Alienware 13 R3, 1060 6GB, 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, I5-6300HQ IPS Screen, Win 10 - $880 After Rebate

https://slickdeals.net/f/10588468-a...-ssd-880-after-300-slickdeals-rebate-free-s-h

You can get a OLED screen for an additional $250.
I wanted the OLED screen, but they make you jump to 1440p size screen with OLED and I personally think that resolution would be too small for 13" in Windows. In games the text would be pretty darn small at 1440. (since most games don't have scaling UI)

I think this is the best deal I've seen on a 1060 6GB based gaming laptop so far. At 1080p the 1060 6GB should be able to play any game on the market pegged at 60FPS.

These laptops allow for the Alienware Graphics Amplifier too - so you can upgrade the video card for desktop use if you have a higher resolution monitor you'd like to use.

I've got one with OLED - the text is fine in games that I've played. Great system too. Love it to death.

lopoetve said:

I've got one with OLED - the text is fine in games that I've played. Great system too. Love it to death.

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1440p on 13" is fine? You got better eyes than me. I thought 1440p on 27" was on the small size and think 1440p at 32" is just about right for font size and text scale and UI!

Archaea said:

1440p on 13" is fine? You got better eyes than me. I thought 1440p on 27" was on the small size and think 1440p at 32" is just about right for font size and text scale and UI!

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Win10 scaling is fine nowadays. At 1440p, the screen can effectively downscale perfectly to 1280x720 for games that want it.

Was looking at this, then I saw its almost 6lbs. My 15.6" msi with a gtx 970 was a hair over 4. Don't need that much of a workout.

jeremyshaw said:

Win10 scaling is fine nowadays. At 1440p, the screen can effectively downscale perfectly to 1280x720 for games that want it.

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That is a load of shit too as 1280x720 looks like blurry garbage on a native 1440p screen compared to native res. It sounds like you are one of those people that subscribes to the myth that 1/4 the res will look just as good. That is nonsense on a monitor as they dont have a scaler like most TVs have so the lower the res the worse it will look and nothing magical happens at 1/4 the pixels.

jeremyshaw said:

Win10 scaling is fine nowadays. At 1440p, the screen can effectively downscale perfectly to 1280x720 for games that want it.

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Not interested in 1280x720. I have about that now on my Alienware m11x from 2010. It doesn't show enough onscreen content on some games to even be worth playing. Some games the assets don't scale so you end up with a big character in the middle and you can't see far on left or right. Path of Exile for example. At high res you can see so much more of the game world! But at 1440 the UI would be so small at 13" LCD that I'd have to put my face 6" from the screen!!!

I'd have paid the $250 for 1080p OLED, but not for 1440p. Too many compromises with 1440p at 13". If only playing brand new games it'd probably work out better but I sometimes use a laptop at LAN parties and old games abound. Can you imagine trying to read the UI in an older unreal tournament at 1440p and 13"??? You'd need a magnifying glass to read the console text or chat messages.

I don't think a 1440p screen scales well to 1080 either (at least that I've seen) and a 1060 6gb is a better match for 1080p max settings than 1440p max settings anyway. All around it seems like a poor upgrade choice (with the exception of better blacks)

Have they fixed OLED burn in issues on these displays? (as another possible concern). I know the OLED TVS at my local Best Buy have bad burn in. But I don't know the tech differences --- if any.

misterbobby said:

That is a load of shit too as 1280x720 looks like blurry garbage on a native 1440p screen compared to native res. It sounds like you are one of those people that subscribes to the myth that 1/4 the res will look just as good. That is nonsense on a monitor as they dont have a scaler like most TVs have so the lower the res the worse it will look and nothing magical happens at 1/4 the pixels.

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People dont understand that pixel resize is not a thing in monitors. and they use filters to make it look better but also eliminate the pixel perfections when upscaling whole number ratios.

misterbobby said:

That is a load of shit too as 1280x720 looks like blurry garbage on a native 1440p screen compared to native res. It sounds like you are one of those people that subscribes to the myth that 1/4 the res will look just as good. That is nonsense on a monitor as they dont have a scaler like most TVs have so the lower the res the worse it will look and nothing magical happens at 1/4 the pixels.

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I speak from experience. I have plenty of higher resolution displays (including the U2711 in my sig) from an XPS 13 with the high resolution display to a 70" 4k TV. You may have been unlucky enough to deal with monitors and GPUs that don't support scaling, however your experience is hardly indicative of my experience.

Archaea said:

Not interested in 1280x720. I have about that now on my Alienware m11x from 2010. It doesn't show enough onscreen content on some games to even be worth playing. Some games the assets don't scale so you end up with a big character in the middle and you can't see far on left or right. Path of Exile for example. At high res you can see so much more of the game world! But at 1440 the UI would be so small at 13" LCD that I'd have to put my face 6" from the screen!!!

I'd have paid the $250 for 1080p OLED, but not for 1440p. Too many compromises with 1440p at 13". If only playing brand new games it'd probably work out better but I sometimes use a laptop at LAN parties and old games abound. Can you imagine trying to read the UI in an older unreal tournament at 1440p and 13"??? You'd need a magnifying glass to read the console text or chat messages.

I don't think a 1440p screen scales well to 1080 either (at least that I've seen) and a 1060 6gb is a better match for 1080p max settings than 1440p max settings anyway. All around it seems like a poor upgrade choice (with the exception of better blacks)

Have they fixed OLED burn in issues on these displays? (as another possible concern). I know the OLED TVS at my local Best Buy have bad burn in. But I don't know the tech differences --- if any.

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Heh Archaea, I do mostly limit myself to older games, so perhaps we have similar POVs for GUI element scaling. How is the m11x treating you? 2010 is first gen I believe? I sold mine off after repairing the hinges on it, but I otherwise liked it. Optimus really is a game changer for laptops, especially since I had the fun of dealing with "switchable" GPU laptops in the past. Hopefully your next laptop treats you better. 13" laptops with decent GPUs were often a rare sight and we are now seeing the proliferation of single channel DDR3/4 into the more expensive compact laptops, too (Thinkpad X2xx series, Latitude 7280).

Personally, I have been fine with non-pixel perfect scaling on these higher DPI monitors. Probably a bygone remnant of my upbringing playing games on old laptops. My first PC with a workable GPU was a HP Slimline, after all.

As for burn-in, supposedly so. I've also had a Lenovo Thinkpad X220 in 2013 with an IPS display that had burn-in issues and there have been newer laptops with screen burn in issues, so the issue still crops up outside of OLED, too. Supposedly, the Alienware 13 is aggressive with limiting pixel usage, but I haven't seen much on reddit or NBR on OLED burn in with the OLED screen. Dell also seems to get their screens from LG, which is different from the more common Samsung OLED tech.

jeremyshaw said:

I speak from experience. I have plenty of higher resolution displays (including the U2711 in my sig) from an XPS 13 with the high resolution display to a 70" 4k TV. You may have been unlucky enough to deal with monitors and GPUs that don't support scaling, however your experience is hardly indicative of my experience.

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You are just oblivious to it and have no clue what you are talking about as monitors do not have a real scaler and the gpu does almost nothing for making it look better. It is a FACT on a monitor that the lower the resolution below native then the worse it will look and again nothing magical happens at 1/4 the res.

misterbobby said:

You are just oblivious to it and have no clue what you are talking about as monitors do not have a real scaler and the gpu does almost nothing for making it look better. It is a FACT on a monitor that the lower the resolution below native then the worse it will look and again nothing magical happens at 1/4 the res.

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Except your missing one detail:

At 1/2 rez: (1/4 the pixels) each pixel is doubled, leaving *EVERY* pixel doubled, so there's no awkward scaling.

IE: 1920x1080 on a 2560 monitor? Looks terrible, because some pixels are doubled and some aren't. But 1920x1080 looks PERFECT on a 4K, cuz each pixel is doubled.

Guarana [BAWLS] said:

Except your missing one detail:

At 1/2 rez: (1/4 the pixels) each pixel is doubled, leaving *EVERY* pixel doubled, so there's no awkward scaling.

IE: 1920x1080 on a 2560 monitor? Looks terrible, because some pixels are doubled and some aren't. But 1920x1080 looks PERFECT on a 4K, cuz each pixel is doubled.

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You need to pay more attention as AGAIN I have already said that is nothing more than a myth on a monitor. 1920x1080 looks WORSE than 2560x1440 on a 4k monitor and that is a FACT and always will be until a monitor comes out with a scaler like you find in most good TVs.

misterbobby said:

You need to pay more attention as AGAIN I have already said that is nothing more than a myth on a monitor. 1920x1080 looks WORSE than 2560x1440 on a 4k monitor and that is a FACT and always will be until a monitor comes out with a scaler like you find in most good TVs.

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Whatever you say.....

lopoetve said:

I've got one with OLED - the text is fine in games that I've played. Great system too. Love it to death.

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Can you download Path of Exile. It's free, and take a picture of it so I can see how it looks? I'd be interested in the OLED of that game is playable. Or torchlight 2 or unreal tournament?

Could anyone with an OLED 1440p screen on this 13" Alienware take a photo of the windows text, game UI, browsing experience at 100% - etc. you've got me second guessing whether I should have paid for the extra for the OLED. I read a professional review that said the OLED screen on these Alienware machines is the best screen that is available on any laptop from any manufacture.

Archaea said:

Can you download Path of Exile. It's free, and take a picture of it so I can see how it looks? I'd be interested in the OLED of that game is playable. Or torchlight 2 or unreal tournament?

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Which UT?

Archaea said:

Could anyone with an OLED 1440p screen on this 13" Alienware take a photo of the windows text, game UI, browsing experience at 100% - etc. you've got me second guessing whether I should have paid for the extra for the OLED. I read a professional review that said the OLED screen on these Alienware machines is the best screen that is available on any laptop from any manufacture.

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Sure. Gimme a bit. Out today but when I get home I will

lopoetve said:

Which UT?

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Older games specifically - like UT2004 or 2003. Really just a screen print of a few games at 1440p with 13.3" screen. I can't imagine that working. I'd like to see what it looks like to see if I want to cancel and re-order.

I've even got the right binary for 2k4 downloaded somewhere here. I play that on a 15" 4k screen

sorry, wife borrowed the A13 as soon as we got home to play VR games. As soon as she's done I'll get UT on there. Looking up Path now.

Is this deal dead? The link doesn’t say but it doesn’t link me to the “deal” either.

Nice, wish I could jump on this now to replace my old M11X R2 laptop that I still use today. I got it on a deal posted here too back in 2011 for about the same price actually. It's still a decent laptop too besides this low res 720p display. I've since it an SSD and newer battery in it as well. I was just playing the South Park Stick if Truth on it over the weekend while I was away, hah.

lopoetve said:

sorry, wife borrowed the A13 as soon as we got home to play VR games. As soon as she's done I'll get UT on there. Looking up Path now.

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I think the text native 100% scaling at 1440p would be every bit as small as a feared. Even 1080p at 13 inches at 100% the text is super small!

My Alienware 13 came in last night. I'm impressed! It's in a different league compared to most any windows laptop of any make or model at anywhere near the same price. The moment the LED colors all light up at power on, including the touchpad LED, is almost awe inducing. The IPS screen that comes with the Alienware 13 is honestly still one step down from my MacBook pro, but it's better than most laptop screens I've ever been exposed to outside of MacBook equipment. (I've not experienced an OLED laptop screen yet). And since Windows scaling, even in 10, still sucks - frankly - I'm glad I went with the 1080p screen. The keyboard feels great, the laptop in general feels a cut above - nice heft, solid, no flex, great cosmetics, nice rubberized feel. The touchpad is great -- but not quite as good as a MacBook pro IMO for feel and smoothness. Considering the 1060 graphics card and the laptop hardware and the $880 price I'm REALLY pleased with this purchase. It's plenty punchy, and responsive in daily use and some gaming I tried.

I brought it into work today and my fellow techs were impressed. Say what you want about Alienware - I know it's a company that has its fans and its haters -- but their build quality is just a tier above most of the PC laptops on the market. I suspect with the OLED screen this laptop would have rivaled my $3000 MacBook pro head on for productivity use -- just that 1440p at 13" with windows scaling is not something I want to deal with. (Mac OSX scales resolution much better than Windows 10).

I hadn't even read many reviews before I bought this - I bought it on the name and price alone because I have an old M11X R1 that has served me flawlessly since about 2010 or 2011. Reading a review today - I see this review conclusion from notebookcheck.net

Overall, the Alienware 13 R3 is not only one of the best 13-inch systems on the market, but also one of the best gaming notebooks in general. There are hardly any real problems and points of criticism, so it is by far the best device in our mobile Top 10 ranking. Even the rating of the high-quality Razer Blade is a few points lower (overall rating: 85 instead of 88%).
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-13-R3-Notebook-Review.197508.0.html

i got the alienware r3 15 chose 1080 screen over 4k because of scaling issues. you don't really need anything higher than 1080p on a laptop screen unless you plan on professionally photo editing or something like that. also i don't really miss touch screen on this laptop. i know non of these laptops come with that feature

Guarana [BAWLS] said:

Except your missing one detail:

At 1/2 rez: (1/4 the pixels) each pixel is doubled, leaving *EVERY* pixel doubled, so there's no awkward scaling.

IE: 1920x1080 on a 2560 monitor? Looks terrible, because some pixels are doubled and some aren't. But 1920x1080 looks PERFECT on a 4K, cuz each pixel is doubled.

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That's not true. 1080p on 4k screens still looks like shit until nvidia allows for integer scaling