Alienware M14x Laptop Review (Ivy Bridge Refresh)

Over the past few years we have reviewed pretty much everything Alienware has to offer, including the new and very impressive X51 desktop. On the mobile side the most recent system to pass over our test bench was the M14x which was a great balance of the power from the M17x and the portability of the M11x.

Now featuring Ivy Bridge CPUs and NVIDIA 600 series GPUs the M14x is back and today we will be putting it through a selection of real world tests which include media encoding and playback as well as gaming. We'll be putting this i7 based laptop up against the original model in a selection of those tests to find out how much extra performance we can get and whether the system can game satisfactorily a its native resolution.

Packaging and Bundle


Alienware sent out our M14x R2 in a plain black box with Alien logo which differs slightly from the version we received on the original (shown above). Regardless of the external design, inside we find the machine suspended in foam and wrapped in a protective pouch which can be used to keep the system clean and scratch free.


Bundled with the system we find a manual and software discs which make up a reasonably basic set of extras. Also included is our Delta Electronics branded 150w compact PSU which has a blue LED on the end to let us know it is on/off.