Alienware X17 - New EVERYTHING
all right so this is the alienware x17 i've been wanting to get this device in for a really long time a couple months ago i reached out to dell mic hey can you send a review unit over like yeah sure i waited it never came i started seeing it appear in stores i started seeing people buy it in retail locations i'm like where's the review unit and i started to get a little suspicious because companies do this thing where they don't send me devices when they know i'm going to take a steaming dump on it like it's happened before in the past with other brands and i'm like maybe this is it maybe this is one of those products so i go and buy it i order one online and then a week and a half after i order it my order gets cancelled the reasons like you know it's damaged in shipping or whatever and they're going to start a new order i'm like what is going on right it honestly felt like they were trying to hide something so i get this thing and finally and my review on this thing was very thorough more thorough than a regular device because i just felt like something had to be something had to be up right okay so alienware x17 brand new product like new design new chassis new thermal system new everything but it only comes with this white color on the exterior it's a color that i like and every time i've ever picked up an alienware device over the past few years i've gone for this color but it's not for everyone i do think it does show the kind of curvature and design language of the laptop better with like a lighter color you can see the details a little bit better but the interior also only comes in one color and it is a dark i want to say black but it's not quite black it's like this really really dark gray that's got this speckled pattern to it and this material is very prone to fingerprints now i do like the look of it but i am surprised that they only offered in one color like in the past alienware's top end devices have had two sometimes even three color options for the exterior and it's just strange that they only offer one right now this might change in the future it could be because of manufacturing during the pandemic but it is a little strange to me now the tail end of the device still has that iconic alienware look so it's got that rgb trim light as well as the hexagonal grid for the exhaust they have upgraded the trim light this year so you can extensively customize the lighting on the rear of the device if you so choose okay so when they first announced the x product one of the first features they talked about was how thin this was gonna be it was like this i think was the thinnest product alienware has ever put out i think that was like the marketing uh terminology they used and my initial reaction was like that can't be good right because alienware devices have never been about thin they've always been thicker but they've been really really well built these things are super solid right and i thought that by going this thing they would lose a lot of that structural tankiness but it's super solid this thing feels like a tank and i'm actually surprised that they've been able to keep that structural rigidity while making it so thin it is heavy i mean it's a 17 inch device but it's built well i think that's the most important thing when it comes to any bigger device good build quality and they've done a good job in that front now to get inside the back panel comes off quite easily but there's some good things and there's some less good things so there's two nvme slots one of them being pcie four so you can go super fast the other one is just pcie three but here's the weird stuff so the x17 comes with a wi-fi card that's baked on but removable ram the x15 is flipped it's the reverse of that it's got removable wi-fi but the ram is baked on now neither of these cases are ideal right for the user we want removable everything it's strange to me that they did that on the x17 in particular baked wi-fi is never good and the wi-fi card they went with killer like i would have swapped this out for just a regular stock intel but you can't now the x17 is running four fans two big ones and then two smaller ones and in addition to these fans they're also running a new thermal compound it's a phase change material that's gallium based now i've never used this stuff i've never seen this stuff outside of the x17 so i can't really comment on previous applications of it but they've done a really fantastic job with this new thermal system on the x17 it cools incredibly well now i don't know how much that is due to the phase change material or it's just because there's four fans in there just pulling out heat doing work but it's good better than i would have expected for alienware because in their past the devices have usually run hot but it's not just compared to alienware devices like this is better than the competition when it comes to 17-inch gaming devices they're usually thicker and louder but the x17 is able to keep up with some of the best stuff out there now when it comes to overclocking so if you look at any of my alienware reviews i've done over the past few years i tend not to even touch the overclocking options because the devices are usually at their thermal limit if they're not overheating they're close to it so why push it even harder right but this year because the x-17s it had so much potential i wanted to see how far this thing can go so i bumped up the clock threw in a bit of an undervolt and i was getting some very impressive numbers now one thing to keep in mind if you're someone who wants to re-paste it or you just want to take a look at the thermal interface material it is a flipped motherboard so you have to do a fairly extensive disassembly if you want access to the cpu and gpu side okay the battery so this is a pretty big battery and i got around four and a half hours of battery life with my regular testing but this is with the 4k panel if you get one of the lower rest screens like of the 1080p options you'll probably get 10 maybe 15 more battery life on the device the keyboard uses the same cherry mx mechanical switches that we saw a few months ago on the last iteration of the 17-inch device i really like these keys they're not for everyone it's got that like ping sound if you type super fast on it i really like the feel of it but it's something that if for one of your noise sensitive like if you don't want a loud keyboard this ain't the move uh but i also think that if you don't like that type of tactility like there's people out there that just don't like that type of clickiness to their keyboard then you won't like this either but i think most people will enjoy the typing experience and especially the gaming experience this is a really nice keyboard to game on it does not have a number pad if you remember the last mechanical keyboard i showed you from these guys they had a number pad on the 17-inch device it's gone i like that i don't use number pads but i feel like most people would prefer to be on i don't know uh okay the one thing i do not like about this keyboard is the lack of backlighting on many of the secondary functions of these keys so any of the f keys or even like the numerics like if you want to use like the ampersand or the money sign like if you're using any of those functions in the dark and you don't know it off the top of your head it's impossible to see you actually like tilt the screen look at it with the glow from the screen it's a thing this needs to be fixed but aside from that keyboard is great okay trackpad this lights up now if i'm not mistaken this only lights up with the highest configurations like the rtx 3080 configurations it's cool but i think they should have put it on the lower end configurations as well now in terms of the screens they have three options right now they have a 4k panel and two 1080p options this one's the 4k panel and it looks awesome it's bright it's very color accurate and it's super fast it's a nice screen however it doesn't have advanced optimus or any kind of mux switch so if you're playing certain games at certain resolutions with the built-in display you can be losing some friends now personally for the stuff that i play it doesn't matter at all but that's not the point if you're buying a device with this caliber right this kind of price point it should have it and i feel like everyone else is doing all the competitors are capable of doing it this doesn't have it now there is a mid-tier option like a 1080p 360 hertz panel that does support advanced optimus which is great but the 4k panel as well
as the entry level screen do not support
the ability to connect directly to video card for the best possible performance one thing else that i noticed the panel it's got reasonably thin bezels and whatever but this cannot
support one of those newer 16 by 10 aspect ratio screens so down the line if alienware wants to stick in a taller
screen they'd have to redesign the whole front panel which is a bit unfortunate okay
with the ports so there's no ports on the side well there's a power plug on the left and a headphone jack on the right but all of the ports are on the back of the device and i like it but there's a couple things number one the micro sd is in a really bad spot you got to reach the back of the device to plug it in and pull it out so if you're transferring files frequently it's a pain in the butt but overall the port selection is pretty good now the ac
adapter it comes with on the high end model is a 330 watt ac adapter that is very big and very heavy now if you get one of the lower spec x17s like a 3060 or a 37 equipped one you get a smaller adapter 240 watts but it's also using
the new gallium nitrate based technology right so it's a thinner smaller more
portable package i really would have
liked to seen that tech in the 330 watt
adapter as well but you know what speaking of things i don't like about the x17 another big one for me is the software i do not like
alienware's command setter it's cluttered it's confusing it's not
intuitive the lighting system isn't going to change the software isn't great
if i'm being honest i feel like alienware has the worst software in the
gaming laptop market right now it's really bad uh the other thing are the speakers so if you've noticed i didn't mention them right you don't even need to hear them they're trash but i will say this it is strange to me that alienware spent the time and the money and the resources to give you a rainbow trackpad but they couldn't give you good speakers like macbooks and like some huawei devices some xiaomi devices have great speakers how are they putting this stuff like everyone's got the same kind of trash speakers they're all junk it just kills me that this is what is appearing in a new device from alienware where they had the opportunity to give you something brand new right but they give you the expected terrible gaming laptop speakers okay so overall i like this device a lot more than i ever thought i would um
the pricing on it so
this is about
250 or 300 more than a competing product
whether or not that's worth it to you
it's entirely up to your budget right
but i will say this this is hard to
compare to other products because it's got such a unique look such a unique
thermal system a unique design unique lighting system this is hard to compare
like in the traditional sense when it comes to comparing laptops but
i like it i like what i'm seeing and when i thought that alienware was trying
to hide something no way the x17 is powerful it's thin it's capable properly
cooled it's something that i just never would have expected to come out from
alienware if i'm being completely honest
but
it's here okay hope you guys enjoyed
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