Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Hey, how's it going guys? This is Dave2D, and this is the Alienware 13. It's been updated for the end of 2016.
00:14It's a complete redesign. 21% thinner, GTX 10 series cards, and it's finally running a quad-core CPU.
00:21So it starts at $1,200. The top and bottom panels have the same color as before.
00:26They're now aluminum, but it still has the iconic Alienhead logo. The screen hinges shifted forwards a bit.
00:32I didn't love the design at first because it looks so different from most laptops these days,
00:36but it's grown a lot on me over the past couple of weeks, and I like it.
00:39The build quality in this is top-notch. The display panel and the chassis are both rigid. Hinge is well made with good tension.
00:46It's thinner than the previous generation, but it's not light. So Alienware focuses more on long-term durability.
00:53They even use steel under the keyboard to reinforce it. That's some heavy stuff.
00:56So I would legitimately feel comfortable dropping this thing from like six feet up.
01:00You can easily access the internals. The killer Wi-Fi card is upgradable, but it's really one of the better ones out there.
01:06There's two RAM slots. You can upgrade it to 32 gigs, and you also have two M.2 drive bays.
01:11The stock drive from Toshiba has good speeds.
01:14The 76 watt-hour battery is underneath the shroud here, and you'll get around four and a half hours of regular use.
01:19The keyboard is nice. It feels different from the more common chiclet keys, but the typing experience is great.
01:26It's got a cushy 2.2 millimeters of travel, and it feels really responsive. The keys use zone lighting.
01:32I kind of wish that they were individually lit, and the other thing are these page up and page down keys.
01:36So it's cool that they included dedicated keys, but because of their positioning, you're gonna accidentally hit them when you're trying to use arrow keys.
01:42You'll get used to them, but in the beginning, you will make mistakes.
01:46The trackpad uses synaptic drivers.
01:48It's the same style of trackpad as the 15-inch from last year. Light up surface,
01:52which I'll always love. Millions of colors to choose from in the software.
01:56It's got a great surface texture, accurate tracking, and it has nice physical buttons.
02:00I'm glad they brought this trackpad to the 13-inch version. Going around the sides,
02:04we have audio jacks, two USB 3s, two USB Cs. The one on the back even supports Thunderbolt 3, and there's also display outputs,
02:12Ethernet, and the Alienware graphics amp port. So external GPU options work right out of the box.
02:17You can use Thunderbolt 3, like a Razer Core, or you can use the graphics amp from Alienware. The webcam up here looks okay.
02:24It's not the best image quality, but it has infrared capabilities.
02:27So it works with Windows Hello to log in with facial recognition, and you can set up other stuff like sleep and security functions.
02:34This unit has the OLED panel option. It's 2560 by 1440. It's bright.
02:39It has ridiculously high color gamut, and it looks amazing. Now, I tried to do some visual comparisons,
02:45but you can't really showcase how nice this looks over a video. Games, movies, any kind of media consumption looks awesome.
02:52The image just looks so rich and vibrant, and blacks are as black as they're gonna get. Imagine ink.
02:57But the one thing to keep in mind, if you're a content creator, you want to run calibration software to tone down the saturation.
03:04As for burn-in on laptop OLED displays, they supposedly have tech to prevent this, but we'll find out in time.
03:10The speakers fire out from the side, and they sound pretty nice. They stay clear up to around 80% volume. Bass isn't strong.
03:17There's no subwoofer, but most people will be happy with this audio system.
03:21The performance is solid. My biggest complaints about last year's Alienware 13 was their CPU choice.
03:26They went with a dual-core ultrabook processor. This year, they went with a quad-core. The Skylake 6700HQ,
03:33and it also has the GTX 1060.
03:35The combination of these two can easily handle most of the current generation 3D titles at 1080p. On a 13-inch screen,
03:41it's pretty tough to see the resolution benefits of 1440p in games, so I benchmark everything at 1080p.
03:48Battlefield 1 runs at around 85 frames per second on ultra graphics at 1080p,
03:52and this has to be one of the best-looking games of 2016. Shadow Warrior 2 runs at around 60 frames per second.
03:58Same deal for settings, ultra graphics at 1080p.
04:01And then Witcher 3 is still one of the most demanding titles out there, and at max graphics settings,
04:06we're looking at around 40, maybe 45 frames per second at 1080p.
04:10Now, if you want more details about gaming performance, stay till the end of the video.
04:144K video edits are a breeze, and it's fully VR capable. It's crazy. It's a 13-inch gaming laptop that crushes VR.
04:23I couldn't detect any CPU throttling in games, and even when running benchmark loops in 3DMark,
04:28this thing kept its clock speed up. The fans spin when it's idle, but it's very quiet.
04:32You can't really hear it, and under load, it's louder, but it's still a very tolerable sound.
04:37Heat output is very comfortable to use, even under load. The thermal management here is on point.
04:42So with the new AW13, you're getting a very well-built laptop in a relatively dense package.
04:47The OLED display option is bright and vibrant. It's like the best-looking laptop screen I've played games on.
04:53The keyboard is comfortable to use and feels really responsive when gaming.
04:56The trackpad lights up and is also really good. The Skylake i7 and the GTX 1060 deliver great performance
05:02and are very well-cooled. The RAM and the drives are easy to access and upgrade,
05:06and the 76-watt hour battery will last you around four and a half hours of regular use.
05:10Okay, I think Alienware did a fantastic job with this thing. It probably deserves to win the most improved laptop of 2016.
05:17It still has its limitations. It's a 13-inch device, so you're not going to get maxed out big-screen gaming,
05:22but there's very little I dislike about this laptop. Maybe it's weight,
05:25but if you want to see more gaming performance, check the video description below. I made something special.
05:29Hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it. It's been nice. I'll see you guys next time.