The Alienware 13, when it ships in December, will have a lot of firsts for Alienware.
If it's only one-inch thick and 4.5 pounds, how can it withstand the everyday dings and bumps that occur in our bags? Don't worry, the Alienware 13 will also be one of the first to be made with carbon fiber chips infused into the case.
A disCERNing addition
So it's not exactly the Large Hadron Collider of the gaming world, but the Alienware Graphics Amplifier is still pretty darn cool.
Inside the case you'll find a 350-watt PSU and PCI-E x 16 slot that will accommodate almost any GPU - I say "almost any" because you won't be able to fit dual-linked cards (like the Nvidia GTX Titan Z or AMD Radeon R9 295x2) in the allotted space
Display, battery, networking and LEDs
But what's a high resolution if you don't have a screaming screen to display it on? The Alienware 13 has you covered, no matter what your budget is, by offering three options: an HD anti-glare 1360 x 768 option; FHD anti-glare 1920 x 1080 option; QHD touch-capacitive 1920 x 1080 IPS screen. If those don't tickle your aesthetical fancy, the Alienware 13 has mini-display and HDMI-out ports that let you connect up to two external displays
Early verdict
I see a lot of potential in the Alienware 13.
As a standalone laptop without the Amplifier, you've got a solid rig that should play games like Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor at a respectable 60 frames per second while live streaming on Twitch. Add an external GTX 980 or 970 GPU and you should have more than enough power to blow through Metro Last Light (or any other game for that matter) with the graphics set to high.
