New Alienware Laptops Boast Premium Materials

Dell’s newly updated line of portable gaming machines look to introduce a few more premium materials, and even more high-end processors, into its Alienware line of portable machines.

Based on the hands-on accounts of Engadget, it appears that Dell finally gave the series of laptops the upgrades that many gamers are going to expect at the price points the company is aiming for.

In addition to including new Intel Haswell processors that’ll likely result in at least a 30% boost in battery performance, according to Intel, each will also feature graphics cards from NVIDIA. The Alienware 14, Alienware 17 and the Alienware 18 will drop their plastic build materials in favor of moving to a design that features an aluminum lid and magnesium alloy on the rest of their bodies.

One thing that won’t be disappearing is the LED accent lighting that the Alienware line has become known for. These lights will include a new trackpad that fully glows. Users will be able to adjust this accent lighting based on what zones they are in, making in the dark gameplay that much easier.

The 2013 Alienware line of laptops will all include an Intel quad-core processor and 750GB of onboard storage using a standard hard drive by default. Users will be able to alter the configurations of the machines online, and exchange components, including in the standard configuration with solid state drives and different processors should they choose to do so.

Users can add up to three additional hard drives in the Alienware 14, while the Alienware 17 and Alienware 18 will have enough space to add four hard drives. NVidia’s GTX 756M graphics card with 2GB of RAM will power the visuals on the Alienware 17 and Alienware 18 while the Alienware 14 will ship with the NVidia GTX 750M with only 1GB of memory on the card itself.

Speaking of visuals, each laptop in the line will ship with the option to feature an IPS display with a maximum 1080p resolution, though it’ll only come standard on the larger two models. The Alienware 14 will come standard with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, putting it online with the displays in most of today’s mid-range notebooks.

Dell will also include support for the new 802.11ac wireless standard for faster wireless speeds in the Alienware 17 and 18. The Alienware 14 will feature a Killing Wireless N brand wireless radio for enhanced performance over the wireless included in most laptops.

The entire line can be purchased on the company’s website right now starting at $1,199 for the Alienware 14, $1,499 for the Alienware 17 and $2,099 for the Alienware 18. Dell says that it will release a pared down Alienware 14 with a more modest price tag of $1,099 sometime in the future.