here to bash desktops, its not what I mean. I dont dislike desktops, you can get that out of your mind right now. Im only here to show people that other wise wouldnt know that a laptop is there for them to buy especially for gaming. I owned desktops also, I bought a gateway once and loved it when gateway was first starting out as a company.
Saying that getting an m11x is only the choice cause there is no other better doesnt help me. Its like saying we use phones cause there is nothing better to communicate with. Its there to use, so weather its a good choice or not has nothing to do with if its the only choice. I want an m11x, I like them them alot and ever sence they put the new gt 540 card in them I Really want one. You cant deny alienware no longer comes out with machines that cost 4-5 grand as starting prices, they have done well enough for them selves so that the prices are not unreasonable by any means. You can get m11x's for under 600 dollars in the dell refurbished and cheaper r1 and r2's should be any where from 150-390 dollars or so. These prices are not unreasonable. M14x started at 1199.00$ and with coupons that dell gives like every week for 20% off you can get it under a 1000.
I already listed my pros which I use my laptop. I know your waiting to critique every pro or con I give but you cant be so critical with new technoligy. It takes time to develope properly and thats why when tons of people talk down something the development process takes that much longer. Notebooks are a develping technoligy with smart batteries, oled LCD displays, graphics power, new webcam/bluetooth,wirelss technoligy is constintly changing among other things cutting edge products like wirelessHD,Built In 3D, WWAN , HD Webcams, and the ever evolving world of laptop technoligy which brings new innovation daily and keeps people like me happy.
so when i get a laptop it has to have the same size
i had a 14 inch screen laptop!i aint going back to that
nevermind the weight the size etc .i am a gamer if i cant lug my gear then i ll go to the gym more !
I am a webdesigner/server administrator and software developer, and I'm trying to imagine myself carrying a 23'' laptop on the subway everyday, that would give me a backpain faster than anything else,
We got this Asus G2s-b1 at work that no1 uses except to test stuff with windows(its our only computer with windows) and if I had to carry that monster around I'd kill someone, and that is a 17'' laptop if I am correct.
Having said that, I do think laptops are not for real gamers, if you have to travel a lot you'll prolly deal with it, but in my case I rather have my desktop that has 5xtimes the power to run games that this laptop im on has (asus p50ij). When I was at my uni campus I brought my home computer to be confortable, so there really no reason any other student cant do the same
Saying that getting an m11x is only the choice cause there is no other better doesnt help me. Its like saying we use phones cause there is nothing better to communicate with.
I don't think you caught what I meant there, so perhaps I should elaborate. AMD has its next generation of video cards, "Southern Islands", coming soon. We don't know exactly when, but the day before the launch, word will probably have leaked out that they're launching the next day.
Suppose that it's the day before the launch and someone is looking to buy a relatively high end video card. Depending on budget, the best option that is available that day might be a GeForce GTX 560 Ti, Radeon HD 6950, GeForce GTX 570, or Radeon HD 6970. However, we'll also know that tomorrow, none of those will be a sensible purchase, as the new Radeon HD 7870 or whatever will be much better.
In one sense, you're right that Southern Islands doesn't do the person any good the day before it launches. And yet it would be a severe mistake to ignore it, because the day it comes out, a lot of other cards are obsolete.
Now, we don't know that a laptop vendor will offer a properly configured Llano system in a small form factor tomorrow. In fact, they probably won't. But let's go back to the video card example. We don't know when Southern Islands will launch, but we do know that it's coming reasonably soon. For someone looking to buy a high end video card today, that doesn't do him any good today. But it would be a mistake to ignore it and pretend that it's never coming. Maybe some people should wait and some shouldn't, depending on how urgently they need the upgrade.
It's like that with the Ailenware M11x. If a properly configured Llano system in the same form factor launches, the the M11x R3 is obsolete instantly. It could happen any day. It might not happen at all. Depending on an individual's needs, buying the M11x today does make sense for some people. But it's a mistake to ignore Llano entirely.
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"It takes time to develope properly and thats why when tons of people talk down something the development process takes that much longer."
Certainly, gaming laptops are progressing faster than gaming desktops. The reason for that is that gaming desktops are more or less where they need to be, and all that's left to do is marginal improvements. Gaming laptops have some severe problems still, and they are making huge progress in overcoming those problems. SSDs are a huge deal in desktops, but even more so in laptops. Mobile Evergreen was a huge deal. Sandy Bridge was a huge deal. Llano was a huge deal. Ivy Bridge and Trinity will be a huge deal. Mobile Southern Islands will be a huge deal.
I guess there's something of a philosophical difference here. We both want companies to make products that are good. If a company makes a product that isn't very good and you buy it anyway, I say that encourages them to keep making products that aren't very good. You say it at least rewards them for trying and encourages them to try to do something better along the same lines.
Returning to the main theme of this site, if a new MMORPG launches and has some interesting gameplay innovations, but the game is a complete mess at launch, would you buy it? Some would, as they want to encourage the interesting gameplay innovations. I say that only encourages other games to launch when the game is a complete mess. Clean it up and maybe I'll buy it later.
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The big jump in the M11x across generations isn't the graphical performance. The GeForce GT 540M in the R3 isn't much better than the GeForce GT 335M in the R2. Rather, it's the processor. Ultra low voltage processors without turbo boost just aren't viable for gaming, as the processor simply isn't fast enough. That's why the M11x R1 couldn't run a lot of games smoothly even at hard minimum graphical settings. The video card was willing, but the low clocked Core 2 Duo processor just couldn't do it. The M11x R2 that Alienware still sells today with an Arrandale Core i3 is a little better, but doesn't fix the problem. The M11x R3 moves to a Sandy Bridge processor with an aggressive turbo boost, and that finally offers adequate processor performance to run essentially all games at frame rates that are, if not always smooth, then at least playable.
Ivy Bridge should be huge progress there, as that's a full node die shrink, as well as moving to a process node that is optimized more for lower power consumption parts. But that's not coming until the M11x R4. Or maybe R5, if Alienware decides to detour into Llano or Trinity, as they should if they want to offer something good.
Comments
Ill start off from the top. Yes I think its classless that you say the m14x is junk for no reason. Its one of there most popular models and was a very exciting time in mobile computing seeing that much graphics power come into a 14 inch.
I want to doubly make you aware that, yes indeed, you said it first, there is a huge huge difference between 14 and 15 inch and if you were any kind of enthusiast then you would very well be in the known which of course your not. The differences are pounds of weight and a much smaller form factor. Its the same thing as saying theres no difference between 15.6 inch laptops and 17 inch laptops. not only that but alot of 14 inch laptops like myn are closer to the 13.3 specifications. Its a very big deal indeed and is one of the main attractions to what makes notebooks in general so unique.
Fiting in a 540 card into an m11x is obviously not pointless to the hundreads of thousands of gamers that already use them for gaming, are you going to sit there and tell all of them that. Youd make alot of people angry by classless statements like that. There is a great market for the m11x and your belittleing it only makes what you have to say less credible.
Its nice you have ideas about how you think it should be hardware spec wise but its not reality. In reality no matter what you buy there is going to be cons and pros. Its basicly comes down to how people want others to think about something. Obviously people here dont like gaming on laptops other wise they wouldnt make it there lifelong journey to tell everyone they come in contact with the cons of laptops and why there less usefull in everyway imaginable compared to desktops. If it was the opposite and everyone listed the cons of gaming desktops all the time then more people would rather buy laptops for gaming.
All im here to do is to let people know that instead of buying a gaming desktop, they can buy an laptop that can do so much more then just game. I hook my laptop up to a 42 inch sony bravio all the time, you can do that with a desktop. I take my laptop with me at night and read sometimes when i got out excercising, I have bluetooth, advanced power options, wireless card, switches for wireless and switching between graphics cards from discrete to integrated, beatifull LCDs, great keyboards and trackpads, multimed'ia buttons, most come standard with all this. You fail to identify the things that make laptops great besides your childlike "oh there only usefull cause there mobile". Really when and where did it take you the time to think of telling everyone that, like everyone doesnt know that laptops are mobile and can be moved around. People dont all live under rocks, you arnt talking to degenerate hippis that never read a news story in there life. Honestly when you make people read dribble like that what else do you expect to acomplish then to be asinine. Im sorry, Im not a asshole, I wouldnt be arguing about something I dont care about or know anything about.
ps: Im not going to go over your reasonings you marked at the end of your post cause by just glancing at them I dont like what I see. I told you im a laptop fan and you somehow pulling 10 different reasons why desktops are better then laptops and only puting 2 for laptops is plain silly.
I really dont mean to be rude but its painfully obvious to me that people are just wanting reasurance that buying there gaming desktop is right when in fact its not. Its just like when your parents yelled at you to stop standing so close to the TV or when your partner hounded you about getting out of the lawn chair and doing something constructive. Buying a gameing desktop is insanly illogical and people need help with that when they do that especially with how things work at the present time. Laptops are more socialy used and accepted and its far more likly a regular business man is going to be chating over his latee about his new laptop then the gaming desktop he got, same goes for most other people as well.
Its like your trying to make in the norm that grandmas and moms some how need gaming desktops, which is funny cause Im sure they would be more likly to get a laptop cause its far easier in its lifetime to take care of and be able to use. I know your targeted crowd is probubly younger, even so kids going to collage find it far easier im sure using laptops to get around with, Im just here to let them know, yes in indded they can game also.
"I want to doubly make you aware that, yes indeed, you said it first, there is a huge huge difference between 14 and 15 inch and if you were any kind of enthusiast then you would very well be in the known which of course your not. The differences are pounds of weight and a much smaller form factor."
Here's the problem. What you can get in a 14" is only a little faster than what you can get in an 11", but dramatically slower than what you can get in a 15". Meanwhile, the form factor on the 14" is much closer to the 15" than the 11". To top it off, the 14" is more expensive than both the slightly slower 11" and a much faster 15".
Is there a very narrow niche market where the M14x makes sense? It would have to be people with very peculiar needs. Anything I can come up with to justify it is rather far-fetched. The most plausible thing is someone who needs modest gaming performance but not that great of gaming performance, and thinks that 14" is much better for its own sake than both 11" and 15".
And "pounds" of weight? A quick check of 15" laptops on New Egg finds that the overwhelming majority of them are 5-5.9 points. Switch that to 14" laptops and 5-5.9 pounds is still the most common weight, though there are a lot of 4-4.9 pound ones, too. That's an average difference in weight of a little over half a pound. I guess you could call it 0.6 pounds and have the fractional plural, but that's too pedantic for my taste. And I'm very pedantic.
"Fiting in a 540 card into an m11x is obviously not pointless to the hundreads of thousands of gamers that already use them for gaming, are you going to sit there and tell all of them that."
You're failing to distinguish between what people buy and what makes sense for people to buy. In the prebuilt computer market, the two don't coincide that often. Most people who buy a prebuilt computer, whether desktop or laptop, don't know what to get and pick something haphazardly.
To prove my point, I would like to cite hardware that is sensible to use for exactly zero people in the world: Diablotek power supplies. Okay, maybe it makes sense for a few review sites to buy them to see how awful they are, but not for any actual use. And yet enough people buy them to keep Diablotek in business.
Are there people for whom the Alienware M11x makes sense? Yes. But not that many of them. And even for them, it's not a "this is the ideal hardware" but "this is the least bad option on the market". Stick a properly configured A8-3500M APU in an 11" form factor and that would be a more sensible purchase than the present Alienware M11x for the overwhelming majority of people for whom the M11x makes sense today.
"There is a great market for the m11x and your belittleing it only makes what you have to say less credible."
If it's such a great market, then why is Alienware the only company that can be bothered to care about it? Sticking a GT 540M in an 11" form factor is something of an engineering feet. Sticking an A8-3500M in the same form factor wouldn't be so hard, though. And yet Alienware is the only company that can be bothered to care.
There is a market there, and it's a big enough niche market for Alienware to find it profitable to fill that niche. Kind of like there is (or was) also a niche market for a Radeon HD 6870 X2, or a Radeon HD 5770 that supports five monitors. Those aren't bad products; there just aren't very many people for whom they make sense (and likely fewer than the M11x, for that matter), which is why only one company could be bothered to care about them (PowerColor, in both cases).
I'm not against companies making products that meet the needs of small niche markets. But I do think that we should recognize that's what they are, and not pretend that it's a sensible purchase for everyone and his neighbor's dog.
"If it was the opposite and everyone listed the cons of gaming desktops all the time then more people would rather buy laptops for gaming. "
Very well then. List them. Go on. Let's see if you can come up with anything important other than portability.
"I hook my laptop up to a 42 inch sony bravio all the time, you can do that with a desktop."
And it will perform a lot better on a similarly priced gaming desktop, too.
"I take my laptop with me at night and read sometimes when i got out excercising,"
You can do that better on a netbook (Brazos, not Atom) in the same form factor. Lower power consumption, less heat, lighter weight, cheaper price tag.
Laptops have their uses. Don't get me wrong. When someone wants a gaming laptop, I often recommend getting both a gaming desktop and a cheaper laptop. But I also believe in using the right tool for the job, rather than trying to cram all of your tasks into a single tool that isn't very good at any of them.
"great keyboards and trackpads"
Great for a trackpad is not the same thing as actually great. There's a reason why basically no one uses trackpads for desktops, even though it fits the form factor just fine.
And the M11x doesn't have a proper, full-sized keyboard. It doesn't fit the form factor. For that matter, it doesn't fit a 15" form factor, either. I guess if you've got the QWERTY area full sized, that's enough for some purposes. That's no good if you need to do anything numerical, though.
"I told you im a laptop fan and you somehow pulling 10 different reasons why desktops are better then laptops and only puting 2 for laptops is plain silly."
It's not the number of reasons. It's how compelling they are. As I said, for some purposes, the portability advantage of a laptop can outweigh all else.
But if you have more advantages for laptops, then how about if you list them? Portability is the obvious big one. I gave you lower power consumption for free. I'll even add a third one, even if, like the second, it is only infrequently useful: a laptop takes up less desk space, making it viable in some very small spaces where a desktop wouldn't fit.
One caveat: an advantage of laptops isn't merely something that a laptop can do; it's something that a laptop can do better than a desktop. So go on. Let's see what you've got.
"Buying a gameing desktop is insanly illogical and people need help with that when they do that especially with how things work at the present time."
Proof by assertion, apparently.
"Laptops are more socialy used and accepted and its far more likly a regular business man is going to be chating over his latee about his new laptop then the gaming desktop he got"
It's also far more likely that his business laptop isn't a gaming laptop at all.
"Its like your trying to make in the norm that grandmas and moms some how need gaming desktops,"
Now you're really grasping at straws. Check the name of the web site you're on. Gaming desktops (as opposed to non-gaming desktops) get a disproportionate amount of attention here precisely because this is a gaming site.
Gaming desktops only make sense for people who play games. I guess a Trinity-based system could arguably be called a gaming desktop, too, and could make sense for people who don't play games, but we aren't there yet. (Llano desktops, on the other hand, don't make much sense for anyone.)
Theres a big difference weather weight or not when it comes to 14 inch laptops and 15.6. If you owned each like I do you might know better.
The 11 inch is much closer to 14 inch then you might think compared to 14 and 15.6 inches. Remember 15 inch laptops arnt just 15 inch, most go to 15.6 inch and closer to 16 inches. The 11 inch laptop is actually 11.6 inches which is closer to 12 inches. There just different form factors is all, weather one is closer to the other makes no difference.
Every new idea and invention takes tough times and criticism. The new idea here is that smaller form factor laptops between 13.3 inch and 14 inch and even the m11x are getting more graphics processing power that hasnt ever been touched on before.
Laptops are an evolving machine. Each year we see new ideas and new inivations which make it a prosperose business to buy into. Desktops basiclly have stayed the same, you can only change the color and deisgn of a desktop to so much extent and even then, 99% of the time its going to be some where hidden to where no one can see it in the first place. Your making me look like a desktop hater or something, Im not here to bash desktops, its not what I mean. I dont dislike desktops, you can get that out of your mind right now. Im only here to show people that other wise wouldnt know that a laptop is there for them to buy especially for gaming. I owned desktops also, I bought a gateway once and loved it when gateway was first starting out as a company.
Saying that getting an m11x is only the choice cause there is no other better doesnt help me. Its like saying we use phones cause there is nothing better to communicate with. Its there to use, so weather its a good choice or not has nothing to do with if its the only choice. I want an m11x, I like them them alot and ever sence they put the new gt 540 card in them I Really want one. You cant deny alienware no longer comes out with machines that cost 4-5 grand as starting prices, they have done well enough for them selves so that the prices are not unreasonable by any means. You can get m11x's for under 600 dollars in the dell refurbished and cheaper r1 and r2's should be any where from 150-390 dollars or so. These prices are not unreasonable. M14x started at 1199.00$ and with coupons that dell gives like every week for 20% off you can get it under a 1000.
I already listed my pros which I use my laptop. I know your waiting to critique every pro or con I give but you cant be so critical with new technoligy. It takes time to develope properly and thats why when tons of people talk down something the development process takes that much longer. Notebooks are a develping technoligy with smart batteries, oled LCD displays, graphics power, new webcam/bluetooth,wirelss technoligy is constintly changing among other things cutting edge products like wirelessHD,Built In 3D, WWAN , HD Webcams, and the ever evolving world of laptop technoligy which brings new innovation daily and keeps people like me happy.
The walls of text, geez, get a chat room
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
It takes that much to respond...besides its got paragraphs I dont see the harm.
my computer screen is a 23 inch 1080 p HD screen
so when i get a laptop it has to have the same size
i had a 14 inch screen laptop!i aint going back to that
nevermind the weight the size etc .i am a gamer if i cant lug my gear then i ll go to the gym more !
I am a webdesigner/server administrator and software developer, and I'm trying to imagine myself carrying a 23'' laptop on the subway everyday, that would give me a backpain faster than anything else,
We got this Asus G2s-b1 at work that no1 uses except to test stuff with windows(its our only computer with windows) and if I had to carry that monster around I'd kill someone, and that is a 17'' laptop if I am correct.
Having said that, I do think laptops are not for real gamers, if you have to travel a lot you'll prolly deal with it, but in my case I rather have my desktop that has 5xtimes the power to run games that this laptop im on has (asus p50ij). When I was at my uni campus I brought my home computer to be confortable, so there really no reason any other student cant do the same
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
I don't think you caught what I meant there, so perhaps I should elaborate. AMD has its next generation of video cards, "Southern Islands", coming soon. We don't know exactly when, but the day before the launch, word will probably have leaked out that they're launching the next day.
Suppose that it's the day before the launch and someone is looking to buy a relatively high end video card. Depending on budget, the best option that is available that day might be a GeForce GTX 560 Ti, Radeon HD 6950, GeForce GTX 570, or Radeon HD 6970. However, we'll also know that tomorrow, none of those will be a sensible purchase, as the new Radeon HD 7870 or whatever will be much better.
In one sense, you're right that Southern Islands doesn't do the person any good the day before it launches. And yet it would be a severe mistake to ignore it, because the day it comes out, a lot of other cards are obsolete.
Now, we don't know that a laptop vendor will offer a properly configured Llano system in a small form factor tomorrow. In fact, they probably won't. But let's go back to the video card example. We don't know when Southern Islands will launch, but we do know that it's coming reasonably soon. For someone looking to buy a high end video card today, that doesn't do him any good today. But it would be a mistake to ignore it and pretend that it's never coming. Maybe some people should wait and some shouldn't, depending on how urgently they need the upgrade.
It's like that with the Ailenware M11x. If a properly configured Llano system in the same form factor launches, the the M11x R3 is obsolete instantly. It could happen any day. It might not happen at all. Depending on an individual's needs, buying the M11x today does make sense for some people. But it's a mistake to ignore Llano entirely.
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"It takes time to develope properly and thats why when tons of people talk down something the development process takes that much longer."
Certainly, gaming laptops are progressing faster than gaming desktops. The reason for that is that gaming desktops are more or less where they need to be, and all that's left to do is marginal improvements. Gaming laptops have some severe problems still, and they are making huge progress in overcoming those problems. SSDs are a huge deal in desktops, but even more so in laptops. Mobile Evergreen was a huge deal. Sandy Bridge was a huge deal. Llano was a huge deal. Ivy Bridge and Trinity will be a huge deal. Mobile Southern Islands will be a huge deal.
I guess there's something of a philosophical difference here. We both want companies to make products that are good. If a company makes a product that isn't very good and you buy it anyway, I say that encourages them to keep making products that aren't very good. You say it at least rewards them for trying and encourages them to try to do something better along the same lines.
Returning to the main theme of this site, if a new MMORPG launches and has some interesting gameplay innovations, but the game is a complete mess at launch, would you buy it? Some would, as they want to encourage the interesting gameplay innovations. I say that only encourages other games to launch when the game is a complete mess. Clean it up and maybe I'll buy it later.
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The big jump in the M11x across generations isn't the graphical performance. The GeForce GT 540M in the R3 isn't much better than the GeForce GT 335M in the R2. Rather, it's the processor. Ultra low voltage processors without turbo boost just aren't viable for gaming, as the processor simply isn't fast enough. That's why the M11x R1 couldn't run a lot of games smoothly even at hard minimum graphical settings. The video card was willing, but the low clocked Core 2 Duo processor just couldn't do it. The M11x R2 that Alienware still sells today with an Arrandale Core i3 is a little better, but doesn't fix the problem. The M11x R3 moves to a Sandy Bridge processor with an aggressive turbo boost, and that finally offers adequate processor performance to run essentially all games at frame rates that are, if not always smooth, then at least playable.
Ivy Bridge should be huge progress there, as that's a full node die shrink, as well as moving to a process node that is optimized more for lower power consumption parts. But that's not coming until the M11x R4. Or maybe R5, if Alienware decides to detour into Llano or Trinity, as they should if they want to offer something good.