Alienware 13 with Graphics Amplifier review

UPDATED: Our original review, published in April 2015, Nvidia’s drivers still weren’t working correctly with the Alienware 13 connected to the Graphics Amplifier with an Nvidia desktop card on board. These issues appear to have been resolved, so we’ve updated our review.

The Alienware’s 13 replaces the old 14in model as the smallest laptop in the company’s range. It’s a mid-range gaming laptop with dinky proportions, and the option to upgrade its graphics power using an external GPU.

Alienware’s signature design works very well on this small scale, although dark grey with LED lighting may not be to all tastes. AlienFX software lets you customise eight backlight zones, including four on the keyboard and the alien head logos on the front and back. Things are even better when you open the lid, with a soft-touch, grippy black plastic coating the palm rest. It picks up greasy marks easily, but it’s comfortable and looks attractive enough.

The keyboard, meanwhile, is up there with the best we’ve used. The keys are large, with plenty of grip and a lot of travel, which makes them equally suited to gaming and typing. The touchpad is extremely responsive, with buttons that don’t interfere with the cursor as some Dell devices have in the past.

While far from being the most portable 13in laptop on the market, the Alienware 13 is slightly lighter and also 5mm thinner than our favourite 13in gaming laptop, the Chillblast Defiant 2 Mini, although it must also be said that Chillblast’s machine is much cheaper and somewhat better specified. Still, Alienware’s build quality trumps most off-the-shelf models.

Of the three models in the range, two use Intel Core i5 processors and the third has a Core i7. We tested the mid-spec model, which has a Core i5-4210U dual-core processor and 8GB of RAM. It’s hardly the most potent processor around, running at a base clock speed of just 1.7GHz. It managed an overall score of 33 in our benchmarks, peaking at 62 in our image editing score but dropping to a leisurely 19 in the extreme multitasking test. It’s perfectly snappy when using Windows 8.1, but it may prove to be a slight bottleneck with the latest games.

Where this lack of power does help the Alienware 13 is in its battery life; it managed a staggering 7h 18m in our moderate usage battery burn test, which is almost unheard of for a gaming laptop. Of course, expect battery life to be significantly reduced if you plan to play games on the move.

You can save a little over £100 if you switch out the 256GB SSD our review unit came with for a 1TB hard disk, but unless you have a huge collection of games we’d probably stick with faster solid state storage.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M dedicated graphics card has 2GB of memory and is still a great GPU despite its age. Considering the newly announced 960M is essentially the same GPU with a slightly bumped clock speed you aren’t missing out on any extra performance. It managed a respectable 32.8fps in Dirt Showdown at 1,920×1,080 resolution, Ultra settings and 4x anti-aliasing. Metro: Last Light was more of a struggle: it could only manage 15.5fps at 1080p, although all but the most powerful desktop GPUs find this test tough so it’s still a reasonable result. Disabling Supersampling aAnti-aliasing and tessellation resulted in a much more playable 37fps average.

Noise while gaming isn’t extreme and the exhaust fans maintain a steady whooshing noise that is easily overcome by headphones or speakers. The quality of the built-in speakers is actually reasonably good, too: there’s a degree of stereo separation and a small amount of bass presence, so if you don’t have any alternative you won’t be left with poor quality audio.

The Full HD screen is decent enough. While 88.8% sRGB colour gamut coverage won’t set the world alight, the 1182:1 contrast levels and very bright 309cd/m2 whites mean this screen is a competent overall performer. It’ll do your games and movies justice, particularly in darker scenes.

You get three USB3 ports, two 3.5mm audio jacks and a gigabit Ethernet port on the side of the laptop, and a Mini DisplayPort and full-size HDMI port at the rear. This is also where you’ll find a connector for the optional Alienware Graphics Amplifier.

The Graphics Amplifier is much shorter than a conventional PC chassis, but at 410mm it’s longer than many microATX cases. It’s easy to hide behind your monitor, which we would recommend – the cheap-looking black plastic is a far cry from Alienware’s more premium looking designs and doesn’t match the laptop. You can put it on the floor, too, as the cable is long enough to run from the floor up to a desk.

The proprietary cable acts both as a x4-speed PCI-E lane and a USB port replicator. All your peripherals including keyboard, mouse and monitor(s) plug into the USB and video output connectors, and are instantly available as soon as you switch the laptop on. It’s not quite as convenient as a dock that you’d drop your laptop on to; you have to instead reach around the back of the laptop and connect the cable.

The base unit holds a PCI-E x16 slot and a 460W PSU, but you’ll have to fit your own graphics card unless you pay the extra upfront. We’d recommend buying a graphics card from another supplier, however, because Dell charges through the nose. The PNY GeForce GTX 980 costs around £440 from UK retailers but Dell charges £600, in addition to the Graphics Amplifier itself.

Installing a graphics card should be easy, but despite Alienware claiming the amplifier can accommodate double height, full-length graphics cards, we found several that wouldn’t fit. The Asus Strix GTX 970, for example, was too wide and the Sapphire R9 270X was too thick. On both occasions we had to run our benchmarks with the case open. Annoyingly there’s no easy way to find out which cards will fit, but as a rule cards with custom coolers are likely to cause problems.

We tested several graphics cards to see whether performance was on a par with a conventional desktop. For the most part it was, with minor deviations mostly explained by the laptop-grade Core i5 processor. Performance will vary depending on your laptop’s configuration.

We initially had issues when connecting the Alienware 13 to the Graphics Amplifier when an Nvidia desktop graphics card was installed, an issue that didn’t occur with AMD cards because AMD had already released drivers designed to work with the product. Since our initial review, however, Nvidia has released drivers that appear to have solved the problems we experienced. The problems included the laptop ignoring both its dedicated 860M GPU and the external graphics card. Now, however, once you plug in the graphics amplifier and switch the laptop on, you only have to wait a few seconds for the laptop to understand that an external graphics card is connected. There’s a bit of flickering but once you’re connected, you shouldn’t have any issues.

The Alienware 13 is a beautifully designed and rugged feeling gaming laptop that you can take with you anywhere. As is often the case with Alienware, the price is just a little too steep considering the specifications. However, at this size we would be tempted to pick the 13 over any similarly sized rivals simply because it feels so well made. You also get Dell’s excellent collect and return warranty that includes in-home support should the firm decide it’s required. If you don’t have as much money to spend, though, the Chillblast Defiant 2 Mini remains our favourite compact gaming laptop.

The Graphics Amplifier, meanwhile, is an expensive add-on with niche appeal. Nonetheless, it’s a great way to extend the life of what is an otherwise perfectly capable laptop so it’s difficult to complain. We just wish it was slightly less expensive. If you’re looking for something a bit more conventional then check out our regularly-updated Best Laptops and buying guide.