Alienware 13 Gaming Ultraportable

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The Alienware 13 is an ultraportable gaming notebook PC. With a unique screen size of 13.3″ in the gaming notebook category, the Alienware 13 doesn’t offer top performance. It rather delivers mid-range gaming potential in a portable form factor. The mid-tier Intel Core i5-4210U dual-core processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M 2GB video card are packed in a 1.1″ thick chassis with a total weight of 4.5 pounds. Quite thin and light for a gaming notebook.

However, graphics department of the laptop is expandable with help of an external separately sold graphics card box. The device is officially called Alienware Graphics Amplifier. It’s a 300-dollar box with a PCI Express slot in which you can insert a desktop-use graphics card, a power supply, and its own power cable. Both Nvidia and AMD video cards are supported. The Amplifier connects to the Alienware 13 via a proprietary cable.

Alienware 13 with Graphics Amplifier

As for RAM memory, the Alienware 13 ships with 8 or 16GB, both sufficient for all home, office, and gaming scenarios. Data storage choices are a 500GB hard drive combined with 8GB of Flash memory for data caching, a 1-Terabyte HDD, a 256GB solid state drive. The notebook has no built-in DVD drive.

The display comes in three different variants: 1366×768-pixel TN panel with 200-nits brightness, 1920×1080 with IPS wide viewing angle tech and increased 350-nit brightness, and a 2560×1440 IPS 400 nit panel. The last one can optionally have touchscreen support.

Regarding other on-body features, notable are a well-sized keyboard with backlight and programmable keys for easier game commands, a trackpad with integrated click buttons, Klipsch certified stereo speakers located on the left and right sides of the laptop, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and mini DisplayPort video connectors, and Gigabit Ethernet LAN port. The laptop also has Wi-Fi 802.11AC wireless and Bluetooth connections. A memory card reader is missing on this model.

The 4-cell battery with a 52WHr capacity is quite big for an ultraportable laptop. Dell hasn’t officially provided info on battery life, but judging from the specs it should be certainly good for more than five hours of web surfing and obviously much less if you game on it.

Specifications of the Alienware 13

Here are the specs of the Alienware 13 with descriptions of its features. For comparison against other laptops, you can use the "Compare Specs" button.

Brand Dell
Screen Size 13.3-inch

This is a small display size, typical for ultraportable laptops. There are however laptops with even smaller screens.
Screen Resolution 1366x768 pixels HD

This is an entry-level screen resolution, oftentimes found on budget laptops. It doesn't deliver picture sharpness and space on the screen like the Full HD or higher resolution laptop displays do.

1920x1080 pixels Full HD

Full HD is the most common laptop screen resolution today. It provides a good image sharpness and a decent amount of space on the display for the user interface and programs. However, it isn't as good as the top-tier 4K Ultra HD.

2560x1440 pixels

This screen resolution provides a decent picture sharpness and a lot of space on the display for the user interface and apps. It's somewhat better than the popular Full HD. However, these resolutions aren't as good as the premium-class 4K and similar.
Touchscreen Finger multi-touch input (optional)

The device optionally comes with touchscreen capability.
Other Display Specs IPS or TN, depending on configuration

Displays based on the old TN technology lack wide viewing angles you can find on IPS screens. The colors may look washed out or inverted at certain viewing angles on the TN screens.
Processor (CPU) Intel Core i5-4210U 4th Gen dual-core 1.7-2.7GHz 3MB cache (User Benchmark CPU score: 35)
Graphics (GPU) Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M 2GB GDDR5 Dedicated Video Card
System Memory (RAM) Size 8GB RAM

The 8GB RAM size is the standard one in 2023. It provides comfortable multi-tasking for the most home and office users.

16GB RAM

16GB and greater RAM sizes are recommended for heavy multitasking, gaming, and specialized programs that require a lot of RAM.
Data Storage 256GB SSD

256GB is a decent capacity. If you tend to download and store a lot of large files like movies and install many programs, 512GB or more is a better choice.

500GB + 8GB HDD / SSD Hybrid

This is a very good capacity, but the HDD portion is a slow type of storage.

1000GB (1TB) HDD

1TB is an excellent storage capacity, but HDD is a slow type of storage.
DVD Optical Drive None
Keyboard & Input Backlit keyboard without dedicated number pad

The keyboard has backlit keys for easier typing in the dark. There's no separate numeric pad you can typically find on the right side of the keyboard on many laptop models.

Touchpad with click buttons built into the surface

The left and right click buttons are built into the surface of the touchpad, as opposed to separate physical buttons.

Touchscreen
Speakers & Audio Stereo speakers

As usual, the device features a pair of built-in stereo speakers.
Camera Front-facing web camera

Laptops usually feature a frontal webcam located on the display bezel. This laptop is no exception.
Wi-Fi Wireless 802.11AC

The 802.11AC is the previous-generation wireless networking standard. It's also known as Wi-Fi 5. 802.11AC is succeeded by 802.11AX Wi-Fi 6 with data transfer speed and multi-device connectivity improvements.

802.11N

802.11N is an old Wi-Fi standard, precursor of the 802.11AC and the latest 802.11AX with improved data transfer speeds and connectivity. 802.11N is rarely used in modern laptops.
Ethernet Network Port Yes

This laptop has an Ethernet LAN port for wired internet and networking connectivity.
Mobile broadband (4G LTE) No
Bluetooth Yes

This laptop has a built-in Bluetooth module. It enables you to connect the computer to Bluetooth mice and other Bluetooth peripherals, smartphones, and other Bluetooth-equipped devices.
USB Ports 2 x USB 3.0

A pair of full-size USB ports.
Video Output Ports 1 x HDMI

HDMI is a widely used digital video output port. You can find HDMI-in ports on most computer monitors and TVs.

1 x mini DisplayPort

DisplayPort is a digital video output port. It is not as widely used as HDMI. The laptop has a compact "mini" version of DisplayPort on its side.
Media Card Reader None

The laptop has no SD card slots. For reading from and writing to SD and microSD memory cards, you'll have to use a separately sold memory card reader via a USB cable.
Other Features Alienware Graphics Amplifier Port
Battery 4 Cell 52WHr
Weight 4.5 pounds
Height 1.1"
Width 12.9"
Depth 9.2"
Windows Version Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 is eligible for free upgrade to Windows 10 Home. Check Windows.com for more info.

Windows 8.1 Pro

Windows 8.1 Pro is eligible for free upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. Check Windows.com for more info.

Windows 7 Pro

Windows 7 Pro is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. Check Windows.com for more info.
Warranty 1-year

A typical laptop warranty.

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