Alienware 13 ANW13-7275SLV 13-Inch Gaming Laptop [Discontinued By Manufacturer]

I am a casual gamer but I want to play the latest games at high specs on a device that I can easily take around with me. This laptop is perfect. The specs are good enough for the latest games and should be good for a couple of years until you have to start dropping res or frame rates.The specs are top drawer apart from the graphics card, the 860M was released in Q2 2014. Saying that, the latest 960M is apparently only about 10% better so its still a great graphics card.The screen is a bit too good some of the time as icons and windows can be really small due to the amount of pixels but you can easily change the resolution with a right click on the desktop. It is a fantastic screen though and the touch function is useful when browsing.I have so far just played Bioshock Infinite at Ultra settings and it is totally fine with it. It boots up in seconds and (I have no idea how or why it does this) and gets and extra 2mb/sec out of my downloads.Dell support through their online chat have been great as well.I am seriously impressed with this machine

OMG. Don't Go Near to Dell. Dell is Hell.

This is a great little laptop, but has some potential gaming issues, depening on what you play.From the tech perspective, this laptop delivers great performance and a wonderful display (both visually and touch response), is durable and light enough to be easily portable. The components read like a tech nerd's wish list - latest i7 processor, good amount of RAM, very speedy digital drive, the highest display resolution, full compliment of USB3 connectors, and an option of the latest dedicated video adatpers. I can play many of the games I play on my PC (mostly RPGs) with decent-enough framerates at the full, native display setting (3200x1800), or at very good framerates at standard HD resolution. When simply using the laptop in a general purpose mode (web, email, videos, MS Office), the latop easily meetings high workloads of multiple streams, feeds, and/or Office windows.From the gaming stand point, the small 13 inch display coupled with the extremely high, native display resolution throws a wrench into the whole works. In 3200x1800 packs a lot of real estate into the display, and since it has such a high amount of pixels, it naturally makes the icons and text on the display exteremly small. To offset that, Dell uses various tricks to increase/zoom the size of icons and text in Windows/apps, but by doing so (just like zoomming in, or comparing a standard definition tv show to a high definition show) you lose something in order to gain something - in this case how much usable space you have in the display and conflicts with applications that cannot scale properly. You can give this a brief try on your current system if you'd like - drop or increase (if possible) your display resolution by a factor of two, and compare the differences before and after the change. I'm attaching photos to show some of these problems in general, and within some of the games I've tested. It's not necessarily a show stopper, but in one game I was not able to view the server list to select, and had to blindly navigate the list with the keyboard arrow keys to eventually find my server by pure luck. You can get by with your desktop monitor at its native resolution. If you have a QHD external monitor, you'll have a great experience!There is optional hardware for these new Alienware laptops called the Alienware Graphics Accelerator, which is a combination of a port-expander for dock-like functionality, plus a desktop-like expansion slot to run a desktop graphics card. I did not have access to test this also, but I'm leaning towards purchasing one since most of my usage will be in a static location with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse.Overall, I think the new Alienware laptops are incredible, given my experience with the smallest of the bunch. I do believe that the 13inch form factor of this specific laptop is more of a hindrance for gaming given the extremely high resolution, and at such resolution I'd recommend looking at a smaller resolution option or a larger sized display.Pros:PortabilityOverall Speed (general gaming, boot process, transfer of large files on disk or to attached drives)Plenty of RAM for multitaskingAmazing display qualityPlenty of volume and great audioCons:Resolution too high for the small displaylack of documentation for the various Alienware configuration/management tools, and accessory tools (e.g. Soundblaster applications, Qualcomm Atheros network adapater).Really big touchpad (can cause issues while typing).

UPDATE: after using this laptop for another couple of weeks, I have to upgrade from 4 stars to 5 stars. The only negative issue is that I don't personally care for touchpads.Very fast video card, fast pair of CPUs, so it's particularly good for graphics-intensive games like Civilization IV, and OK for chess engines.Came set-up to look like Windows 7 more than Windows 8 in most facets, which was a huge plus to me. Turns on and off very quickly, which is good, because Windows 8.1 seems to have new updates every day or two.The default blue glare from the keyboard aggravates my migraines, but the color can be changed in settings or you can turn it off entirely with a couple keystrokes. The monitor's glare was reducible by built-in software settings so I did not have to install other software to dim the blue while keeping the overall brightness.The speakers are very loud; you certainly don't need to turn them up very far.My three complaints are that to get to "insert" on the built-in keyboard, you have to hold "fn" and press "delete"; that I hate touchpads in general and especially this one (although it does have a touch *screen* so you can use that instead), and that the keyboard just was the wrong size for my overly large hands (I kept hitting the wrong keys.) An external mouse and keyboard corrected all of these problems.

So far there is nothing not to love about this laptop. The set up was super easy and quick. The action of the keys is very smooth and they are slightly larger than the normal keyboard, which is perfect for larger hands. The internet speed is awesome...so quick it is amazing. The graphics are superior to any computer I have ever used. The audio is great. I will update as I use this laptop more, but I wanted to share my instant joy with this laptop.This laptop downloaded a game that the estimated time was 28 minutes in 4 minutes...yeah this system is fast, don't you just love that!!!! There is no pixeling or pausing when playing games. The touchscreen is not really useful for playing games but a very nice feature for daily use of internet browsing. I only complaint I have is that you need a mouse to play the games perfectly, I am sure the manufacturer did not include one because a mouse is a personal choice. Also, the pad does no have the split buttons at the bottom, which I rely on often for better mouse control.Overall, I love this laptop and am amazed at the speed and graphics everytime I use it.

Horrible, blew up when I turned it on, like littlerly key popped of. So expencive, for a horrible laptop, it's copyright to because it's a remake of the Windows 8 and is running the windows 8 soft where down waist your 1,567 bucks. Sending it back right now!