Night Kings (a quick glance at the Alienware M15x)

Recently, a fashion has gone for reviews of thin, lightweight, ultra portable laptops. Apple does not let you relax, it excites the minds of many hawkers, and I was always drawn to the glands hotter.
Today I would like to review one of the representatives of a friendly gaming family, and to be precise, the choice fell on the very well-known company Alienware and their device with the name M15x.
Initially having read all kinds of horror stories like “walking” keyboards, incredible blue screens, vile tech support and other things, I hesitated a lot, but still decided ... What came of it?
(Warning - under the cut traffic and curve formatting!)

Immediately I ask you not to kick much, after all, the first attempt to write a review, perhaps I will be too emotional and biased, and the action itself took place almost in the field. Upon request, I can supplement the information, fortunately, I’m not posting it all now, it was corny not letting me publish.
And one more thing - here and there moments are shown that are not described by words, just as there are words that are not reflected by the picture, we will consider this a question-answer game. Let's start.


There is no point in describing the order and delivery process itself, unless it is worth noting that this handsome man was walking from afar and with a considerable lead ahead of the schedule.
A black box came in, weighing a little more than six kilograms, with dimensions of 80cm x 60cm x 30cm, covered with all kinds of extra postal papers (at least 5 countries crossed, however).
As for the many favorite unboxing process - unboxing can be found on Youtube, only a small recollection:
It’s just an incredible feeling when removing the composite box with Alienware logos (we pull by the provided handle), the dimensions are exactly right next to the first. Having placed the new structure on any surface, we see ... Yes, we don’t see a damn thing, the box is neatly composed of 3 parts that are connected only in places where the plastic handles are located. Fortunately, we are already savvy, we know that if you only pull the special tongue on the handle-lock, it flies out “at the expense of one time” and frees the structure from the shackles. Everything, I don’t remember much further, the upper part of the composite box frantically breaks down, all the contents are pulled out:

• M15x itself (the size is more similar to the 17-inch counterparts), located in a special bag (it’s really difficult to describe, velvety on the outside, more like silk on the inside) with the same sacramental inscription with which soft “ears” fly off to protect the machine from any possible damage on the road
• a box with a manual of an unusual format, a cap (this time the sizes are normal), a power supply unit, a DisplayPort-> HDMI adapter, a mat and a pair of disks.

Patient examination

So, we coped with the first emotions, take out our unit from the bag, take a look around?



Everything, the other sides of the car are cleared of anything resembling ports. It’s a pity, of course, that there are only three USB, and those are 2.0, but I knew what I was going for.
There are two ventilation grilles on the back side, on the front side, also on the edges, two speakers of good quality. Here surprise lies in wait for us - according to the manual, an infrared sensor is located exactly in the center between the speakers! Well, we have not been able to test it yet, but we will believe the company ...
The M15x lid is made of an alloy with simply indescribable tactile properties, a plastic insert is located closer to the mount, and the familiar head of an alien is silvering over it. It is worth noting that the prints are both difficult to leave (the fingers must be really not very clean), and it is not easy to get rid of them - if it seemed to the eye that there is no print - it can suddenly appear when photographing with a flash.

The bottom is also metal, nothing remarkable, except for the same ventilation holes reinforced with grooves (we think that they facilitate the exchange of air with a not very good surface), a couple of stickers, and plates with engraving and a unique number. Well, no, the grooves didn’t confuse me much, but during the work with the 9-cell battery the far part of the device was raised all the time, which contributes to much more cooling.

The time has come for new emotions, it is necessary to discover this miracle ... I won’t take it upon myself, perhaps I’ll just demonstrate it a little lower.
We are met by a terribly pleasant velvety plastic to the touch and the look when turned on rushes into the magnificent 15.6-inch FullHD (1920 by 1080 pixels) LED screen. Needless to say, some software is already installed? Winda, a proprietary command center, and Steam patiently wait for the power key to be pressed, designed in the form of an alien head.
Only then, it is possible to consider the surrounding space. It remains only to notice that the touch panel is quite responsive to touch (if you do not try to hammer at it at a crazy speed), and above the screen there are 2 microphones, a camera, and Camera activity indicator, which plays the role of lighting very successfully in the dark. All this charm is covered with plastic so that there are no annoying gaps that were often used by dust as a permanent habitat on my old laptop. Yes, touchpad let us down, not much, you just won’t use it for a long time, the decision to make the surface so embossed is a little incomprehensible, however, it doesn’t cause any serious complaints - the quality of the device is pulling, and the way it is mounted is beyond praise - the highlight area around allows without looking determine where the finger is.

Take a look under the hood? My hands are already itching:
The Intel® i7 940XM processor is the company's four-core flagship with a frequency of 2.13GHz to 3.33GHz, made using 45nm technology, which drags a string of different technologies. On board there are two 4Gb DDR3 memory sticks comfortably, but the video is presented by a fairly fresh AMD Mobility HD 5850 card with 1Gb GDDR5 memory and DirectX® 11 support.

Stop, the question is “Is this all?”, I hope it sounded at the reader’s I don’t have, of course, Bluetooth and a Wi-Fi card and a hard one (I was careful, I chose it easier than the SSD) there, the main thing is how it is packed, I advise you to watch a video on this topic , otherwise my enthusiasm will take a lot places.

What does not kill makes you stronger

Why are we all running around, let’s rather go into battle!
Here, unfortunately, it’s boring, Metro 2003 does not slow down with any distortions with the settings at the maximum resolution of 1080p, and even with FullHD video connected in parallel. It leads to irritation smoothness (meaning not low speed, but a margin higher than the minimum 24 frames per second) with which the picture looms ... It feels like the M15x is mocking - no matter how I turned it, I couldn’t get the picture to twitch a bit. I'm lying. Yes, I saw the braking after switching the settings from minimum to maximum, but this twitching lasted for 2-3 seconds, which I did not consider it necessary to take into account as a drawback.
As for the daily load - a considerable number of applications, background music, etc., etc., as many as 100+ processes support the processor in a half-corpse state - half of the cores are parked, the remaining ones move slowly, creating 2-8% of the load (the screenshot after the uptime is more than a day).

1080p video doesn’t think it’s possible to play it, by interrogating a few short samples and one quite full-length film “True Lies” you can make an exact verdict: even against the background of a mess, the launched HD video will not become a real threat to overall performance, CPU load rose a little and reached a maximum of 20% (even one processor had to be removed from the parking lot, but we still have 3 in stock, right?), if you turn off the sound and listen, you can see that the coolers started to quietly drive there is air ... Paradise, perhaps the first time that without headphones on a portable device I can really feel the volume and clarity of sound ...
On the face of the need to test more severely, but because of the total volume of the resulting text and personal workload - all tests are on request.

Snacks

You won’t name the section otherwise; I’ll try to briefly outline various additional charms.

The backlight - the first thing that catches your eye - is elegantly implemented, the uniformity thereof is violated only in the gap area. When the first shock state passes, it’s just right to demonstrate the possibilities for changing and programming the backlight unaccounted for by unlucky viewers. Okay, let's say a lot has already been heard about changing the backlight, let’s repeat - the whole backlight is divided into ten zones, which can be assigned one of 21 standard colors, made to blink, or transformed to other colors (it looks unforgettable, but such frequent demonstrations by the owner and because of the very psychedelic riot of colors, and because of the extreme leisurelyness of the standard editor, the alternative of which is the lightweight AuroraLightsFX), among other things, you can build entire chains of animations.

As for the “programming”, I can say it’s strange :), or I’ve just tested it on the wrong applications ... We select a program or its event from the list, assign appropriate actions, weird, and so everything is clear, there is also a detailed video tutorial for absolutely "fools" - we set a solid standings!

Another component of the wow effect is the authorization system through the AlienSense webcam. A very capricious toy, although the sensitivity can be adjusted, in general, after a couple of days of active training, the owner will be identified in any condition, if not making funny faces. Rather, the presence of this tool is a plus than a minus.

There is also an alternative to the standard Power Plan Manager - AlienFusion, in which a number of settings are collected, some of which are quite elusive by standard means, not just any chic, but overall I liked it.

The architecture of the cooling system is beyond praise, the only place where you can feel the heat under load, not counting the bottom and the "exhaust" of the cooling system - a small section of metal on the front side, between the speakers, it becomes warm, no more - nice. At the same time, the sides keep the temperature “below room temperature”, and if the surface of the panel heats up, it is more likely by hand. Seriously, it was not in vain that he kept more than a day on a blanket!
The screen should be noted again, and then we must not forget to mention it again. I honestly tried to examine individual pixels, almost broke my eyes when it was possible. Viewing angles make it possible to arrange a person ten uneven steps to read the text, and 4 people to view more colorful pictures. Still, starting from 45 degrees of horizontal displacement from the perpendicular, colors begin to fade very slowly, but we read the text to the very end with one limitation - the user's vision. The vertical is given with great difficulty, the colors begin to fade already with twenty degrees, and after 45 it is already becoming difficult to read the text. Cleaning, which is the most remarkable, comes down to lazy brushing with a soft cloth of everything that had the audacity to land on this miracle of technology - due to a completely smooth coating. (really,

Perhaps the enthusiasm can continue indefinitely, but you need to know the honor ...

Conclusion

Not everything is so smooth, there are drawbacks, here is one of them:

I hope I haven’t missed anything particularly important, but no - support, although some scold it, and didn’t have to use it, these wonderful stickers are located on the bottom of the M15x, thanks to which you can get drivers for the already known correct configuration