["pre-"CES 2020] Alienware UFO (concept)

[Thaldor]

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Alienware has some really cool concepts of possible upcoming gaming PCs and one of them is called the Alienware Concept UFO. It is a portable gaming PC that competes with the Nintendo Switch but its actually so much more!

Alienware (Dell) has shown, at least, in the pre-CES 2020 showroom a gaming "device" concept that is basicly "Nintendo Switch on steroids" running Windows 10.

 

There's not much specifics about the hardware but it runs on SoC that is capable of 1080p to 1200p 60fps gaming, has battery life of about 2 hours, touchscreen and apparently in a bit bigger size than Switch.

Features otherwise are kind of same as Switch but just with Windows 10 "tablet" meaning it has Bluetooth, fully working USB-C with Lightning (or two, on the video you can see two USB-C ports: one on the top and another on the bottom) and possibility for even 4G and 5G connectivity. Physical controller is directly ripped-off comparable to Switch's Joy-Cons sitting next to the tablet and having the ability to remove them and attach to controller "block".

Biggest difference between Switch and UFO is that UFO is fully capable Windows 10 "tablet" so you are not restricted to only gaming and only the sky is the limit.

 

It's completely prototype and concept so there most likely will be a lot of changes or even that this is the only time we ever hear and see it.

 

My personal feeling is that UFO is interesting concept but looking at the gaming side, it falls to the same pit as Switch, not being the greatest handheld and not being the greatest home console. Don't take me wrong, Nintendo Switch is great and extremely successful but Nintendo is different case from everything, like while Nintendo is counted in the console wars, it clearly doesn't care about the competition and the competition doesn't really care about it and the audience doesn't compare them and Nintendo swims in their pool and does what they feel like and it just works fantastically for them. UFO in the other hand doesn't have that "Nintendo magic", it probably would be W10 tablet aimed for gamers and without miracles it would drop directly in between and start competing with both cloud gaming and console gaming. 1080p gaming in near future will be specless and platformless, you don't need to care what device you have or what game you want to play in 1080p and where you want to play it, you can play it; I say "in near future" because we still aren't there but Stadia and GeForce NOW (mostly GeForce NOW, especially now that they have rolled out more access to the Android app and it works beautifully) show that it's feasible. So on mobile side it's chances for me doesn't look that good, on the TV side of things, well I wouldn't say it's not bad but it also doesn't shine the brightest, it being W10 machine it more likely competes against things like Steam LINK and HTPCs where it has it's own place and it could succeed, but it will be more likely put in the same basket as PS and Xbox and then while it being different, it's a no contest.

One thing that could save it would be the price. $100-200 and it's a deal, if nothing it's an interesting curiosity to have and the price wouldn't be that bad. But it's Alienware so price most likely would be around $600+ and at least it's a "no" from me (I can get most of it's use for far cheaper price even today).

In the end I would like to say that even if I come as quite negative against this Alienware UFO concept, I still think it's a cool concept. I have my look on the gaming and how it might evolve in the future and against that I don't see how UFO would make things any better or attain success. I could see a lot more uses for it outside gaming with a bit different features and connectivity but there the price will be even bigger question.

 

But as said: What do you think? Where would UFO stand and has it chances against the competition? What is the price? Yay, nay, meh or wow?

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LTT video on the subject. Apparently the SoC is Intel (or at least uses Intels iGPU).

[Helly]

Only 2 hours of battery life? Really? No thank you. There's a reason the switch is not that powerful. And the battery life is most of that reason. What use is a handheld that only lasts 2 hours?

[That Franc]

40 minutes ago, Helly said:

Only 2 hours of battery life? Really? No thank you. There's a reason the switch is not that powerful. And the battery life is most of that reason. What use is a handheld that only lasts 2 hours?

The article clearly states it's a very early, very alpha prototype, and things will definitely be changed if it ever gets released. I doubt anyone needs a 1080p screen for gaming in a device that small, so they can potentially change it to 720p (720p on an 8" screen still results in 180 PPI which is a better density than that of a 24" 1440p panel), tone down the hardware a little bit, get more battery life out of the thing, and maybe even reduce the price slightly. It's up to the people now to provide feedback so that they know what to change.

[Helly]

4 minutes ago, That Franc said:

The article clearly states it's a very early, very alpha prototype, and things will definitely be changed if it ever gets released. I doubt anyone needs a 1080p screen for gaming in a device that small, so they can potentially change it to 720p (720p on an 8" screen still results in 180 PPI which is a better density than that of a 24" 1440p panel), tone down the hardware a little bit, get more battery life out of the thing, and maybe even reduce the price slightly. It's up to the people now to provide feedback so that they know what to change.

They don't mention the CPU or GPU or RAM or much else about the hardware that indicates anything to performance. However they specifically mention the battery life. To me that means that it is what they are aiming for. If not, why mention it at all? There's no use in mentioning things that are most likely going to change. So the SoC is going to change and probably a whole bunch of other things. All of which will change the battery usage. How can they know it will be 2 hours unless that's what they are aiming for?

[Results45]

 

*SNIF*

 

Hmm............is it just me? Or is that the sweet smokey waft a mobile Tiger Lake CPU with a Gen12 96EU integrated graphics inside? 

 

 

P.S. Here's more leaks & speculation on the performance of the 96EU Tiger Lake Gen12 iGPU/DG1:

Spoiler

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[Thaldor]

8 minutes ago, Helly said:

They don't mention the CPU or GPU or RAM or much else about the hardware that indicates anything to performance. However they specifically mention the battery life. To me that means that it is what they are aiming for. If not, why mention it at all? There's no use in mentioning things that are most likely going to change. So the SoC is going to change and probably a whole bunch of other things. All of which will change the battery usage. How can they know it will be 2 hours unless that's what they are aiming for?

It's in very early stages and probably everything can change. The battery life is odd mention in the HCs video but considering they try to aim to run W10 games natively and with surprisingly amount of oompf behind the 2 hours is quite a achievement.

 

Considering where they are aiming they are probably not dropping specs a lot. Screen resolution, dimensions and so on can be changed but going with less powerful SoC and other parts that would weaken the performance would be probably pretty bad decision. I have already quite many doubts about it, from which many come from the time when UMPCs (Ultra-Mobile PC) were tried and they were just awful pieces of things that while some had performance to actually run WinXP or Win98 somewhat decently their battery life was almost none (at least in real use), but if they were to drop the specs for cheaper price or better battery life the thing would most likely end up being just Switch running W10 which wouldn't be that impressive and probably even more gimmick (again Switch is great product but most of it is Nintendo, I don't think Sony or MS could get away with releasing console with Switches specs but for Nintendo that is just perfect because people don't wait life like graphics and other performance hog things from Nintendo games as they expect from PS, Xbox and PC games).

[MageTank]

This thing has some serious potential if they'd use a thunderbolt 3 port for it's docking/charging needs. If it's already using an Intel SoC, it shouldn't be hard to add. The potential to dock it into a base station that has a more powerful GPU would be incredible. If they supported steam in-home streaming, it would also help offload some of the heavy lifting from the device itself in ones home network. If Intel is serious about getting into the dGPU market, they could even design the dock itself with their dGPU's. Still, support for generic third party thunderbolt 3 eGPU enclosures would be nice just for consumer variety. 

 

I've been looking for a real successor to the original Nvidia Shield Portable, one with actual development support. This could definitely be it if they do it right.

[LeSheen]

Sony tried to challenge nintendo with a more powerfull handheld with worse batterylife before.

That turned out great didn't it?

[Zagna]

Ryzen? 

[The Benjamins]

11 minutes ago, Zagna said:

Ryzen? 

I really hope it does, I will defently get this

 

What I want it to be.

 

Ryzen 4900H (8c16t  8CU or more if die has more) 35-45w  version optimized for GPU unlike the 4800H

16GB 3200+ ram

1TB SSD (512 would be ok as a option)

1920x1080p screen (good res, great to video and gaming. 720p would be disappointing) 

Under $900

[williamcll]

That fan is REALLY loud though.

[Thaldor]

1 hour ago, The Benjamins said:

I really hope it does, I will defently get this

 

What I want it to be.

 

Ryzen 4900H (8c16t  8CU or more if die has more) 35-45w  version optimized for GPU unlike the 4800H

16GB 3200+ ram

1TB SSD (512 would be ok as a option)

1920x1080p screen (good res, great to video and gaming. 720p would be disappointing) 

Under $900

Product wise I would go completely to the different direction.

 

It's kind of clear that they are not going to be able to compete with full blown gaming PC hardware wise and even if they were the price would be huge problem (anyone remembers when PS3 was released with that $599 price tag?). Not to mention that we talk about a product that can be only compared to one other product and that product mostly rides with extremely strong franchises and being different from everything else.

 

A bit aggravated statement would be that we won't get a handheld that can run Red Dead Redemption 2 with high settings even with $1,5k price tag, so it would be better to look elsewhere and that's what I'm suggesting: It should be cheap (max. $200, lower than $100 would be perfect) with hardware enough to run W10 without any problems (some light normal use and following services), 1080p screen, durable case and screen and good battery life. Handheld that is completely build to run cloud gaming as is and offers possibility to cloud game on TVs when connected.

Sounds odd now when Google Stadia made entrance through the mud but we talk about a device that would possibly launch 2-3 years from now and hopefully then the services are a lot better and more accessible. There could be the $1,5k "pro" version that can run the games by itself or even just dock that would make it so it can run the games by itself when docked with price tag whatever it takes but the "base" device should be good quality aimed for cloud gaming and so cheap that people wouldn't mind if it wasn't perfect experience on the day 1. Device that isn't compared to Nintendo Switch but to Nvidia Shield except more affordable and not just another Android tablet made for gamers, which instead of competing against gaming consoles and gaming PCs competes against phones and tablets as gaming device and for that uses PC games instead of mobile games or made-for-it games and still manages to be "dirt" cheap but good.

[Letgomyleghoe]

2 hours ago, The Benjamins said:

I really hope it does, I will defently get this

 

What I want it to be.

 

Ryzen 4900H (8c16t  8CU or more if die has more) 35-45w  version optimized for GPU unlike the 4800H

16GB 3200+ ram

1TB SSD (512 would be ok as a option)

1920x1080p screen (good res, great to video and gaming. 720p would be disappointing) 

Under $900

720p at that size would be the same dpi as 1440p on a 24 inch screen. 

thats just wanting better stats, not actually looking at what is reasonable or smart.

if you look at what at you want your expecting lots from a handheld.

[crystal6tak]

Hmmm, honestly I would rather get a GPD Win 2 if I'm getting a portable Geforce Now device

It's pocketable and has a built in keyboard, and from what I read, battery life is decent (can't find any info on battery life using geforce now though)

[Kilrah]

Smach must be trembling now.

 

3 minutes ago, crystal6tak said:

It's pocketable and has a built in keyboard, and from what I read, battery life is decent (can't find any info on battery life using geforce now though)

I've got one and battery life for laptop use is on the high side. Don't really game on it so can't comment much on that.

[Kilrah]

The keys are awesome for thumb typing.

[crystal6tak]

4 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Smach must be trembling now.

 

I've got one and battery life for laptop use is on the high side. Don't really game on it so can't comment much on that.

I'd imagine Geforce Now is probably similar, or maybe a wee bit more intense than say, Netflix streaming. How many hours are you getting and what's your usage (Word? Youtube?)

 

2 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

It isn't that comfortable to hold (the Switch also isn't that great) and a detachable keyboard would be better than this crammed tiny keys.

I can see how people would prefer the alienware. I just personally prefer the all in one solution GPD offers.

[Kilrah]

4 minutes ago, crystal6tak said:

How many hours are you getting and what's your usage (Word? Youtube?)

With web browsing, watching videos, text chatting via Discord etc I get about 6-8h.

[Thaldor]

8 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

And they said basically nothing about the UFO... =/

To be kind of expected. This is a project that seems to be in it's very beginning, like just made some kind of prototype for CES to get some opinions and poking some discussion about this kind of device. I don't believe that anything relating UFO is certain and final, even the design might change a lot (I would eat my hat if Nintendo wouldn't have few words to say about the "controller(s)" if UFO was released as it is now). So taking the time to talk about it on the floor probably wasn't a priority.

[Bombastinator]

There is imho a single reason to use a PC for gaming instead of a console or a handheld: mouse/keyboard.  Mostly mouse.

 

it has other nice things, big screen, high refresh, low relative price, can do lots of other things, etc..  the thing no console or handheld has yet to touch though is the fact that joysticks just suck.  Steam knew this and tried to make a controller that was touch pad based.  It worked really well, but the learning curve was kind of high and it failed.

 

This is not merely a PC with all the useful bits removed, because it’s not a PC at all.  Sure it runs AMD64.  That’s nice.  AMD64 isn’t a particularly good architecture, but it’s got a great deal of penetration and can use that to beat other better architectures.  This throws basically all the advantages of AMD64 and PC away.  Acres of why?  

[Hidden Orange]

5 hours ago, LeSheen said:

Sony tried to challenge nintendo with a more powerfull handheld with worse batterylife before.

That turned out great didn't it?

The PS Vita? If I recall, it didn't help that Sony didn't really advertise or support the thing much overseas and I think there were a lot of ports or multiplatform dumps on the thing which did not help it stand out on its own. It had good games, but I think it was mainly Japan that got them.

 

The PSP on the other hand was decently successful?

[BuckGup]

I like how the PSP, DS, and Gameboy came out years ago and yet we still can't nail down a decent portable gaming device. Honestly my phone has seemed to be the best out of everything so far. But touch controls are god awful.

[Belac F]

9 hours ago, Helly said:

Only 2 hours of battery life? Really? No thank you. There's a reason the switch is not that powerful. And the battery life is most of that reason. What use is a handheld that only lasts 2 hours?

Do we have a release date? There is a pretty good chance this will be cleaned up by launch. also if it can game at 1080p is good it might be cheaper than a gaming pc (but I shouldn't get my hopes up, this is alienware we are talking about)

[Arika]

oh my god, it's true. Alienware truely don't know how to design anything that looks good. wtf is the the angular bezels?? it looks like someone finalized the design and accidenatlly warped it in photoshop before giving it to the prototype team

[Bombastinator]

18 minutes ago, PeterFile said:

Do we have a release date? There is a pretty good chance this will be cleaned up by launch. also if it can game at 1080p is good it might be cheaper than a gaming pc (but I shouldn't get my hopes up, this is alienware we are talking about)

It’s a concept.  They made one because they could.  If it generates a lot of interest they might do something like it.  They want my interest? Put track pads on it instead of those stupid joysticks, and make sure I can use a Bluetooth keyboard if I need to.  Then it might be interesting