Generally speaking, pioneering products always leave a deep impression on people. There is no doubt that Dell's Alienware 13 OLED is such a product. Although there are many notebooks using OLED displays on CES 2016, Alienware is the first to be released, and now we have it. OLED screens are usually brighter than IPS screens, and the same is true for contrast, color saturation, and response speed. In addition, OLED also saves more power (* Translator's note: The original text has some omissions. In fact, the brightness of OLED screen is always lower than that of IPS of the same generation.) . Mobile phones have been using OLED as screens for a long time. The screens of Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge phones are very popular because their screens can provide a higher brightness and more vivid colors. The colors of photos viewed on OLED screens are also more vivid.
However, OLED screens are not cheap. Generally, OLED displays or TVs with 30 inch or more will sell for thousands of dollars. With the improvement of manufacturing technology, OLED displays are gradually used in various mainstream electronic devices. Gradually, high-end electronic products such as Alienware 13 are also equipped with OLED screens.
Alienware put the latest sixth generation Skylake processor into this 4.5 pound (about 4 kg) game notebook. In addition to this beautiful OLED screen, although its appearance is similar to that of its family products, it has changed a lot.
Parameter configuration
Processor: Intel Core i7 dual core processor, main frequency 2.5GHz (up to 3.1GHz)
System: Windows 10， 64 bit Home Edition
Screen: 13.3 inch OLED display, resolution 2560 x 1440, 1ms response time
Storage space: 512GB M.2 NVMe PCI-E solid state disk
Memory: 8GB LPDDR3-1600
Audio: Creative Soundblaster X-Fi MB3, Klipsch 2.0 microphone
Camera: 2 megapixel camera, supporting 1080P shooting, dual microphones
Data connection: Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1
Left side interface: a USB 3.0, headset/microphone interface, power interface, lock
Right side interface: one USB 3.0, one USB Type-C interface supporting Thunderbolt, and one Gigabit Ethernet LAN interface
Back interface: one Graphics AMP interface, one HDMI 1.4 interface
Battery: 4-cell 62 Whr battery
Weight: 4.537 lbs (about 4.1 kg)
Body size: 12.91mm x 9.25mm x 1.09mm
Light: backlight keyboard, 8-zone customizable light color
Warranty: 1 year hardware warranty
In addition to the ultra fast solid-state drive, Alienware 13 is also equipped with a USB Type-C interface that can support Thunderbolt, and the bandwidth is high enough, Another upgrade of the AW 13 is its GPU. It is equipped with the GeForce GTX 965M, which is slightly more advanced than its predecessor GTX 960M. It can provide 1024 shading units and 64 texture units, but the 965M is not much better than the 960M. In our game performance test, it has only improved by 10-15%.
Design, process and system
The appearance design of AW 13 is not very different from its family products. The iconic shell is inlaid with an alien's head. It looks very similar to Alienware 13 R2. To be honest, I think it is also time for Dell to update the appearance of its Alienware laptops, or perhaps replace them with aluminum alloy bodies? It's better than the current plastic fuselage, but we still like the oblique cutting edge of the fuselage, which looks very muscular.
In any case, the most significant upgrade point can be seen almost at a glance. It is the new OLED display, with a resolution of 2560 x 1440, a brightness of 300 nits, a pixel response speed of 1ms, and a color gamut of 104% Adobe RGB. It looks absolutely beautiful.
When I saw Dell's XPS 15 for the first time, I was shocked by its screen. The screen with almost no borders looks very impressive. At the same time, its contrast, brightness and saturation are also excellent. Although the frame of Alienware 13 OLED is wide enough to run a carriage, I believe you will be shocked when you see this OLED screen for the first time, because its appearance is really great. This 13.3-inch screen is high enough in brightness, and can achieve almost pure black. High saturation colors can catch your eyes almost at once, This screen is perfect. I love this screen so much. We seldom give such high praise to a screen. It is really a screen of high quality. Other notebooks can't compare with it. AW 13 OLED is better in all aspects.
By the way, OLED still has a certain probability of burning the screen. Especially if a static image is displayed all the time without moving, the probability of burning the screen is higher than that of IPS. In fact, there is no need to worry about it. After all, this is only a few cases. We also talked about this problem with Alienware. They said that Dell will provide after-sales protection in this regard, so there is no need to be so nervous.
After testing this machine for some time, we found a highlight, that is, the Graphics AMP interface of Alienware. You may not know this interface very well. It is an external video card interface. You can insert a desktop video card into this interface, which is similar to Razer Core of Razer. Looking further, there is an Ethernet interface, a USB 3 interface and a USB Type-C interface with Thunderbolt function on the right side of the fuselage, and there is a power interface, a latch, a USB 3 interface and an audio interface on the left side.
(Connectors on the left, back, and right of the computer)
The AW 13 keyboard has a good touch, with a well-defined key cap and a large touchpad. The keyboard is backlit. Alienware's AlienFX lighting system allows you to customize up to 8 areas of light colors. You can set different colors for each area. After setting, the effect looks absolutely great! The experience of keyboard input and touch pad is very good. Although the keyboard area is not as large as some 14 inch laptops, the AW13 is also very comfortable to type, the key schedule is very reasonable, and the key feedback is also very comfortable. Although the AW 13 is larger for the 13 inch laptop, it is still quite portable. The 4.5 pound weight in the bag will not be too heavy. You will be happy to take it to Starbucks and other places. I believe that the return rate of this laptop will not be lower than that of MacBook.
(Replaceable memory and hard disk)
Finally, most of the laptops on the market do not support post upgrade memory or storage space. The AW 13 can easily replace memory or storage space. It also supports M.2 interface solid state disk and standard 2.5 inch SATA hard disk, whichever you choose.
performance testing
Before we started the run score test comparison, we encountered an embarrassing situation, because the 4.5 pound AW 13 is more powerful than many larger and heavier machines. We don't know which computers to compare with, so you can see in the figure below that we use some lightweight Compared with AW 13, Ultrabooks with less than 4 pounds and games with heavier and more powerful performance may not have the strongest performance. After all, every computer has many models to choose from, different processors, different memories, etc., but these data should tell you some basic information about AW 13's daily use and game performance.
We decided to take a look at the performance of AW 13's hard disk first. We used ATTO to test its data throughput.
（ATTO Disk）
It's good for a notebook to behave like this, with a reading speed of 1.5GB/S and a writing speed of 300MB/S.
(Sunspider test, the lower the value, the better)
Next, we use Sunspider JavaScript to test the browser performance. AW 13 OLED achieved the second best result in this test, only slightly behind XPS 15.
(Cinebench, the higher the value, the better)
Cinebench can use CPU and GPU to render high-precision 3D scene images, and will use all the cores and threads of the processor. Of all the dual core processors we have tested, AW 13 OLED has the best performance, and its image performance is also the best in the OpenGL test. AW 13 OLED shows that it is an excellent laptop with strength, and it is familiar with ordinary office work and even complex image processing.
Alienware 13 OLED PCMark 8 and 3DMark Performance Test
PCMark 8 v2 is Futuremark's latest computer performance testing tool, which is used to test the performance of various aspects of the system. PCMark 8 provides five different tests, as well as battery life test, so that users can test which computers meet their needs.
The latest version of PCMark 8 adds image processing, video editing and other items to Home mode and Work mode, so as to obtain more comprehensive test results. We tested three modules: Home, Work and Storage.
(PCMark 8, the higher the value, the better. Yellow represents storage test, dark blue represents office mode, light blue represents home mode)
Although AW 13 OLED is lower than Acer S7-393 in storage test, AW 13 performs best in home and work mode tests.
(3DMark, the higher the value, the better)
3DMark Firestrike and Sky Diver image performance test, The GeForce GTX 965M of Alienware 13 OLED performs well, a little better than the GTX 960M device. In the test, Alienware tries to control the heat level of the GPU while maintaining its strong performance, which is good.
Game Test
Biochemical Raiders: Unlimited This game is based on Epic's illusory 3 engine. It is a first person shooting game. This game has also won awards in art design. The picture is certainly not bad.
(In the game test of Biochemical Raiders, the higher the value, the better. Blue represents the average frame rate, and yellow represents the lowest frame rate)
In this game test, we also compared the AW 13 OLED with some game notebooks with more powerful performance. The AW 13 has no problem playing the game at 1080P resolution, but the average performance of 49 frames per second is only medium in all test results.
The picture of "Middle Earth World: Shadowmaster" is very real even in the lowest special effect settings. In order to test the limits of Alienware, a high-end computer, we tested this game in different resolutions, up to 2560 x 1440, which just fits the resolution of its screen, We turned on all special effects, including FXAA.
(The game test of China Earth World, average frame rate under different resolutions)
This test result is very interesting. Under 1080P, even if the special effects are fully turned on, AW 13 OLEDs have no pressure to play, with an average of 50 frames. But when playing at the screen's native resolution, the experience is relatively poor, with an average of 34 frames. The good news is that even if the 1080P resolution is used, the game picture is very good, so we think the game picture should be set to 1080P.
It's smooth to play Tomb Raider: Rise under 1080P, but it's going to be a little hard at 1440P. As mentioned before, the game picture of 1080P looks great, so it's unnecessary to set it to 1440P.
(Tomb Raider game test, average frame rate at different resolutions)
Endurance and noise
We used two battery life methods to test, Battery Eater Pro battery test and 1080P HD video playback cycle. We turn on Quiet Hours (a Do Not Disturb mode under Win 10), and then calibrate the screen brightness to 115 lux (lighting unit), which is about 45-60% of the screen brightness. Because the screen brightness has a great impact on battery life, we try to adjust it to a suitable brightness for battery life test.
We used Battery Eater Pro to carry out some heavy tests, as well as some high-definition video playback cycles. Battery Eater Pro will exhaust the processor GPU、 Memory and hard disk processing power to consume power.
(Battery Eater Pro endurance test, value unit: minute)
In the Battery Eater test, the AW 13 OLED performs well compared with other laptops, with a 2 hour and 45 minute battery life. However, if you want to play games with this computer, you'd better make sure that the power is plugged in at all times, especially when its GeForce GTX 965M is playing, it will consume more power.
(Video looping test, value unit: minute)
The 2K screen of AW 13 OLED must be a big power consumer, and we didn't expect it to perform well in the endurance. However, in the video cycle test, for a game notebook, the nearly five hours of high-definition video playback time is very good. By the way, in this test, the CPU integrated display HD520 is working, GeForce GTX 965M has not been run.
About Alienware 13 OLED Noise
This laptop has a NVIDIA GPU and a dual core processor (the main frequency can reach 3.1GHz). You may think that the machine will be very noisy when it is operating at full load. This is indeed the case. When we are running the score test, the fan has already turned crazily. Especially when playing games, the noise is as loud as singing. When operating at full load, the bottom of AW 13 OLED will become very hot, and the temperature at the air outlet will also be very high. However, we prefer the timely heat dissipation of AW 13 OLED.
summary
The AW 13 OLED has strong performance, and its size and weight are so small that it is a portable game book. Although the GTX 965M is hard to run 1440P games, you can play games with the highest special effects at 1080P resolution, which is also a good choice. Alienware 13 OLED has a good experience in use, and its appearance design is also quite eye-catching, and this OLED screen can absolutely meet most users who need frequent image processing. It is believed that most users who like the portable game notebook with strong performance will be attracted by Dell's Alienware 13 OLED notebook.
Highlights
drawback
Translation and arrangement of pictures and texts
