Customer Ratings & Reviews

Well designed Beautiful laptop. Does well with heavy work load. This laptop i use for working from home and with the wifi 6 does a great job with little to no lag. If your looking for a stylish laptop with plenty of power then it’s a must buy.

PROS + Fantastic gaming performance which, when plugged into power, nearly matches my desktop RTX 2080 Intel i9-9900K system in most games + 360hz full-HD display is buttery smooth & provides great framerate headroom for competitive gaming + Display gets plenty bright, with good color and contrast + Great aesthetics, especially for such a powerful gaming-centric machine + RGB is well-used without being gaudy, and is fully customizable + Impressively thin for how fast it runs + Lots of cooling for venting heat + Comfortable keyboard with good tactile feedback + Solid build quality & premium feeling design + Modern port selection, with HDMI 2.1, Thunderbolt 4, USB-C, & USB-A 3.2 ports CONS - Touchpad is on the small side for comfortable gaming - When gaming, fans can get quite audible - Secondary key functions don’t light up with the keyboard backlight - Poor battery life that only lasts a couple of hours when gaming, and not too much more for normal everyday multitasking SO-SO * Ports being on the back of the laptop are great for docked gaming, but less convenient when on the go * Desktop rivaling gaming performance when plugged in, but performance is noticeably paired back when playing off of battery * When gaming, laptop heats up very quickly, with top & back of laptop in particular getting noticeably hot. However, areas where your hands are like wrist rests and keyboard, stay cool * Very thin, but still pretty heavy at just over 5 lbs THE LONG & SHORT OF IT I have been using gaming-focused laptops for over a decade now and the Alienware x15 R2 has definitely had the strongest first impression of any gaming laptop I have used yet by quite a wide margin. Not only that, but with each day of use, I find myself finding more and more to like in this machine. With a very thin design, premium feeling build, and performance that can rival a current-gen console, this laptop is not one to overlook. While it may not provide the best dollar to performance ratio from a pure PC gaming performance perspective, and it certainly puts out the sound & heat to match its speed, as an all-in-one machine that can tear through most games without batting an eye and still serve as a highly functional laptop behind it all, this is the machine to beat. I highly recommend it. BUILD QUALITY & AESTHETICS Right from unboxing the laptop, I knew it was meant to be a premium product. The laptop certainly isn’t on the smaller end for a thin 15.6” machine, with the screen itself having fairly thick bezels in the age of modern ultrabooks, but that doesn’t mean the laptop is big. The best way to describe it is as thin & dense, with a very thin 0.63” profile but a not insignificant 5.2 lb weight. With that weight though comes build quality, and the Alienware has it in spades, with matte white finish on the outside and matte black interior that I personally think looks as great as it feels. There is no flex in the keyboard, bend in the screen, or creaking plastic, all of which I have found in previous gaming laptops I have owned. There is an angular design to the machine, which helps with the thinness appeal. If RGB is your thing, you do have a good set of options available here, with the keyboard, alien power button, alienware logo on the lid, and lightstrip running the whole back of the laptop all being fully RGB. I am personally a fan of subtle RGB, with accents that compliment the machine without being gaudy, and I think this laptop strikes the perfect balance. That being said, if RGB is not your thing, it is fully addressable, so you can turn off or change the color of the RGB to something more subtle if that is your preference. All-in-all, while aesthetics are always subjective, I personally can’t see many people taking issue with the build or look of this laptop. It feels like a quality machine, not just for a gaming laptop, but for any laptop. SCREEN & SPEAKERS With a 15.6” 1080p screen, you aren’t getting the highest pixels per inch or ultra fine detail of a QHD or UHD screen, but at this screen size, they aren’t really missed all that much. You still get plenty of contrast, brightness, and at 360hz, A LOT of smoothness. Even when scrolling the internet the high refresh rate display is noticeable, with a level of clarity in motion that just looks and feels great during everyday use, let alone when gaming (more on that below). I don’t have equipment to measure things like color accuracy, but having used several professional grade monitors & high-end TVs, I can’t say that nothing colorwise stands out to me as overly inaccurate or off-base. There is no vignetting or noticeable uniformity issues, and by and large the panel is quite good looking. As for the speakers, they are Dolby Atmos capable, and sound pretty good for laptop speakers, with plenty of volume headroom to pull from. This being said, they are still laptop speakers which are inherently limited by needing to fit in a thin design, and will quickly be outclassed by decent bookshelf speakers or a nice pair of headphones. I/O, KEYBOARD, TRACKPAD, & BATTERY LIFE When it comes to function, this laptop has everything necessary for an everyday work machine. The I/O port selection provides more than most modern thin laptops, with an HDMI 2.1, Thunderbolt 4, USB-C, & USB-A 3.2 port. Additionally, you also get 1 microSD-card slot and a headphone jack. Like most laptops these days, if you want additional ports (like ethernet, for which an included usb-c to ethernet adapter is included in the box), you can buy an external dock to connect to the machine. All of the I/O (except power & headphone jack) is placed on the back of the machine, rather than the sides, which means that when you have the laptop docked, cable management is great, with all cords behind the machine, leaving a very clean look. The downside to this of course is that when you need to access the ports regularly (say to swap SD cards or USBs), you will need to put the screen down or rotate the machine, which can certainly be less convenient (but by no means a deal breaker) than side-focused ports. When it comes to the keyboard, you get tactile keys which have good travel and don’t bottom out too early. The keyboard layout is well constructed, with full-size arrow keys, media keys on the right side, and a dedicated function row. The palm rest is comfortable with a soft material and an accurate trackpad. My only complaint with the trackpad comes down to the size, which feels a bit small, especially for gaming. Finally, if battery life is very important to you, you will likely be disappointed here. This is a powerful machine that is meant to fit into a thin form factor, and you are losing a lot of battery life with that. When gaming, I am getting barely 2 hours, and when browsing everyday, not too much more than that. This is really a machine that is meant to be used plugged in more often than not, with only small spurts of time away from power. GAMING PERFORMANCE & COOLING Finally, for the main reason you would want to buy this machine, gaming. Honestly, in many ways this is a bit boring to write because this thing is very fast, and if you are looking to run games on the laptop display at a minimum of 60fps, you will have very little issues. When on battery power, due to the adaptive power draw of the GPU, you will get around half the performance of when it is plugged in, but when plugged in, this thing can soar. I benchmarked several games, including Cyberpunk 2077 with ray-tracing, and this machine matched almost exactly performance-wise against my main gaming desktop with an RTX 2080 & intel i9-9900K, which is a bit mind-blowing to see given just how thin this laptop is. With some settings tuning, you can certainly push fps higher, and with a 360hz display, you may not regularly hit 360 fps in games, but with G-Sync you can get very high frame rates and low latency without issue. I connected the laptop to my main 32” 4K monitor, and had no trouble playing games like Hitman 3 & Modern Warfare at 4K with acceptable frame rates, especially when combined with the amazing DLSS. With classic games, like Bioshock or Assassin's Creed 2, I could max settings at 1080p and easily get FPS well into the hundreds. All of this performance comes with a lot of heat, and in a thin machine, heat can often be the killer. In this case, Alienware has done a good job of providing a lot of ventilation for the laptop, with outputs on the sides, back, and top front of the laptop. Combined with Alienware’s Quad-Cooling design, you get a lot of cooling performance. What this amounts to is a lot of fan noise and some hot spots on the laptop, but components which don’t throttle in the middle of gaming. Using MSI Afterburner, I could see that the CPU cores were hitting up to 100ºC when gaming, which is a lot, but for a gaming laptop is not unheard of. The GPU would stay a bit cooler at 70-80ºC, which while better is still quite warm. This is most noticeable on the top front and back of the laptop, where it can get very hot if you place your hand directly on it. This being said, the areas where your hands should be, like the keyboard and palm rest, stay very cool, even during long sessions. Honestly, it is the fan noise which will probably be more noticeable than the heat, which while not as loud as a console or desktop at full bore, is still quite noticeable during gaming, and may be irritating if you use speakers or open-back headphones for gaming. With closed-back headphones, or at louder volumes on speakers, you will be able to drown out the fan noise without much issue. All-in-all this machine has the gaming chops where it counts, and can easily throw down with some full-size desktops without breaking a sweat. This laptop is a beast for a mobile machine, and when taking the size and build quality into account, you are left with a killer all-in-one.

Alienware has taken their innovative “x” series design and stuffed the latest CPU and GPU’s from Intel and Nvidia respectively into a slim chassis. Using a i7-12700H and a Nvidia 3070ti, they’ve paired it with 16gb of 5200mhz DDR5, this laptop slays anything you throw at it. Using 4 cooling fans and their proprietary cooling thermal interface Element 31, you get to run the toasty 12700H at turbo speeds just a bit longer than the rest. Performance – Intel did good with their P and E core architecture CPUs. The highest multi core score I was able to land in Cinebench was 18,180 pts. Single core clocked in at 1,794. As for perceived performance, everything seems to just work fast. Programs loading, game load times, boot times, all just seem snappy. The only thing to watch for is the voltage lock on this CPU. If you like to undervolt to help with temperatures, you’ll be unpleased to find voltage and cores are locked on this one. This wasn’t the case for the 11700H which did not have the “K” moniker but was still adjustable. Not Alienware’s fault, but just a watch out. Gaming – Not going to run into any issues here. Almost every game runs easily at 60fps on max settings. Time spy gave me a total score of 11,289 with a GPU score of 10,977. For thin and light laptops, I think the 3070ti is probably where you start getting diminishing returns on heat vs performance output. When holding the laptop in your lap while gaming, you’ll notice it starts to get a bit uncomfortable with the amount of heat output. If I do game with it in my lap, I use a laptop cooling pad to help with this. All games played without activating turbo mode. Destiny 2: 1080p – Max settings – 180FPS cap. FPS average 120-135. Temperature Average 85, 100 peak. Halo Infinite: High Settings (Ultra exceeded recommended available VRAM). FPS average 100-110. Temperature Average 86. CoD Warzone: 60 FPS Average on max settings. Temperature Average 91. Keyboard and Trackpad – Alienware has one of the best keyboards on a laptop that I’ve typed on. I’ve used a dell XPS laptop before and this is reminiscent of their keyboard which I liked very much. I’m not a keyboard aficionado or anything but I can appreciate a decent keyboard. Trackpad isn’t too bad either. It is a bit of a fingerprint magnet though. I/O – The port selection on this could be a bit better but I’ve adapted. Two USB-C, one of which is thunderbolt 4. Thunderbolt 4 does afford you several options as far as external monitors, docks, and dongles. Super happy that they do include a 2.5ghz Ethernet USB C adapter. Looping WiFi into this category, you’re also given the lates wireless 6e standard which gives us the 6ghz band for higher bandwidths. Unfortunately, I don’t have a router capable of testing these speeds. There’s also a micro SD slot, HDMI, and a USB-A to round it out on the back. There’s an audio jack on the right and the power connector on the left. Internal I/O is where I’m a bit disappointed to find the RAM soldered on. You do get dual M.2 slots for NVMe storage but being able to increase the RAM down the road would have been nice too since only a 16gb model is offered in the 15” at the time of writing this review. Audio – The x15 comes with Dolby Atmos support. The sound is a bit better than most other laptops I’ve heard but it’s only a bit better than typical laptop audio. I can appreciate Alienware is trying here and I hope they continue to improve here. Build Quality and Design – Alienware has always been a bit different than the competition in regards to design. They have a sturdy chassis with little to no flex in the lid or body. The keyboard is solid and there isn’t any flexing when typing or applying light pressure. Also, the way the laptop dissipates heat, the keyboard doesn’t get hot when playing games. Each key and the alien head power button are all RGB capable as well as the alien head logo on the lid and the “Tron” ring around the rear I/O and exhaust vents. You can use the Alienware Command Center to set up default profiles, game profiles, as well as fan curve and a slight GPU overclock. Battery Life – I tested this by starting my stopwatch on my phone as I unplugged the PC and just used it like I normally would but avoided playing any games. I left the Alienware Control Center fan profile to “performance” and the power setting to “balanced”. I watched YouTube videos, browsed the internet using Firefox. Screen Brightness was at 75%. 2hr and 33m it was running on battery saver at 15% Battery. @ 2hr and 50m I was down to 6% and decided to plug it in. Your mileage may vary, but I’d assume 3 hours is all you get. Even though you can’t adjust voltage, I did use Throttlestop to set a low power profile that turns off turbo boost. I imagine this will help me squeeze some more battery life out of it. Final Thoughts – I’ve always been a fan of Alienware’s bold design choices and lack of fear on pushing the envelope on innovation. I’m a gamer and I feel like a gamer when I use this PC and, more importantly, game on it. From the design to the performance, Alienware is selling a top notch laptop that is worthy of competing against the best of the best. I do feel like future models would benefit from maybe one more USB type A port but more importantly for me, upgradable RAM slots. All in all, a fantastic gaming device.

Plays any game perfectly no issues at all highly Fran’s at maxed settings

Incredible laptop, runs every game flawlessly, amazing screen display and refresh rate.

The Alienware x15 R2 Gaming Laptop is an amazingly specked laptop that can handle most tasks with a breeze. The Intel i7-12700H combined with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti makes this computer a beast when it comes to gaming and for productivity. The keyboard and touchpad are great and make for a great user experience for anyone who uses the laptop when on the go. With the Killer Wi-Fi 6 included on this laptop your gaming or browsing experience will be amazing with super fast speed possible as long as your network is using Wi-Fi 6. I wish the display featured a higher resolution since the 3070 Ti is more than capable of driving higher resolutions, but since it also has a 360Hz and 1ms response time with a G-Sync capable display, it is no slouch when it comes to gaming. I am also a huge fan of the fit and finish of this laptop which looks and feels amazing, it is light and thin compared to most gaming laptops and has a good selection of I/O ports making it easy to use as a desktop replacement. The laptop is light while still being solid and having no body flex while typing or carrying around. With an HDMI, 3.2 USB-C w/ DisplayPort, SD card, Thunderbolt 4 w/ DisplayPort, and a USB-A port on the back as well as an audio jack on the side this laptop includes a good selection of ports. The fact that all of the ports, with the exception of the audio jack and power-adapter port, are located on the back of the laptop make it easy to use this on a desk or your lap without having cables dangling out the sides of the device. The hard-drive is also easily expandable or upgradable with only 6 screws needing to be removed on the underside of the laptop and the 2 m.2 SSD slots are located just above the battery. I did not see any easy way to upgrade/replace the memory, but I also did not pull the laptop any further apart than removing the bottom panel. My only complaint with the body of the device is the matt finish makes the area under the keyboard pick up palm prints very easily, however, it is also extremely easy to clean and is resistant to staining. My only real complaint with the Alienware x15 is the heat; this thing gets really hot, really quickly and it is even worse if you are using this as a portable device. With the smaller body it makes cooling the powerful hardware very difficult and if you are doing any kind of intensive tasks the laptop will get hot very quickly and will thermal throttle very soon. When using the laptop on your lap, the fan inputs are directly where your legs would be and the exhaust will go directly onto your knees making it an unpleasant experience very quickly and affecting your gaming/work experience since it will be even more difficult to cool your device. There is the Alienware Command Center where you can apply custom power and fan settings as well as overclocks that either automatically apply or can be configured per task, but this experience is also not great since it is not very intuitive and it also seems that you need to keep the program running for the fan settings to actually take affect and it does not just start or run in the background. Overall, this is an amazing laptop that depending on your use case could be a perfect fit, but I think it is severely limited by the extreme amount of heat that it quickly builds up. If you need a powerful, portable computer then this is a great choice, if you need something that is dependable and is able to push the hardware to the max, it is probably better to look for a well cooled desktop computer.

This is my third Alienware laptop and so far it is my favorite of them all. My others are a 2020 M15 R5 and a 2018 M17. The X series brings a new design called Legend 2.0, is built incredibly well, and feels sturdier than the M series. Despite next level of thin at only 15.9 mm tall, it still feels tough like an Alienware should, and I have no problem slipping this in and out of my daily carry bag. Another big plus is the X models still come with a 240w (depending on configuration) power adapter but it is much smaller and lighter than the one shipped with the M series. Performance is outstanding with the i7-12700H. To keep up with competitors, especially the fruity ones, Intel came out swinging this year. The new 12th generation mobile processors introduce a hybrid architecture and bring huge gains to performance alongside DDR5 compatibility with PCIe 4.0 and Thunderbolt 4 support from the previous generation. In Geekbench, I was able to get 1661 single core and 13349 multicore (high-performance mode enabled) and a 14844 score in Cinebench R23 in the same configuration. These are very good numbers for a laptop! The GPU performance is equally as impressive with a 140W GeForce 3070 TI and includes support for Advanced Optimus which allows you to bypass the Intel graphics adapter altogether without a restart which results in sometimes significant performance gains. 3D Mark FireStrike score was 25325 and TimeSpy was 11578. I was able to play Fortnite on Epic settings in Full Speed thermal mode and get around 170 FPS on average. Halo Infinite Multiplayer at Ultra preset ran at 120-130 FPS and Forza Horizon 5 hovered around 100 on the Extreme graphical preset. These examples were all at 1080p and at the highest graphical presets of these games so there is plenty of room for more FPS if you want to lower the settings a bit. I also plugged it into a 1440p gaming monitor and played Fortnite for several hours and it performed wonderfully, near as good as my desktop! The X series is cooled with two pairs of fans for a total of 4 and I think they do a pretty good job of cooling this system. Through my heavy benchmarking, the CPU does not seem to ever hit any power limits but will thermal throttle when it hits 100°C, which is near instant under heavy load even with performance or full speed thermal profile. However, the system does not feel hot to the touch (or lap) like my M series which is why I think the cooling system is doing an excellent job of getting as much heat as possible out of the system. It's that the 12th Gen i7’s just run incredibly hot. I wouldn’t recommend getting an i9 version as I doubt it’ll be any more performant with no additional thermal headroom here. Also, when not gaming and doing casual activities such as web browsing or streaming it seems to run much cooler and the fans do not kick on near as much as my older models. The display itself is exceptional for 1080p gaming with the 360hz refresh rate and 1ms response time. Creators or video editors may want a higher resolution and color accuracy but gamers especially those who play competitive shooters will absolutely love this. This pairing of CPU and GPU is perfect for a FHD 360hz screen. I honestly didn’t think I would notice a difference past the 165 and 240hz displays I have around the house but 360hz is FAST! The Legend 2.0 design gives us tiny bezels all around except for the chin, and there’s even room for a 720p webcam and IR array for Windows Hello. The keyboard and trackpad will be familiar to those who had an Alienware in the past few years. I believe they are all the same. The trackpad is accurate but a bit on the small side compared to some of the other 2022 gaming laptops I own. The keyboard does support per-key RGB lighting which is configurable in Alienware Command Center. However, none of the secondary functions are illuminated on the keyboard. All the LEDS, including the keyboard, the tron ring on the back, and the Alienware logo on the lid are bright. However, this makes the ports on the back impossible to see in low light, unless you turn off the ring light or use a flashlight. Regarding the ports, there are only 3 USB ports total and just 1 USB-A which can be limiting. Plan for a USB or Thunderbolt dock if you have an external mouse, keyboard, headset, and external webcam for example. There is no ethernet port, but Dell kindly provides a USB-C to ethernet adapter in the box. There is also an HDMI 2.1 and microSD reader in the back, the power connector on the left side, and a 3.5mm universal audio port on the right. This being an Alienware and a powerful one at that battery life is about what you’d expect. An 87Wh battery is what you get and with 360hz enabled I was getting about 3 hours just general browsing/Youtube use with brightness around the middle setting. Trying to play a game without being tethered to a wall will be a short experience, but this is no different than any gaming laptop. This will not last all day for productivity use but it does support power delivery with USB-C so you might be able to survive a trip to an office with just a 100w USB-C charger but I haven’t tried. Don’t attempt gaming on USB-C power. The drive included in this model is a very fast Samsung 1TB NVMe, hitting over 6600MBs read speed, which is the fastest drive I’ve seen ship with a laptop. Continuing what is an Alienware trend I think, the speakers are not great. Dolby Atmos support is included and if you use the Dolby Atmos app with headphones then switch to the speakers it only highlights how bad they are. They are loud and tinny with almost no bass. Pros: Excellent Build Quality Super Powerful 12th Gen i7 Boastworthy 140w RTX 3070 TI Graphics Advanced Optimus with G-SYNC Beautiful and Ridiculously Fast 360hz 1080p Screen Speedy Samsung NVMe PCI 4.0 1TB SSD Extra Slot for Second NVMe SSD 16GB LPDDR5-5200 dual channel RAM Killer Wifi 6/Bluetooth 5.2 HDMI 2.1 and MicroSD card reader Windows Hello Customizable Per Key RGB Slim 240w Power Adapter (compared to previous models) Windows 11 Home with Bitlocker Support Cons: Only 3 USB Ports RAM is not removable/upgradeable Speakers are not great Overall – this is a beast of a gaming rig. It checks all the boxes for 1080p gaming and can deliver. With the 12th Gen and 3070 TI there’s plenty of power to even play at the highest settings on a 1440p external monitor. This will become my new portable gaming solution until something better comes along. Highly recommended!

Coming from a different brand gaming laptop that I liked, this Alienware x15 R2 truly is awesome. Upon opening the box, I'd say the packaging sure is elaborate and more than necessary, but ok. Super thin and relatively light compared to most gaming laptops. Wasn't sure if I'd like the light/dark shell color scheme at first, but now I think it's really sharp. Display is super big, sharp and bright, an so smooth with the high frequency fast response! Facial recognition when starting it up instead of typing in a password has worked quick and flawlessly for me. I like the layout and feel of the keyboard a lot (along with the key markings and backlight colors), but I do wish the trackpad was a bit larger. Gaming has been very fast, and benchmarks and actual gameplay even a little more smooth with great rendering (Witcher and God of War ran great). Excellent also for my Solidworks and Draftsight engineering apps as well. Speakers are good and loud, but I did get a little buzz here and there at high volume. Battery life I'd say is a bit of a weakness, but for a gaming machine it's not too far off the norm I suppose. Fans of course sound like a Harrier jet when the chips are being taxed. Ample number of ports located along the back edge of the machine which is not as common on laptops these days, but works just fine for my setup with connected devices. Bluetooth mouse, keyboard, and headset also has worked fine without bugginess like some computers. WiFi connection has been as fast as any other comptuer in my house. Windows 11 continues to grow on me after years of Windows 10, but no crashes or issues and the x15 seems to be keeping up to date just fine.

Great gaming laptop does run a little warm but with a laptop fan mat under it works great I use for work and gaming runs my two monitors and the laptop screen perfectly

Great gaming and multitasking portable laptop (comes loaded with Win 11 home version) for average gamers with good performance and value for the price. This is the next gen (R2) gaming laptop from Alienware. I am an average gamer but I did play Far Cry 5 for few hours to test the performance of this mid-tier gaming laptop and am immensely satisfied with the X15 R2's performance. Good multitasking, gaming, video editing, and a good desktop replacement for average gamers, might not be an exciting option for hardcore or professional gamers. Design and Appeal • Light and a perfect portable with good performance gaming laptop for average gamers. It has good screen real estate. 1 TB solid state storage which is perfect for gaming and daily use. Great color scheme with amazing picture quality and eye-catching design. Always loved the light scheme Alienware has on their X series gaming laptops. It has a clear coat that is stain resistant. The charger is light enough to carry around in my backpack. Decent number of ports adhering to the latest standards. Plenty of RGB light that gets head turning. Spec and Performance • Graphics Card- I typically care more about the Graphics Card spec that complements the Processor and RAM to get the best performance and I gauge the GPU spec with its ability to futureproof the hardware for next gen games. Nothing beats Nvidia and GEForce RTX 3070Ti 8GB RAM (Gen 2 RTX) is great for average-high end gamers. It meets my gaming needs without breaking the bank. • Processor and RAM- 12th Gen Intel Core with 16GB RAM to complement the high end RTX 3070Ti GPU which is perfect for avg-high end gamers. Great processor for multitasking, video editing, etc. • Display and features -Picture quality is amazing. Vibrant colors with a live gaming experience. Didn't feel the need for external monitor with the 15.6" FHD display. High pixel density, 1920x1080 resolution (avg 90FPS) with 360Hz refresh rate that is perfect for gaming and HD video streaming. Great audio quality for watching movies. • Keyboard and touchpad - Keyboard is comfortable for long hours of use, takes a little to get use to small size keys for gaming, debating if I want to switch to external keyboard. Touchpad (multi-touch) is precise and sensitive and doesn't pick up unintentional touches • Mics- Wi-Fi6 and BT 5.2 which are the latest standards, 1280X720 camera with microphone and stereo speakers (4W total) • Ports: USB A, USB C, microSD card slot, thunderbolt 4 port, HDMI, and an audio jack. Most of the ports are on the back which I am not a big fan of. Also comes with Type C to RJ-45 dongle for LAN connections. Performance • Heating management is pretty good, didn't notice any temperature rise with extended use. Played Far Cry 5, with highest graphics settings, for 2 straight hours to test the fans and it did good. Noticed the temperature hit 75 degC occasionally with CPU clocking at about 50%, but it didn't impact the gaming performance. Thermals for CPU are in mid-range. The keyboard didn't feel hot with temperature hitting 75 degC. I did have keyboard heat up issues with name brand gaming laptop and this is way better on heat regulation. Interestingly, I couldn't clock the CPU beyond 70% with the games I tried, so the multicore is doing a pretty good job in keep the CPU load balanced. On full throttle I noticed the fans get a little loud, which is expected on gaming laptops. The speakers are amazing with lively experience. It was a little loud at first and I had to tweak the sound settings to suit my needs. Battery life is decent with 7 hours of video playback and web browsing with avg brightness. Overall, a great mid-tier gaming/multifunction laptop that doesn't break the bank and spec'd decent to the price.

Pros: -Slim chassis, moderate weight of device. Not light, but not too heavy to lug around. -Adequate ventilation and relatively quiet fans (in comparison to other gaming laptops, none are completely quiet) that keeps the laptop nice and cool. Some warmth near the Alien logo power button at the top right of the keyboard after excessive hours play. -Games able to run on ultra-quality graphics without issue. Not 4k quality HD, but colors are vibrant and true nonetheless. -Handled every game I threw at it with ease. -High quality Dolby sound that is customizable through the Dolby Access application based on content. -Mic records decent quality of sound while not picking up sound of the fans or speakers. Cons: - About 2-3 hours of battery life with video media on 75% or more brightness (not really a con for me since I don’t plan on using it often on battery alone and I did not test the battery on basic use). - Only one USB port, but a separate USB hub device would fix this. I’ve always been under the impression that Alienware was the top of the line when it came to gaming PCs and have always wanted to take one for a test drive to see if they really were the best of the best. Out of the box I have to say that it is an interesting external design with white-silver lid and bottom, but a black inside with the screen and keyboard which suits the back lit keyboard nicely. Lights on the keyboard, Alien logo power button, Alien logo on lid, and light band on the back of the laptop surrounding most of the external ports are all individually customizable through the Alienware Command Center application. You can see I’ve already customized individual key colors in one of the pictures and there are other options that include animations if you want to put on a ‘light show’. Alienware Command Center application also allows for setting profiles/settings for Overclock, Thermal, and Power. Profiles can even be set to specific games after scanning them to the library so that your setting profile will turn on when the game is launched. Ran through several games (Death Stranding, The Outer Worlds, Halo Infinite, and Farcry 5 to name a few) without any issues. Even running them on the highest graphic settings that were available in the games didn’t cause any problems and the fans kept everything cool with the exception of a spot to the left of the power button that only got warm after 3-4 hours of game play. Never found a hot spot on any part of the device. I recorded a couple of game tutorial videos with voice over to see how the mic would handle noise from the speakers and fans. I’m happy to report that there wasn’t any negative feedback or unwanted noise in the recordings. :) Typically, I find that fans on gaming laptops are overpowering, but Alienware seems to have this under control. Fans do make some noise, as can be expected, though it isn’t overwhelming and doesn’t hurt the sound quality. Besides some minor things like only having one USB port, I really have no complaints and this thing really outperforms anything I’ve ever had before. I can now understand and agree that Alienware knows how to build a quality gaming PC.

I play entirely too many games and am always looking for more ways to play them. I jumped at the opportunity to test the new Alienware x15 R2 when it was offered and I have quite a few thoughts about it. I’ll start the review with a TLDR version for those that don’t want to read the book I’m about to write. Overall, the Alienware x15 R2 is a great desktop gaming alternative that will suit all but the most hardcore gamers just fine. The 15.6-inch 1080p 360hz screen is vibrant, bright, and fast. The G-Sync implementation helps provide smooth gaming paired with an 8GB Nvidia RTX 3070Ti and 14 core Intel i7 that will run just about any game at max settings at a 1080p resolution. Even though Alienware somehow managed to pack all of this power in a very slim package, the laptop still isn’t exactly portable with its 15.6-inch screen and large footprint. This laptop is more suited to be at home on a desk with an external mouse so you can avoid using the horrible touchpad. Design/Build Quality: The x15 is a big laptop, but It’s also impressively thin, but still has a pretty large footprint. The build quality seems solid enough, although it’s mostly made of plastic. I expected more of a solid design for the premium price, but the unit doesn’t feel flimsy by any means. Its design was a bit too loud for my liking, with the giant number 15 on the lunar white lid that’s coated in a stain-resistant finish and all the RGB lights on the back, lid, and keyboard. Luckily those RGB lights can be turned off or customized by using the AlienFX software. The keyboard isn’t the best I’ve used on a laptop but seems to be fine for gaming and the laptop provides ample room for your wrists to rest on due to the inclusion of a tiny touchpad. This touchpad is not only tiny, but it’s also terrible. This may be the worst touchpad I have ever used. It feels awful to click, lacks any good tactile feedback, and is so small that working on it becomes a chore. I believe they cut corners with the touchpad due to how most gamers will be using an external mouse, but it’s still a disappointment to see on a premium laptop. The laptop isn’t a looker, but the white/black combo is classic and won’t offend anyone. Also, I’m old and super boring, so that might have something to do with my design preferences. Gaming Performance: This is probably what you’re going to want to know about, so let’s get to it. The x15 R2 is an absolute beast with its 14-core Intel i7 2700H, Nvidia RTX 3070Ti, 1TB SSD, and 16GB of memory paired with a 1080p 15.6 inch 360hz G-Sync screen. I threw every game I had at this laptop and it excelled at every single one of them. Seriously, I played all of these games at Ultra settings at well above 60fps. Biomutant - 75FPS+ Doom 2016 - 150FPS+ Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 80FPS+ with RTX ON Borderlands 3 - 120FPS+ Assassins Creed Origins - 100FPS+ New World - 90FPS+ in most areas Ark Survival - 75FPS+ on Epic settings Halo Infinite - 120FPS+ Forza Horizon 5 - 120FPS This laptop isn’t built for light gaming, it’s built for full-on, hardcore gaming. You have 2 default overclocking profiles that worked flawlessly for me while stress testing the unit with Furmark for a few hours. I had no stability issues with the overclocks and everything worked great. The x15 does get very loud in performance mode, but a headset would drown most of that out. There is a bit of a higher pitched whine at higher fan levels, but nothing out of spec for a laptop packing this kind of hardware. During normal web browsing, the x15 is relatively quiet though. I had no issues with gaming performance during my review of the product and honestly couldn’t find a game in my library that the x15 couldn’t play well. Sound is powered by Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers that get very loud and sound fantastic, even loud enough to overcome the fan noise that the x15 makes when gaming. Of course, a good pair of headphones would most likely serve you better, but the laptop puts out pretty decent sound. The 15.6-inch 360hz screen is crisp, clear, and bright, although view angles tend to suffer at an angle since I believe the panel is based on TN technology to be able to get to this high of a refresh rate. If you’re looking for OLED black levels with this unit then you’re going to be disappointed, but I believe most people will be completely happy with the x15’s display. Usability/Features/Battery Life: The x15 comes with a couple of USB ports in the back of the unit, providing USB-A and C connectivity. It also packs an HDMI 2.1 port which is nice, but you won’t find a Display Port here. You do get a microSD card slot though, so that’s kinda cool for video editing or game data transfers to your Steam Deck. The x15 comes with Wifi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and a 6-cell battery that will get you some battery life. Alienware doesn’t advertise the battery life and that’s most likely because it depends on what you’re using the laptop for. When playing games I was getting between 1.5 to 3 hours on a charge, but this will vary greatly depending on what kind of game you’re playing. I’d project regular desktop and web browsing use at about 4 hours. You’ll be using this laptop plugged in most likely and this won’t be an issue for most users. You’ll also be getting a nice long power adapter and a sizable power brick with the unit after you unpack it from its very nice box. The presentation of the x15 is pretty nice, with the system's internals embossed on a hardcover book of sorts that you’ll open up to reveal the x15. The x15 gets loud and warm, so I’d recommend getting a lap desk if you want to avoid a hot lap when gaming in that fashion. The heat coming from the laptop made the entire vicinity of the space warm, which means the laptop does a good job at dissipating heat and exhausting it out the back and sides of the unit. There are several power profiles you can mess with in the Alienware software to maximize performance or battery life, depending on your usage. The software is clunky and slow, so I didn’t mess around too much with it as it was painful to navigate. The included RGB lighting is a fun feature if you’re into it. The Alienware logo lights up on the lid, as does the entire bottom back area. Your keyboard also has per-key adjustable lighting, which is a nice feature. The lighting leaves a bit to be desired as it seemed to not transition colors very smoothly like some of my other lighted keyboards. This was a little disappointing for what’s advertised as a premium AlienFX feature.

Dell has a pretty good track record when it comes to their Aleinware line of gaming pc's, and the x15 continues that trend. Out of the box you get the laptop and a slim power brick adaptor. To really emphasize the aesthetics of the laptop, the plug in adaptor of the power plug glows as seen in the photo provided. The first thing that you'll notice is that this laptop is not light. It has a good sturdy feel to it. The build quality is quite excellent. There are vents located on the sides, rear, and underneath the laptop. If they were aiming to make a laptop that doesn't turn into a heater, I think they're headed in the right direction. If you're a fan of RGB lighting, you'll get plenty here. You have the keyboard which is almost mandatory these days, you have the Alienware logo on the back of the monitor housing that lights up, you have the power button which happens to be the Alienware logo as well, and the back bottom half of the laptop also houses RGB lighting. The lighting is subtle, but adds to the nice futuristic look that it's going for. (You can change the colors in the command center) I have two gripes with this laptop, and I'll cover the first one here. I appreciate Dell's attempt at making the laptop look clean and moving all of the ports to the back, at the same time, I don't actually like the fact that all the ports are in the back. If you're using a dock and monitors, then it's really not that big of a deal, but if you're using the laptop as is, it's quite the chore to plug in accessories. In regards to the ports, you get 2 USB-C, 1 USB-A, 1 micro SD slot, and a HDMI. In terms of the laptop's raw power, you get a 12th gen Intel i7 chip, 16GB of RAM, 1 TB of memory, and a 3070ti. Here is where I discuss gripe number 2. The 16GB of ram is not upgradeable, the ram is soldered on. This is a huge disappointment because they give you the freedom of adding another NVME for storage, but can't upgrade the ram to 24 or 32. Which a nice strong CPU and GPU, I don't know why they would limit how much ram you can add. The screen is 1080p, 360hz refresh rate. It's a little disappointing that the screen isn't 4K. What's even more disappointing is that the screen isn't even 1440. This is a minor gripe considering that with the 3070ti, it would be difficult for any newer game to run at 4K with a steady and consistent 60-120 frames per second, so the 1080p isn't too bad. I tried the laptop with my usual trio of a FPS shooter, an adventure game, and my favorite horror survival game. The shooter came out a few years ago, so pushing ultra settings with ray tracing on was surprisingly good. The 360hz allowed for fluid movement and gameplay. The adventure game ran just as well considering that it too was released a few years back. The horror game had a lot of graphical options that I could tinker with, and when I really maxed it out, it did stutter in a few areas. You have a webcam (Which allows Windows hello). The webcam isn't the greatest in terms of quality, but it's good for meetings and some video chatting. The keyboard is nice and responsive. The bottom right half of the keyboard is a little condensed since the design engineers decided to include a mic off function key, as well as audio keys. The touchpad is nice and responsive. For me touchpads on Windows pcs are always an afterthought since I'll undoubtedly be using a mouse for all my games, but it's nice to have when you're surfing the web or anything casual. All in all, this is a great gaming laptop, minus the few gripes. I will say this, if you're going to get this laptop, get the ram configuration that you want. If you're going to be happy with 16 GB of ram for the next couple of years, great, if not, get one with 32.

I recently purchased the Alienware x15 R2 equipped with the NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti and an Intel i7 12th Gen processor, and I must say, it has exceeded my expectations. From its sleek and modern design to its exceptional performance, this laptop stands out as a top-tier gaming machine. The RTX 3070 Ti GPU offers incredible graphics performance, making my gaming experiences visually stunning and immersive. The refresh rate and resolution are perfect for high-end gaming, and I’ve consistently enjoyed smooth gameplay even in the most demanding titles. The i7 12th Gen processor is a powerhouse, providing speedy and efficient performance not just in gaming but also in heavy multitasking and professional workloads. Combined with the RTX 3070 Ti, it ensures that the laptop handles everything I throw at it with ease. Thermals and noise levels are also impressive. The laptop manages to stay relatively cool and quiet, even under load, thanks to its efficient cooling system. This is a significant plus for me, as it enhances the overall gaming experience without any thermal throttling. The build quality is robust and durable, and the keyboard and touchpad are comfortable and responsive, which is crucial for both gaming and productivity tasks. Battery life, as expected with a gaming laptop of this caliber, is decent but not its strongest suit. However, given its performance capabilities, this is a small trade-off. Overall, the Alienware x15 R2 with the RTX 3070 Ti and i7 12th Gen processor is an exceptional gaming laptop. It offers a perfect blend of power, performance, and build quality, making it an excellent choice for both gamers and professionals. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a high-end gaming experience. Five stars!

TLDR; Intel 12th Gen i7-12700H (6P+8E, 4.7GHz boost on P-Cores), Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti Laptop (Desktop 3060 Ti equivalent performance), 16GB DDR5 (5200MHz). FHD 360Hz 1ms panel. BFD: This thing runs hot and thermal throttles way more often than I’d like. From an aesthetic standpoint, The X15 R2 is a stunning looking gaming laptop and probably the thinnest one I’ve ever owned. At a little over half an inch in thickness when fully closed, the design of this thing puts a lot of other gaming and non-gaming laptops to shame. What I really love about the design is the linear thickness of the base as I was never a fan of the ones that tapered. The X15 has a unique take on the hinge placement as it is not on the end of the laptop, but about an inch forward from the rear, meaning there is an additional section of laptop not normally found on a 15”. I’m guessing this design choice adds in more in cooling while keeping the base uniformly thin. The result of that is a laptop that is larger in footprint and is very evident when the lid is closed. There are nice touches of Alienware-esque with an RGB Alienware logo used as a power button, an RGB Alienware logo affixed to the rear of the panel, and an RGB strip that encompasses the rear ports. Bezels aren’t the thinnest, but I’ve always favored a little more bezel so I don’t get my fingers touching the screen when opening/closing. Behind the screen, there is a cool embossed “15”. It comes in Lunar Light, which has been a staple color for Alienware since the beginning of the Aurora days. From a performance perspective, I think it’s worth mentioning up front that a mobile 3070 Ti does not perform at the same level as its desktop counterpart. Nvidia’s mobile GPUs are power limited for efficiency and even use the slower GDDR6 vs the GDDR6X found on the desktop variants. That being said, the 3070 Ti in this X15 is no slouch; it falls closer to the desktop version of the 3060 Ti, which is arguably the best Nvidia GPU you can buy for 1080p gaming. With the supplied 240W power brick, the 3070 Ti should be receiving full power to perform at maximum capacity. This version of the X15 comes with the 360Hz panel, which Dell considers their top tier for this configuration, and I am in agreement with this GPU/panel combo. Now achieving 360Hz may be far few and in between, but the reason why the 360Hz panel matters is because of its 1ms response time; the default 240Hz panel is 3ms. Thermals on the X15 can be very eye opening, with the P-Cores on the CPU reaching as high as 100 degrees C. Because it doesn’t exceed 100 degrees, it is most likely thermal throttling, evident when I feel like the OS is stuttering for simple things like downloading a large file. Should I be concerned about something like this? Yeah, I would. And I don’t think the hardware itself is the issue. The X15 is designed with cooling in mind with 4 cooling fans, but I think those fans are being underutilized, or simply not responding fast enough to changes in temperature. Cold air enters from the vents around the keyboard, then exits out to the bottom and side vents. Similarly, the GPU will reach max at 87 degrees C, although not as often, but it hovers around 83-86 degrees C while gaming. So yeah, it runs hot, even with all the cooling magic this thing has to offer. Then there’s the Command Center software for Alienware, which is a bit frustrating to use or understand. They provide two Overclocking modes, but I have no insight on what those modes do. I’m sure the information is in there, but it is very counter-intuitive and I’ll probably need a lesson on how to use it. But it should never have to be this way. Another thing is the fan controls, which seem to do absolutely nothing when I change the profiles. For instance, there is a Full Speed profile and when selected does not change any fan speeds. If I click around the other fan profiles and land on Quiet, then all of a sudden the fan speeds peg to 100%. Am I missing something here?? It’s almost like a delayed reaction. Speaking of delayed reaction, the real-time metrics being displayed (CPU temps, fan speeds, etc) are also delayed. I can hear the fans pegged to 100%, but the Command Center is reporting 44%. It looks like the Alienware team needs to do a little more work here. I just reverted to using the max performance toggle hotkey found on the keyboard (FN+F1) and that seems to be fine. I never open the Command Center now. Switching back to the hardware, there aren’t a whole lot of ports on this laptop, but it didn’t really bother me. I had enough ports for a mouse (USB 3.2 Gen1) and headset (audio jack), which is all I really need for gaming. This is also an available HDMI 2.1 port, a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port and Thunderbolt 4 port. The USB-C and Thunderbolt ports both support DisplayPort connection and are Power Delivery equipped, which helps with powering external hard drives without the need for an additional power brick, or accepting power from a USB-C power source such as an AC Adapter or a monitor with a USB-C connection. One addition that I really appreciated is the microSD card slot. I feel like more manufacturers are doing away with them. The keyboard itself is very comfortable and easy to use. I had no trouble during both gaming and productivity use. As a matter of fact, I’m using the X15 now to type this review. No complaints here. Power management is pretty good while on battery power, but ultimately you’ll get no more than 4 hours on this based on my normal productivity-use testing. There are some assumptions made here: you’re probably not gaming on battery power unless you absolutely have no choice. Right off the bat, the CPU and GPUs are power limited to save battery life, so you’re not going to get the full gaming experience from a performance standpoint. But while doing simple browsing and productivity-use, you’ll be alright. Similarly, when the 3070 Ti is not needed, it will automatically switch to the onboard Iris Xe graphics, reducing power usage further. If you need to go that extra mile, you can turn off RGB lighting, turn off performance mode and reduce the screen brightness. Remember, this is a gaming laptop after all and most of its life will be spent plugged in. So how does it perform? All things considered, it’s very good actually, when it doesn’t thermal throttle. There will be instances when the frame rates drop momentarily. I noticed it a couple of times running SOTR, although I was able to run at Ultra settings, DLSS set to quality and ray trace shadow quality set to high, achieving around 93FPS. That’s not bad at all. Other games felt similar, like Gears 5 running with the high definition texture pack at ultra settings achieving 86FPS. This laptop with this configuration is no slouch and can handle much anything you throw at it. A similarly spec’d desktop PC with a 3060 Ti will perform slightly better than this, but you can’t carry it around as easily as the X15. It’s worth mentioning that while gaming, the fans will get loud, and there’s 4 of them in there. And the way this thing cooks, you better get used to it. The keyboard and palm rests do get warm, but nothing too alarming or discomforting about it. The touchpad is on the smaller side with respect to other laptops, but it is plenty for me to use daily with no frustration. So here’s the dilemma: the Alienware X15 R2 in this configuration is expensive. It’s more expensive than other laptops that share the same specs. And at this price, you would hope for the cooling performance that it advertises. But at the end of the day, you’re here to play games, and it won’t make a lot of sense long term if your hardware is being taxed at the highest rate. It’s hard to make a buy recommendation for this laptop, but because we live in this day and age where software and firmware updates are readily available, I can see this laptop benefiting from that, and ultimately fixing these cooling problems. Ultimately, I took off 2 stars because of this. At this point, I would make a cautious buy recommendation for those that just love the Alienware design. It is really unique and the design team knocked one out of the park, but it’s possible that Dell pushed this product out too soon. You can probably undervolt it as well, but it doesn’t make sense if you’re paying this kind of money for top notch hardware.

I like to play computer games, but I prefer laptops over desktops since I don’t normally sit at a desk. The issue with gamming laptops was that they tended to be thick, heavy and get hot during use. Times sure have changed, and I was excited to test this new sleek laptop out. Setup was pretty standard and went smoothly. After downloading Xbox and Starcraft, I was ready to go. I wasn’t expecting to have any performance issues due to the impressive hardware this laptop has, but I was impressed with how cool the laptop kept during intensive use. I normally use a gaming mouse, but the touchpad was accurate and responsive. The keys felt great to type on and was similar to my Surface Laptop 4. The lights display is awesome, and I had a great time playing with all the different settings. The display is crisp and clear and I couldn't be happier with this laptop except I would like for it to have a touchscreen. Pros Sleek Lightweight High quality parts Cons No touchscreen I would highly recommend this laptop to the gamers out there. This computer is thin enough to take on the go and fast and cool enough to use anywhere.

This computer has a premium feel overall. My favorite thing is the physical nature of the machine that strikes a good balance of form and function. The appropriate amount of gaming focus of its form has appeal. Most gaming products lose any shred of this appeal once you put your hands on the materials that make up their design. This machine appears to be made out primarily of metals, and features ruberized surfaces with different textures and finishes that are a pleasure to touch and look at. This extends to the keyboard and its deisgn. The keys feel good to run your hand across, have good responsiveness, and enough travel/tactile feel to remain satisfying through each press. The 360 hz screen biggwst draw has been through non gaming tasks, where scrolling some websites give an experience of smooth I havent gotten anywhere else. From an OLED tv user, colors and contrast of the screen are fine out of box. The IPS backlight bleed is controlled much better than monitors ive had in the past. However 360 hz does highllight my biggest problem with the machine, and thats fan noise. Cooling the componets in this machine in the smaller form factor, is a difficult task to design. Also small form factor = small fans = higher pitched fan sounds. For some, the noise can be avoided with headphones, distance or indifference. How 360hz highlights the noise is pushing that frame rate takes a lot of computational power on both cpu and gpu, the two major sources of heat, each having their own fan. That means both new AAA games on high setting and older games will cause the fans to ramp up to sound levels that can be annoying for some. The way around this (once optimal cooling setup is in use, let the bottom of laptop breathe!) is really only limiting frame rate (and lowering graphics setting, :/ ) . This defeats the purposes of 360hz. While fan noise has always been a challenge for portable machines and laptops, for those who have difficulties not running their machine “optimally” or full-go, but still have sound restrictions, maybe a different Alien may be needed.

Light gaming system offered at a great price (open box). Compared to the M15 series, this unit is lighter with a very good keyboard, good capacity M2 ssd, and excellent performance. Why the one star knock-down. Three reasons. First, baked in RAM (cannot upgrade it). Second, unlike the M15 ryzen edition r5, you only have one SSD slot; the ryzen edition has two. Third, occasional startup problems (solved by shutting down and restarting). However, if you are looking for a good quality light gaming laptop, good place to start.

>> Overview First of all, the Alienware x15 R2 FHD Laptop is a beautifully designed device with refreshing colors and nicely packaged to give a very good first impression. Second, it is outstandingly fast and powerful. Third, it runs burning hot when gaming and the fans sounds like the laptop is about to take off. I was not sure about the whiteish exterior color at first, but once I got the machine, I loved the color, and combined with the black interior, it looks very stylish. Weight feels light and it is almost half as thin as other similar gaming laptops, which is surprising given how much power this laptop packs in its newer Intel Corei7 with 14 cores (20 logical) CPU and its NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU. I don’t see any major drawbacks on this wonderful device overall besides the temperature and noise: - Highlights: light/thin for a gaming laptop, powerful 3070 Ti GPU, Intel i7 (14 cores), stylish, 360Hz refresh rate. - Lowlights: too hot and too loud when gaming. This review is provided based on a few days of use, a more comprehensive and accurate review would need much more time, nevertheless I’d rate this device between 4 and 5 out of 5 stars. >> Setup Nothing out of the ordinary when setting up the computer. This time, I chose to attach my Microsoft account to the Alienware laptop, so that it could be somewhat in sync with my gaming desktop which is also set with the same Microsoft account. Before, I’d always create a local account and connect to my other accounts individually when needed. Well, I now have decided to have my gaming data synced across my gaming devices with my “gaming” Microsoft account (one that has Xbox Ultimate Pass). One thing I do and recommend doing is to run diagnostics tests soon after setting up your computer, or perhaps even before that, to catch any issues and proceed to an early exchange/return. In the past, I bought another gaming laptop for a relative that turned out to thrown Video Memory errors during the diagnostics tests, but that otherwise seemed to have been working fine when trying a few games (I didn’t stress the machine, so everything seemed to be working fine.) Hadn’t I run the tests; it would have been an issue for my not so tech savvy relative. To run the Diagnostics tests: - restart/start your computer - press the Del key - choose/press the F12 key to get to a list of options - from the list of options, select “Diagnostics”. It will automatically run a Quick Test, but if you are like me, you’d want to run the Advanced test option. Selecting all tests (except the keyboard), completed in about 10 minutes. I think getting a pass on those tests will for sure make feel more confident on your acquisition. >> Temperature How hot does it run? This is perhaps one of the biggest concerns/worries/questions I hear for gaming laptops (well it is a concern I always have.) For this device under no stress, like right now as I am writing this review in Word, browsing the net and logged into Steam, the “normal” temperature seems to be around 45 Celsius (114 F). Now, under some load (in this case gaming) boy, does it get hot. It is the hottest laptop I’ve owned so far; well, it is also more powerful than any other gaming laptop I had owned in the past. I don’t think I’d play games with it on my lap, like I do sometimes with my other Alienware 3070 (not Ti) laptop (which is hot but doesn’t feel as hot as this one). Even the AWSD keys feel hot after a few minutes of using them. I think I’d just stick to my Xbox controller when playing Xbox games to avoid the discomfort. To get an idea on how hot this laptop gets; let’s take Forza. While playing Forza it reached 81 Celsius (178 F)! When running with High Performance Mode Enabled (press Fn+F2 to enable/disable that mode,) the temperature doesn’t seem to get as high, but it is still very hot. There are options to overclock/configure the GPU that could be useful to set the right temperature, but I think I’ll tinker with that later on, not right now. >> Graphics cards The Alienware R2 laptop comes with two display cards, one integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics and the other the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU, with the latter being the one we mostly care about. NVIDIA Control Panel can be used to force the use of one or the other, or just let it select the best card to use under different circumstances. I’ve found for example that when starting a game, it switches to NVIDIA GPU only mode, while upon closing the game, it goes to Optimus mode (use integrated graphics.) This is very important to preserve battery life as well as energy, you don’t really need a high-end graphics card if you are writing something in Word, for example. In addition, the control panel allows to control global and per application 3D settings. Let’s say you have some graphics application for building models, you can set it to use the NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti as preferred. >> Benchmarks See the pictures attached for some of the benchmark results running 3DMark and related tests. All tests performed with the laptop plugged in. Those are preliminary results as I run the tests multiple times because it was showing a little lower than average when compared with results from similar hardware until I realized the warning message that the display driver was "not approved". I’ll investigate how to fix that message or determine if it is really an issue or not. Overall, the system feels solid, and it'll be a matter of adjusting some settings and updating to get the most out of it. >> Gaming The graphics results delivered by this device are top-notch and the best I’ve seen so far in FHD laptops. Colors and motion look just great, I’d assume what is expected from a combination of the 3070 Ti at 360Hz refresh rate along the whole Alienware tech. For example, playing Forza (one of the favorite games), the video looks so vivid and flawlessly, the details and flow are amazing, I just love it. Something similar with other games, such as Halo Infinite, how smooth the rendering looks is impressive. My only two complaints while playing are the loud sound of the fans and how hot the machine and the keyboard get. For the fan sound, I have the volume buttons easily accessible on the side so I can increase the volume when needed to cover the “jet engine” noise. >> Battery life It is expected for a gaming laptop to be plugged in most of the time, but there is always the chance to use it for regular tasks besides gaming. I’ve seen the battery life to be good despite how powerful the device is, all seems to be a result of good engineering while producing this device. So far, when navigating, reading emails, writing docs, etc., doing non-gaming stuff nor playing videos, the battery seems to go for about 2 hours. Which is fine if you’d need to take your laptop away let’s say to the backyard and do some light work. >> Other observations - Dedicated volume buttons: I initially wondered why they had to add those dedicated buttons, then when playing I realized their usefulness. It looks like designers might have gotten some input from gamers to get an easier access to volume controls. I find myself now changing the volume frequently. - Sound: I am impressed with the sound of this device. It is very loud, crisp and clear. - Power button issues: I don’t like that I have to press the power button for a few seconds before it decides to startup or come back from hibernation. This is a little annoying, I wonder if I am owning a defective device (I don’t think there is a diagnostics test to validate this behavior.) - Touchscreen: You don’t really need touchscreen for gaming, but I find myself touching the screen when navigating for example. Perhaps it is something to consider for the future. - Very thin screen: the screen needs to be handled with care, it bends easily and definitely, the laptop is not to be held by the screen (as other laptops could.) - Memory: at least RAM could have been better, at some point during gaming, it was using almost all the RAM.

I’ve been using the Alienware x15 R2 for the last 5 days and here are my initial impressions. First, the laptop looks great. It’s packaged very well. It feels like you’re opening a high end product. The laptop itself is very thin and sleek. This is the third Alienware laptop that I’ve owned and the x15 R2 is noticeably thinner. The potential downside of the thin casing is the there’s only one USB A port, along with two USB - C ports. One of the USB C ports is a Thunderbolt port for external monitor use. The laptop came with a USB C to Ethernet adapter. This could be an issue if peripherals like a controller, headset or cooling pad need to use a non- USB C outlet. I ended up buying an adapter and problem solved. As for the gaming, this laptop is a beast. The 3070 ti handles everything you could possibly want in regards to gaming needs. I was playing Destiny 2, running at 120 fps and it looked amazing. I didn’t experience any frame rate drops during gameplay. The 360 mhz refresh rate of the screen makes all gameplay seem like it’s really fast. If you’re not used to higher refresh screen rates it takes a few minutes to get used to how fast it looks. The main concern with gaming laptops is the cool. Dell states that this laptop is designed to run fine at temperature up to 96 degrees C. During my gaming sessions, the laptop was regularly running at 90 - 95. I didn’t notice any throttling during gameplay at these temperatures. Dell has advertised there’s a four way venting to help reduce some of the heat. If it’s a concern, get a cooling pad but the heat shouldn’t make a difference. There’s a few additional feature I wanted to mention. The keyboard on this laptop feels so good. I don’t know what it is about Alienware keyboards but I personally believe they feel the best to use. The keys are spaced nicely and everything feels natural. Also the speakers sound surprisingly good. The sound came out sharp and clear. Some laptops sound muffled but I didn’t experience that at all. In regards to the battery life, I was getting about 2.5 hours of life while just web browsing and I had a few small downloads. You probably won’t be gaming while not plugged into the adapter so this should be a concern. Overall, this laptop is amazing. As I’ve mentioned before, this is my third Alienware laptop and it’s definitely the best. The sleekness and performance make me feel very comfortable highly recommending the Alienware x15 R2.