When Alienware stopped its popular M15x notebook, then many gaming aficionados were shocked. However, the company had replaced it with smaller M14x, but the question is whether Alienware has done a good job by replacing the 15 inch laptop with a 14 inch laptop. Check out our exclusive Alienware 14X review to know what the machine has in store for you.  

Alienware M14X Build Quality

Among gaming laptops, Alienware’s design is one of the best. Though M14X may be one of the new notebooks in the market, but it has almost all the elements which make Alienware unique. The build quality of M14X is very good as it offers a nice amalgam of metals and plastics. M14X feels solid and the design is quite thick. The chassis of the notebook is quite thick and it does not flex under pressure. Weight can be an issue with M14X as the machine weighs over 6 lbs which makes portability an issue with the machine. One cannot get an easy access to the RAM of the system, hard drive and wireless cards.

Alienware M14x Screen Quality

M14X comes with a couple of screen choices. You get a 14.0″ high def display or 14.0″ High Def+ display. 14.0″ high def display is capable of displaying pictures of resolution measuring 1366×768 pixels. 14.0″ high def+ display is capable of displaying pictures of resolution measuring 1600×900 pixels. The displays are covered with glass recovering which helps to improve contrast and looks in dark rooms. But we observed that under indoor lighting or outside the screen caused reflections. The colors appeared sharp and vibrant and the viewing angles were also very good. While playing HD games, the sound and the colors appeared quite bright and well saturated.

Alienware M14X Keyboard

M14X has traditional styled keyboard which is very much the same as that of other Alienware notebooks. The keys are concave in shape and the key travel is quite good. They have a rubbery non-slippery surface. Overall the keyboard gave us good typing experience and it feels great. The keys require moderate actuation force and hence it provides great advantage to gamers. The keyboard is backlit in nature which facilitates typing in the dark.

Alienware M14X Sound Quality

M14x boasts some great stereo speakers which are located on the either side of the screen hinge just above the keyboard. Because of the position of the speakers, the sound comes out quite clear and we were able to listen to it pretty clearly. Overall the audio quality of the machine is quite good and we did not observe any distortions until and unless we increased the volume to about 90%.

Alienware M14X Specs

Let us take a look at some of the technical specifications of Alienware M14X laptop:

• Dimensions: 1.49×10.17×13.27 inches
• Weight: 6.48 lbs
• Display: 14 inch glossy “edge to edge” full HD display
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
• Processor: Intel Core i7-2630QM quad core processor
• RAM: 8GB DDR3-1333
• HDD: 500 GB
• Warranty: 1 year limited warranty

Alienware M14X Touchpad

The notebook is equipped with a large Synaptics touchpad which is quite responsive and has great matte non-slip surface. Navigation with the touchpad is quite smooth and the couple of touchpad buttons are quite soft and offer quite clicks when pressed. Overall, the company has done a fine job in designing the touchpad which is of great help to gamers.

Alienware M14X Features

The notebook has good selection of ports for a 14 inch laptop. There are a couple of USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 port, a HDMI, Display port, Ethernet, memory card reader. Though there is the lack of expresscard expansion slot, but then very few notebook include express card slot. The selection of ports is fairly good and will serve most of the needs of the users.

Alienware M14X Gaming

For a gaming PC, there are a lot of hardware requirements and Alienware M14x is equipped with most of such features which will targeted towards increasing the gaming performance of the machine. The laptop is equipped with a second generation Intel Core i7 quad-core processor along of 8GB Of RAM and a reasonably quick 500GB of hard disk. These are quite impressive for a gaming laptop and we enjoyed while playing most of the normal as well as HD games in the machine.

Alienware M14X Graphics Card

The notebook is powered by a discrete Nvidia graphics card equipped with Nvidia Optimus technology. There is also in-built Intel graphics which give you high performance.

Alienware M14X Fan Noise And Heat

M14x drives a lot of hot air out of the single exhaust vent located on the back of the chassis. Once the machine is performing, intensive tasks then the fan noise increases dramatically. The fan noise and the fast moving air is loud enough that someone can easily hear it even if they are in a nearby room. We observed that the top of the chassis mostly remained lukewarm while the bottom center gets hot due to the system RAM, but then it did not get too hot either.

Alienware M14X Accessories

During M14x unboxing, we found the machine to be equipped with the following accessories:

• Alienware M14x
• Battery
• AC Adapter
• User manual

Download Alienware M14x user manual.

Alienware M14X Battery Life

During our battery test, we found Alienware M14x battery to give us a runtime of approximately 4 hours. For a gaming laptop this is quite impressive.

Alienware M14X Price

Alienware M14x price in USA is approximately $ 1000 while price of the machine in India is approximately Rs 80,000.

Alienware M14x is a relatively powerful gaming notebook which has plenty of useful features to make it a decent purchase. The powerful processor coupled with intensive graphics make Alienware M14x is power gaming laptop.