======= Summary ======= The Alienware m17 is a high-performance gaming laptop that looks & feels great, is powerful and speedy, and is relatively light & thin. It has top-of-the line specs, fit-and-finish is great, and the cooling system is efficient. The m17 completely fulfills its raison d'être - playing games at their max visual settings with high & smooth framerates in a portable package. Very well done, Alienware~! _______ Pro's: 1. Crisp 1080P IPS display with great viewing angles and colors. 2. Relatively light (~5.9 lbs) and thin (23 mm) for a high-performance gaming laptop. 3. Excellent fit-and-finish, build materials, build quality, and attention to detail. 4. Excellent keyboard for both gaming and regular productivity tasks. 5. Smooth & accurate Precision touchpad. 6. LED lighting customizations available. 7. Good variety of ports. 8. Excellent performance in all scenarios. 9. Easy to open up & upgrade. 10. Great cooling design. 11. Non-gaming battery life is good (4-5 hours). 12. Supports the Alienware Graphics Amplifier for future-proofing. ________ Cons: 1. None ==== Design & Build Quality ==== Unboxing & handling the Alienware m17 was a pure pleasure. The m17's blend of magnesium alloy, steel, and polycarbonate materials look and feel premium and the attention to detail Alienware has put into crafting the m17 is readily apparent. The fit-and-finish is excellent, it feels tough and durable as a tank, and I find the design to be attractive and not over-the-top. It is amazing how far gaming laptops have progressed throughout the years. You can now have powerful desktop-class gaming components inside a laptop that weighs less than 6 lbs & less than an inch thick. Easy 10 out of 10~! ==== Display ==== The 17-inch 300-nit 1080P IPS display of the m17 is bright, crisp, and vibrant. It is perfectly suitable & satisfactory for my PC gaming, multimedia, and multi-tasking needs. Coming from 13- and 15-in laptop screens, I truly enjoyed having a larger screen real estate that allowed me to have several windows open at the same time without feeling cramped. Some may bemoan the fact that the display isn't a 144-Hz unit. If one is a pro-gamer or into competitive shooters, then it would definitely be a legitimate concern. But I think for the majority of gamers out there, this 60 Hz display will be a non-issue. It certainly wasn't an issue for me when playing the latest games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry New Dawn, and Metro Exodus. The games ran smoothly and looked fantastic without any visual anomalies. 9 out of 10. ==== Speakers ==== The speakers on the m17 delivered loud and clear sound with a little bit of echoing at its default sound profile setting. I used the Alienware Command Center software to adjust the sound characteristics more to my liking. Many preset sound profiles are offered - Racing, Role Play, Strategy, Shooter, Com, Movie and Music. Custom user profiles can also be created with control over the Equalizer settings plus additional audio effects such as Bass Boost, Treble Enhancer, Voice Clarity, Smart Loudness, Reverb, and 7.1 virtual surround sound. Although the speakers are decent, I recommend that most use quality headphones when playing games for an extended amount of time due to fan noise that can become distracting. For doing all the other stuff, the speakers of the m17 were adequate & satisfactory. 8.5 out of 10. ==== Network & Connectivity Options ==== The m17 offers a plethora of excellent networking options - Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet, Killer 1550 AC Wifi (2x2 MIMO), and Intel Bluetooth 5.0. I experienced no connectivity or speed issues and everything was peachy. 10 out of 10. ==== Ports ==== The m17 offers a variety of useful ports - 1x USB Type C/40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 port, 3x USB Type A Gen1 (one with Powershare), 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x Mini-Display Port 1.3, 1x Audio Out, and 1x Alienware Graphics Amplifier Port for an external GPU enclosure. I absolutely LOVE not having to use a dongle on the m17 to plug in my older USB flash drives and I applaud Alienware for being both forward-looking and backward-compatible at the same time. 10 out of 10. ==== Performance ==== My favorite part of the review! The m17, with its powerful components, blew away my expectations of what to expect from a gaming laptop & impressed me deeply. I own other gaming laptops but they are nowhere as powerful as my m17 (my second most powerful gaming laptop only has an nVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti). With an 8th-Gen Intel Core i7 hexa-core CPU, 16GB of DDR4, a 512GB NVME SSD from SK Hynix, and a 1TB Seagate hybrid SATA-3 SSHD, the m17 performed supremely at everything I demanded of it - Chrome browsing with >25 tabs open, photo & video editing with Cyberlink PowerDirector, general multi-tasking, and of course, PC gaming. I'm playing 3 games right now on the m17 - Metro Exodus, Far Cry New Dawn, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. All of them played and ran very well with all the eye-candy settings turned on to Ultra/Highest except for Metro Exodus. Here are some benchmark numbers: On Geekbench 4.3.3, the m17 scored 4797 Single-core & 20,789 Multi-core. In Geekbench 4 Compute, the m17 scored 222,483 (30% lower than my desktop RTX 2080). On CrystalDiskMark 6.0.2, I got 2704.5 MB/s Sequential Read & 1283.7 MB/s Sequential Write. In the Far Cry New Dawn in-game benchmark at 1080P, the m17 scored 43 FPS minimum, 56 FPS average, and 81 FPS max. When compared to my gaming desktop with an nVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 at the same resolution, the m17 scores were 67% (72 vs 43), 86% (104 vs 81), and 96% lower (159 vs 81), respectively. In the Shadow of the Tomb Raider built-in benchmark, the m17 scored 60 FPS minimum, 98 FPS average, 170 FPS maximum, and 78 FPS 95% percentile. My desktop RTX 2080 at the same resolution scored 94 FPS minimum (+57%), 121 FPS average (+24%), 204 FPS maximum (+20%), and 99 FPS 95% percentile (+27%). Playing Metro Exodus on the m17 was a fun and smooth experience as well. I did have to dial back some graphics settings, however, such as Ray Tracing and Texture Quality to High instead of Ultra. As for the thermals and noise level, I found both to be highly adequate and working well as advertised. Alienware claims good results from its Cryo-Tech 2.0 thermal management technology with its dual-intake/dual-exhaust cooling system and I experienced no overheating or worrisome CPU and GPU temperatures. The real test will be during the summer months here in California. As mentioned earlier, I highly recommend playing games with some quality headphones. Over extended gameplay, the fans will kick in and become distracting eventually. All in all, PC gaming on the Alienware m17 is a supremely enjoyable and fun experience. 10 out of 10. ==== Keyboard & TouchPad ==== Typing on the keyboard & operating the Precison Touchpad are delightful. The buttons are tactile, responsive, and have great key travel (1.4 mm). Having full-size arrow keys as well as a Number Pad are great. 10 out of 10. ==== Battery Life ==== For a big gaming laptop with a 17" screen, the m17 surprised me with its stamina from its 60 WHr battery. When using the m17 as a regular productivity machine, I experienced uptime between 4 to 5 hours. When using Chrome heavily, a known battery eater, my battery life ranged from 3 & 1/2 hours on the low end to 4 & 1/2 hours (>75% brightness). When watching just movies & videos, it lasted longer. I didn't play my games on battery that much because I didn't want to sacrifice CPU and GPU performance (the m17 operates in lower performance mode when on battery power). If I cranked up the power profile to Performance and ran the games anyways, I would expect about 1 to 1 & 1/2 hours of uptime. Upgrading to the optional 90 WHr battery to extend my uptime is tempting. 8.5 out of 10. ==== Software ==== The m17 came preloaded with the latest Windows 10 version 1809, Dell/Alienware apps, & the usual assortment of bloatware from Microsoft and its third-party partners. I counted 18 Dell/Alienware apps. Removing these apps, as is usual for Windows 10, is easy to do from Settings. My favorite Alienware apps are the Alienware Command Center & Alienware Update. With the Command Center app, I'm able to customize & adjust the LED lighting options for the power button, keyboard, and the Alienware head logo on the lid. In addition, one can activate different preset sound profiles or create a custom one. Other notable features include managing system overclock, custom CPU and system fan settings, and choosing and/or creating a thermal profile. As its name suggests, the Alienware Update app is used to check for system updates such as BIOS & driver updates. Good stuff! 10 out of 10. ==== Upgradeability ==== The m17 is an easily upgradeable machine. After removing the bottom cover, one has access to the memory, the battery, the M.2 Wifi module, and the hard drives (SATA HDD, NVME HDD). One can also purchase an Alienware Graphics Amplifier, put an nVIDIA or AMD GPU inside of it, and connect it to the m17 to add additional GPU power when the need arises in the future. It is a nice future-proof feature. 10 out 10. ==== My Verdict ==== The Alienware m17 - with its premium, rugged, and tank-like design - is an excellent gaming laptop. It has fantastic build materials and quality, great-looking design, slim & lightweight formfactor, superb keyboard & touchpad, powerful internals for high-definition PC gaming, plenty of ports, good thermals, and very decent battery life for a gaming system. All in all, Dell/Alienware has crafted a fantastic, powerful, and portable gaming laptop that is thoroughly enjoyable and delightful. Love it~!!

BUILD QUALITY: Pulling the m17 out of its box, it’s kind of surprising that it isn’t substantially heavier than Dell’s G-series laptops. The top has a grained texture that is nice to hold and doesn’t feel slippery. The edges of the laptop feel smooth without any sharp edges, and it’s overall a pleasure to hold, despite its larger size. Both the top and bottom of the chassis are made of metal and have excellent rigidity to prevent flex. Opening up the laptop to show the keyboard, it’s clear that Alienware spent some time to ensure that the build quality of this machine was a main priority. The keyboard has zero flex, but the soft touch material may be controversial among consumers. Personally, I’ve found that soft touch material can get greasy over time, so it’s advised that you wipe down the surfaces on a more regular basis—otherwise, you’ll find that the material may show its wear over time. I was actually surprised that I was able to fit it into a Solo Duane Hybrid Laptop Backpack / Messenger bag, even though the bag only recommended use with 15.6” laptops. That being said, this is really just an exception with this particular bag, and none of my other 15.6” laptop bags or backpacks were able to fit the m17. EXPANSION/UPGRADES: To access the motherboard, you can unscrew the 10 screws on the bottom of the laptop and the 2 screws on the rear. This laptop has quite a few easily upgradeable parts including (1) SATA port for a 2.5” hard drive or SSD, (2) m.2 slots for PCIe NVMe SSDs (I was pleasantly surprised to see that), (2) SODIMM slots for DDR4 memory, and a slot for the Wi-Fi card. Upgrades to the CPU and GPU might be possible, but sourcing the parts is rather difficult, so I won’t speak much to that. DISPLAY QUALITY: The display on this 17.3” laptop is a modest 1080p IPS panel at 60Hz. Inspecting the monitor in HWiNFO64, I determined that my model uses the LG Philips LGD05C3 with a manufacturer name of 173WF4. The display was supposedly manufactured in 2017. According to online docs, this display should reach 300 nits of brightness, and I found that to be good enough for most of my scenarios. At 57% AdobeRGB and 86% sRGB coverage, you should be able to do some color-sensitive work on this display, but it definitely shouldn’t be your reason for buying this laptop. At this premium price, I do find it disappointing that Alienware didn’t opt for a nicer 1440p or 4K display or a 1080p panel with a 144Hz refresh rate and G-Sync support. This is one component that’s very important to gamers, and Alienware definitely left me scratching my head at the exclusion of these features for this price. Instead, they are using a panel that’s often found on older Inspiron laptops. Even the Dell G7 that I reviewed used the AUO63ED which I was able to overclock to achieve a stable 100Hz refresh rate. That laptop has been seen on sale for 1/3rd the price of this Alienware. Unfortunately, I was not able to overclock the display on this Alienware. And while I think the image quality of the LGD05C3 is better than the AUO63ED, I think that many gamers would appreciate the higher refresh rate—especially at this price. KEYBOARD: The keyboard on the m17 is decent, but not great. The key travel is low-profile in comparison to other laptops that I’ve reviewed, but overall, I found that it is consistent across the keyboard. I think this another area that Alienware could improve upon, as there are premium 2-in-1 laptops that are nearly half the price and have a stronger emphasis on the keyboard experience. Gamers are looking for a more tactile feel, and these keys really do feel more low-profile and stealthy, as though Alienware expected consumers to use the m17 in a library environment where sound is an issue. As I type this review, I find myself making more mistakes simply due to the lack of key travel. As mentioned before, there is no keyboard flex, so the structural integrity is satisfying. And while the RGB backlighting has 4 zones, that isn’t nearly as much customization as previous iterations of Alienware laptops. This keyboard just really seems like a step backwards for Alienware fans, and it’s these types of compromises that can really convince gamers to walk away from these products. I can’t say whether or not Alienware chose to make these compromises due to engineering challenges to reduce the thickness of the laptop, but if that happens to be the case, I’m not sure if that compromise is worth it for the typical demographic of Alienware consumers. TOUCHPAD: While the keyboard has left me with mixed feelings, thankfully, Alienware has opted to use Microsoft’s Precision Touchpad drivers for the m17. The trackpad is large enough for my liking, and I didn’t find any issues with its sensitivity. Some might prefer dedicated mouse buttons rather than the 2 integrated mouse buttons in the trackpad, but these days, I usually use a mouse with my laptops whenever I’m doing serious productive work or gaming. Regardless, for just light browsing and such, I found that the trackpad was easy to use and didn’t cause me any frustration. SOUND: As an audiophile who owns expensive audio equipment, I can appreciate great sound quality. And while the m17 isn’t going to win any awards, it can deliver adequate audio performance over its integrated speakers or headphone output if you reduce the majority of the post-processing that is being applied. Simply open up the Alienware Command Center application, then under the Audio Profiles, I recommend that you create a profile with Audio Effects and the Equalizer completely disabled. From there, the only thing I could really suggest adding is the Bass Boost or modifying the Equalizer if you have any idea what you’re doing. I listen to a lot of music, so this profile is a good starting point for a better listening experience on the m17. Gamers might consider enabling the “Alienware 7.1 Virtual Surround Sound” if they do not already have headphones that utilize 7.1 virtual surround software, but most variants of such software have typically left me dissatisfied, so I usually prefer to go without it. Out of the box, the amount of post-processing really detracts from a high-fidelity audio experience, but applying some tweaks can deliver a better experience over both the integrated speakers and headphone output. The speakers get decently loud without introducing distortion and other artifacts, and that’s more than a lot of other gaming laptop brands can say. I/O: The m17 is equipped with a decent range of ports including (3) USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports, Gigabit ethernet, a combo headphone/microphone port, an HDMI 2.0 output, a Mini-DisplayPort 1.3 port, a Thunderbolt 3 port over USB-C, and the Alienware Graphics Amplifier port. I think it would have been reasonable to include an SD card slot of some sort for this price. There are much smaller laptops with SD card slots, and while I can understand that not everyone will use such a feature, providing more features in a laptop of this price doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request. Despite this, I do think that the port selection on the m17 is competent. Most laptops these days only have one display output, but the m17 has 3 (since USB-C and Thunderbolt can support DisplayPort output). PERFORMANCE: Benchmarks of the specific components can be found in my Userbenchmark run here: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/15589919 These scores matched or exceeded benchmarks from other users running similar hardware. I was able to achieve the following scores in 3DMark Time Spy 1.0 without any changes to the hardware or modifications to voltages or using more aggressive fan profiles: 3DMark Score: 6932 Graphics Score: 7018 CPU Score: 6485 Graphics Test 1: 46.17fps Graphics Test 2: 39.91fps CPU Test: 21.79 fps I was also able to achieve an overall score of 9616 in the Unigine Superposition benchmark at the 1080p High Preset with the following scores: FPS: Min | Max | Avg 57.69 | 91.04 | 71.93 GPU (°C): Min | Max 47°C | 78°C Here are the results of my benchmark in Shadow of the Tomb Raider with the latest Nvidia driver updates: Preset: High Resolution: 1080p Exclusive Full Screen VSync: Off Nvidia RTX DLSS: On Ray Traced Shadows: Medium FPS | CPU Game | CPU Render | GPU Min | 40 | 51 | 52 Max | 116 | 213 | 137 Avg | 77 | 107 | 75 95% | 57 | 72 | 57 If you’re interested in VR, you’ll be pleased to know that I had no performance issues playing games like Windlands 2, Contractors VR and Eleven: Table Tennis VR at high settings. I’ve yet to find something that the m17 cannot handle. While most prospectors would consider picking up the m17 for gaming purposes, it should also be mentioned that it can handle workstation tasks and professional workloads, if you have demands for such capability. BATTERY: Battery is definitely one of the weaker aspects of the m17. You will definitely find yourself needing the wall charger quite often due to the power draw of this machine. Even with all RGB lighting turned off and the display brightness turned down, setting the computer to Battery Saver mode in Windows suggested a yield of under 4 hours with bare minimum usage. I did find that turning the RGB lighting back on caused a substantial enough power draw to lose an additional hour or more of battery life from the m17, so I advise that you disable the lighting, altogether, when you need to extend the duration of the battery life. CONCLUSION: Overall, the m17 is quite a competent, well-built laptop, but it has quite a few shortcomings that make it hard to recommend at this price. Given that last year’s laptops have similar performance and can be had for much cheaper, the m17 doesn’t really make a compelling statement for itself. It has a great build and specs, but at a price that doesn’t live up to the premium name.

This is a great laptop overall, but this really should have been released as at least a 144hz screen for the asking price. My previous laptop, also an Alienware 13R with OLED screen, has much better resolution, and obviously much better black levels by far and viewing angles. This screen is only 1920x1080, which would be ok, but includes a fairly powerful RTX 2070 Max-Q mobile processor, capable of way over 60 frames per second at the laptop resolution for most games. So if you game off the actual laptop screen, you will see screen tearing, as the display only runs at 60hz (60hz, basically means it can only display about 60 frames per second). This really isn’t all that bad, as just about all games have a function called “V-Sync” and it will bascially cap your video card from passing 60fps, and keep away that screen tearing. I understand they were trying to keep the price down on this laptop offering, but this is really a shame, as there are other manufacturers of exact same CPU, and GPU configurations that do have higher refresh rate monitors, and at least one of them, at a higher resolution to boot. This is a big laptop, but really not as heavy as you would believe. You probably wouldn’t want to lug this thing around everyday, but weight wise, it is not very heavy, only a bit heavier than my Alienware 13R with OLED that does not contain a hard drive. This laptop configuration, has a 512gb SSD for the boot system drive, and a hybrid 1tb+8GB hard drive. This is a great setup, as you will quickly fill up a regular 512gb SSD alone, as I did with my previous gaming laptop. I use Adobe Creative Cloud, mostly Premiere Pro, and After Effects, and this laptop runs both fantastically! The 17” screen has been fantastic, even if running a lower resolution. The build quality of this laptop is absolutely stellar. This is built like a TANK!! Love it. Love the looks. I can get away at freelance jobs bringing this in and be ok with it. The only thing I do not like, are the huge screen screen bezels. These not only give the laptop a cheap feel, but they put the ALIENWARE logo type right underneath it. It just makes an otherwise great looking laptop look a bit low budget. The screen itself is not too bad, but definitely not a OLED screen in terms of black levels, however, you will not have to worry about potential burn-in like I do on my older alienware OLED model. Ok.. so, now on to how it games. I installed Resident Evil 2 remake, and had a few issues setting it up, as many people did, but it is not the fault of this laptop. There apparently bugs related to the game not starting because of it being confused as to which video processor to use at launch, and the game will hang and not begin. I followed directions directly from Capcom, on the Steam Support forums, and I did finally get it working. It basically involves going to the NVIDIA Control Panel, and adding in a custom option to force the Resident Evil 2 .exe file, to always use the RTX 2070, and prefer performance over battery life. You should always game while plugged in, not just for performance, but also you will not get alot of gaming time on any gaming laptop running off a battery for modern games. Once I got it working, I pretty much maxed out all my settings, per a great youtube channel, Digital Foundry, and gaming right on my laptop screen was great! Nice frame rate, no tearing with V-Sync on, at default resolution of 1920x1080 on the laptop screen. So on to a bigger test. I recently got both a 65 Sony 4K tv and Sony Dolby Atmos receiver. I have an Xbox One X that looks great on it, especially with HDR compatible games. After a bit of noodling around, I was able to get my TV as my gaming display, including getting Resident Evil 2 to display HDR!! Looks great. At first, I setup the game to run at my tv’s default 4K resolution, but the frame rate was very unstable. Playable, but not great. It would fluctuate a bit. To get your m17 to display HDR, you definitely need a HDR capable TV, set windows display settings by right clicking on your desktop to “Display Settings” and make sure it is set to play games in HDR color. I did this, but the game would not allow me to turn on HDR itself! I could see the HDR mode on my Windows desktop, but when I would start Resident Evil 2 it would go back SDR. Again, after some googling, what you need to do, in addition to setting Windows 10 display settings to HDR mode, is to make the laptop only use one display, your HDR display. Don’t extend or use your laptop as 2nd monitor. It confuses games, and the HDR settings. You also, and this is a big one, need to go back into NVIDIA Control Panel, and change the color settings to use HDR mode!! Otherwise, it seems windows only thinks the non gaming optimus video card is the one using HDR. There is a customize option, where you can set this up, and change the bit color depth, and I was able to do this here. Once I did that, rebooted, and ran Resident Evil 2, bingo, I was able to get the HDR mode option turned on, when connected to my TV as the only display! Gaming was great this way. I had great frame rates, very steady, and looked about the same as my Xbox One X, even though I had to lower my resolution to 1920x1080, vs. full 4k. The resolution difference was not noteable! But the HDR mode was. Much better in HDR if you have a 4K HDR tv. Even surround sound passed thru to my amp from the laptop! I got in maybe 4 hours of game time with my TV this weekend. I use a xbox 360 wireless USB adapter on the laptop, and game from about 8 feet away with it. I also had a chance to install Call of Duty WWII. This game also supports HDR modes, but I was not able to get it to work, and it looks like no one, can get it to work, as evidenced by Steam forums for the game. This game I was however get to run a a very high and steady frame rate, with just about every option maxed out, at 4K resolution with no issues at all. Surround sound pass thru also worked great. I setup Alienware Mobile Connect on this laptop, as it will suggest you do it. This allows you to get all your phone notifications direct on your laptop. This is great, and is something Mac computers have been doing for years. Just a heads up, when gaming, set this to “Do Not Distub” otherwise if you get a notification, the game will minimize, to show you the notification. Speakers on this laptop are also a plus. They just sound great, considering they are in a laptop. I will always use headphones while gaming off the screen, but for other things, they sound really good. While gaming, this machine get hot. I mean really hot. You will not be able to game on this thing on your lap. Even on a table, you will feel the heat off this thing, not only blowing out of the sides, but also on the bottom. While gaming, I would advise people to either get a laptop cooler pad, or even something like a engineering scale, to lift the back of the unit up a little, to allow for better ventilation. In my testing, my computer never shutdown, from overheating or anything like that, but heat will degrade your battery life over time, and I did not use anything to lift it up, but will be ordering a laptop cooler very soon. USB transfer speeds were also great. Connected up 2 different USB hard drives, and they both were copying files to and from each other around 160mb/second. Not bad at all. Overall, since I mostly will be gaming directly on my 65” living room TV, with occasional laptop gaming for some games, I am VERY happy with this as a gaming laptop, but also as a video editing machine! Very recommended as long as you aren’t exclusively gaming all the time on the laptop screen. And even then it might be ok for most people after turning on V-Sync.

Let's get this straight; this laptop is not for everybody. It is for those looking for an absolute powerhouse of a gaming laptop with very little to no compromises. I've been using this laptop for about two weeks now and it's nothing short of impressive. Performance: I've fired up several games including the following titles : 2019 Resident Evil 2 remake, Wolfenstein II The New Colossus, Counter-Strike:GO, Bioshock Infinite, Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, Apex Legends, PUB G, Dark Souls 3, Battlefield V, Quake Champions, and Doom (2016). I have run every one of these games with settings fully maxed out. The RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU in this laptop doesn't even flinch. It's easily running all of these games at way above 60 + FPS at 1080p. This is where I wish that Alienware would have offered a 1080p display with a refresh rate higher than 60hz. The 1080p 60 Hz display doesn't do the 2070 GPU and the i7-8750H on this laptop justice. However, on a positive note, you can rest assured that this laptop will run virtually any game out on the market right now at fully maxed out settings 1080p + 60 FPS. Don't forget that you can also connect this laptop to an external display if you do want to run games at 4k or at refresh rates higher than 60Hz so this is always a plus. I've been playing a lot of RE2 and it looks absolutely stunning on this laptop. It runs incredibly smooth and fluid. The laptop can get a little warm during long gaming sessions but not around the keyboard frame where your hands rest so it's really not an issue. Alienware did a fantastic job with their heat dissipation and ventilation design. Build Quality & Design: First and foremost, you would be hard-pressed to find a gaming laptop this thin with all the high end components. More importantly, this is the thinnest and lightest laptop that Alienware has ever produced and boy did they knock it out of the park. Although it's a 17 inch, it's light enough and thin enough to take it everywhere. Finally! The design and construction is of the highest quality that you can find on a laptop. I love that a very high quality and durable aluminum was used on the outer display frame. It's a beautiful sleek space gray that does NOT attract any fingerprints which is a welcomed change to all the other glossy and matte finishes used on other laptops. I absolutely love the Alienware accents like the little Alien head LED lit power button and the Alien head on the outer frame of the display that lights up when you're charging the laptop or when using it. I/O: This laptop is jam packed with several useful I/O ports. It has three USB 3.1 ports, display port, HDMI, Thunderbolt, standard 3.5mm headphone jack, a Killer NIC with a dedicated ethernet port (Killer E2500), and Alienware's proprietary amplifier port. I love the small performance touches and attention to detail like the Killer NIC. Alienware could have gone with a standard Intel NIC, but instead they installed a Killer NIC which is an optimized low latency NIC with high throughput suitable for gaming. I've done some research on "Killer Networking" Network Interface Cards in the past, and they are legit. Their NICs can packet prioritize your game and multimedia traffic above everything else. The proprietary amplifier port is an interesting concept. This allows you to purchase Alienware's Graphics Amplifier Unit (which is essentially an enclosure that let's you install a desktop GPU) and connect it via a proprietary cable to the graphics amplifier port on your Alienware laptop. The idea is that it gives you the flexibility of having desktop level graphics (like an RTX2080 Ti) and connecting it to your laptop. This would also be ideal in a situation where you go to LAN parties and you don't want to lug a large desktop with you. Take your Alienware laptop along with Alienware's small form factor Graphics Amplifier Unit with you, and you've got yourself a desktop grade gaming solution in a mobile form factor. Display: Although this isn't a 4k display, this is one of the best 1080p IPS displays you'll find on a laptop. The 17.3" display produces a very respectable 300-nits and a 72% color gamut. I do believe that given the high end specs on this gaming laptop, Alienware should have definitely opted for at least a 100Hz - 120Hz screen at 1080p. However, it was not enough to dock a star in my opinion. They do offer this laptop with a 4k display that produces an sRGB 100% color gamut with 400 nits brightness but it is still 60Hz and does drive up the cost. Also, I would have liked to have seen a GSYNC display offering. On the flip side, I know that a GSYNC display would have significantly driven up the price since GSYNC modules are NOT cheap. Battery: Battery life is what's expected from a gaming laptop at this caliber. If playing through a long gaming session, the battery with last you about 2.5 ~ 3 hours. This is definitely a gaming laptop you'd want to keep plugged in when gaming. If doing the casual web surfing, youtube, emails, microsoft office, etc., it can easily last you 3.5 ~ 5 hours; especially if you adjust the power mode settings to prioritize battery life over performance. The power brick is a BEAST! But again, this is expected. Although the power brick is a pretty hefty size, it's actually pretty thin. Additionally, I've actually seen a lot larger power bricks on modern gaming laptops. This comes with the territory. Keyboard & Trackpad: It's not a mechanical keyboard. However, I can't quite put my finger on it, but it is a dream to type on. I think it's the incredibly smooth key actuation that just does it for me.It's very high quality. The keyboard is also full RGB with four different lighting zones that are fully customizeable to your liking. The RGB really pops on this keyboard. I also love that because this is a 17 inch display laptop, you get a 10-key numpad!!! For students, content creators, and engineers this is huge. The trackpad is amongst the best. No hiccups, just accurate and smooth tracking all the way around. There are no LED accents as in the past, but that doesn't really matter to me. Software: The Alienware Command Center is amazing! This is one of my favorite parts about this laptop. Alienware, in my opinion, has some of the best customization software. You can set custom themes, it displays your installed games, you can set up lighting effects such as changing colors on the Alienware head, audio options, and it also has monitoring metrics such as CPU temps, frequency, GPU temp & usage, DRAM frequency & voltage, etc. Finally software that's not only useful, but provides a lot of customizeability. Conclusion: I absolutely love this laptop. I've been building computers for several years but never tried an Alienware. You can't exactly build a laptop from scratch so you go with the best a manufacture has to offer. I believe Alienware has achieved one of the best, if not the best, gaming laptop. Not only because of the high end specs (several other manufacturers offer similar specs) but because of the "extras". The build quality, the sleek and slim profile, the Alienware accents, the incredible proprietary alienware command center software, the graphics amplifier port, etc. You're also buying into the name which has a long and incredible history in the gaming industry. Alienware has been around since I was a kid and given their track record and recent product innovations, it will be a name that I'll be recommending. If you're looking for an extremely high end gaming laptop with little to no compromises, this is it.

I'm on the fence after my first few days with this laptop. You only have to read the specs to recognize it's a powerhouse both in processing and video. What's giving me pause is the aesthetics of it. I'm not sure it knows what it wants to be. It's smart, sleek, and stylish. If one were to hand it to me with all the logos stripped off, my best guess would be that it's a high end business laptop all geared up to give a Powerpoint presentation; or to crunch through a CAD/CAM database like a hot knife through butter. Apart from the alien head logo, gone is any of their trademark bling - edge lighting, trackpad surround, etc. If that's the image they intended to project, job done. But Alienwares a... gamer's laptop, right? Therein lies its dilemma. I'll run through my past 72 hours with this machine. Being a Civilization addict for the past - what is it now - 28 years or so, I was anxious to get it up & running so I could see the latest iteration (Civ VI - Gathering Storm) in all its glory, with the graphics pumped up to the max, utilizing every bit of the Nvidia 2070's processing power & 8 gigs of dedicated ram. The first burp was Windows Update "couldn't locate the embedded key code." Minor setback - couldn't adjust any of the personalization till it had the key. Downloaded all the updates, identified the key code, and half a dozen restarts later, we were set. If you're unaware, the Alienware comes with packaged software - the ACC or Alien Command Center which is a hub to control the keyboard lighting, sound, overclocking, and displays for the same including monitoring temperature of the processor & video. Built into the ACC is AlienFX, which controls the various keyboard lighting effects. There's an extensive list of games that are meant to interact with FX, Civilization VI being one of them. In Civ's case, the keyboard color changes in accordance with the particular Civ you're playing each game; it glows red when you go to war, etc. I loaded in the Steam client, and hit the Civ VI button - started to load to the main screen; and the intro video looks better than I ever saw it. At the main screen, I set up the game parameters, and hit start game. The loading screen turns on, and the backlit keyboard changes from its standard pale blue to yellow - neat! Then, as the game fully loads and it starts, the keyboard starts flashing frantically - about 3-4 times a second - as if it's trying to send me into an epileptic fit. I figure I've done someting wrong, so back out, and into the Alien FX settings. Civ VI is there in the gallery of games it's intended to personalize; all is set as it should be. So now I'm into the web to do some research. First thing I see is other Steam players encountering the same issue; no solution noted. Same thing on the Civ VI site. I next visit the Dell Alienware community, and see there's a thread on this going back over 4 months. In the interim, a new version of the ACC had been released, back in January I believe. But, that did not solve the issue, in fact, probably worsened it. The previous version had a check box in it to "disable 3rd party interaction", meaning if a piece of software (game) was acting badly, you could check the box theoretically disabling any adverse effect the software was causing the system. The new version deleted that checkbox. In my case, that would mean I could disable the interaction between Civ 6 & the keyboard, and I could still have a backlit keyboard while playing, albeit without any special effects. I sent private messages to the moderators in the Alienware Community, what I got back was uninstall ACC, remove registry entries, reinstall, update Bios. I did all that to no effect, and replied to the mods. Their final answer was to turn the keyboard lighting off, beyond that, to wait until the next version of the ACC was released. And hope. All of this of course is my personal experience; and related to this one game. Thing is though, in the course of researching this, I saw it wasn't the only game. I do recognize the difficulty of manufacturing a device that's meant to interact with a third party. We've all been through this over the years. How many pieces of software have you had that wouldn't run on various versions of Windows? How many times have you updated Adobe products? Sometimes it seems as if you spend more time updating than actually using the product. However, I did read along the way that the AlienFX software is a third party product to Alienware in and of itself. I can't verify that's actually the case, but if so, that kind of puts another layer of difficulty between a problem and a solution. So that's my for now - I need to play Civilization with no keyboard lighting. I would suggest that if you are purchasing this as a gaming machine; do your research & insure that the games in your inventory play nice with AlienFX. But back to the machine itself. One feature I ddn't particularly care for was that the trackpad & left/right buttons are one integrated piece. That means as you perform the click, the entire surface of the trackpad is rocking. I would prefer that the buttons be detached from the pad, but this is a personal preference issue. If you're picky about the tactile sensations of the keypad, you might want to visit a store with a display unit to try it out. I've attached a couple of photos, you might be able to discern how the entire keypad depresses when activating a button. I'll echo the comments from other reviewers about the matte finish surface being susceptible to fingerprints - would've preferred aluminum - and continued that metal theme onto the screen bezel. (you can also note my fingerprints in the attached photos - lol) I'll also confirm the noise level is high under load; but can forgive that. One can't expect to put high end desktop power into a slim chassis and not expect that you have to pump a lot of air through it. Wifi is excellent - I have Fios Gigabit, and despite having the access point two walls and about 50 feet away was still able to achieve 300-500MB speed consistently with no dropouts. Audio quality (referring to the speakers) is good, but not great. I must admit that I am a bit spoiled being a vinyl person; I know laptop sound is a set compromises, but I do compare everything against a 10 year old 17" Toshiba I have that has stellar sound for its size. In summary, I don't know that given the opportunity again that I would select this machine, or for that matter give my wholehearted recommendation for it. There's no question as to its capabilities or quality. I do have aesthetic concerns about it, but those are my personal preferences. The thing is, at this price point, you're in rarefied air as far as gaming laptops go. There are many other options in this price range, and the buyer should do his homework to get the unit that serves his needs best.

Was so excited to unbox my new Alienware M17. Box not sealed and laptop wasn't seated in it's foam. The screen had what looked like a lot of dust and cardboard particles. A quick puff of duster fixed that up quick. Checked the ports, no sd card slot (i have a drone and DSLR). Powered unit on, checked for dead pixels, passed inspection. Setup windows (sadly it is the home version). Immediately the bloatware started updating software. Computer at this point semi usable. All the bloat made this laptop feel like a 10 year old laptop. For no apparent reason fans blowing hard and noisy. I had nothing running. Tried to switch into task manager and froze up then lagged into task manager. something had cpu at 100%. Downloaded Apex legends, Fortnite, and Passmark. Apex legends took a total of 20 minutes to download and install. I have 100Mbps download ISP. The killer Wi-Fi was only downloading at 2-5mbps. Tried updating driver but none found. Restarted laptop. For a minute finally got near my purchased download speed. Moments later it dropped back to 2-5Mbps. Tried 2.4Ghz connection. speed was at 40Mbps. Switched back to 5Ghz and slow. Will solve this later. Passmark froze up laptop on first run. Reset laptop and finally completed. Per passmark laptop was at 97% percentile. Both CPU/GPU higher than average charts (won silicon lottery). Fortnite and Apex Legends ran smoothly on highest settings. CPU in high 80s and GPU in high 70s. Not bad IMO. Thermals: I was idling both CPU/GPU in high 50s. Not good. Maybe liquid cooling or vapor chambers could of been used. The alien logo was smoking hot by the keyboard. Remember to take plastic shipping wrap off the keyboard. I think the top portion has vents. Screen: 60hz on a high end laptop. So sad. Screen is bright but off angle viewing I could quickly see color shift. I hope this isn't the same screen used on the G5/G7 with brightness boost. I am so used to my Samsung S4 OLED screen that this laptop screen looks dull. Keyboard: Had no issues typing with the keyboard. It's a little shallow but feels good. Trackpad lacking, but I really don't like track pad to begin with. Software: Bloat is installed. At this level Dell needs signature series no bloat installed. Windows 10 Pro should be standard to turn off all telemetry. Build: Excellent build. I didn't see any flex. Not a fan of shiny plastic around screen. Makes laptop look cheap. Hardware: Outside the processor and gpu, Dell uses Hynix ssd, ram, and a 5400 rpm hardrive. Hynix fine for the G3 line but doesn't belong in a high-end gaming rig. At minimum Samsung EVO 970 NVME should be used. Oh yeah power supply almost as big as my old Nexus 7 tablet. About 4x thicker than it too. As an owner of HP omens, Dell gaming laptops, msi gaming laptops, and Acer gaming laptops; Alienware has always been the BMW of gaming laptops. Hands down this Alienware has far superior build quality than them all. As with most laptops, the software experience out of the box is always bad. Once I throw a fresh Windows 10 install, I have no doubt this laptop is going to be a beast of a gaming rig, video production unit, and office production champ. Forgot to mention speakers are loud and sound rich. Be aware on first boot because Cortana is loud. It's good to see the Alienware line grow up. But the competition is catching up and dell needs to step their game up and offer faster refresh rates, higher brightness, and better components.

This won’t be your standard review that conducts benchmarks and all the typical hardware and software speed tests that are so common in most computer reviews. Feel free to read those elsewhere, as they are readily available everywhere you look. Instead, I am only going to focus on my personal thoughts and how I use this computer to fit my needs. First, I was in need of a dedicated portable system to use for music recording. While the “Gamer” tag is fine, gaming laptops are are also beefed up in a way that benefits using them for a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) as well. Especially if you want to be mobile. I have the entire Adobe CC Suite installed, but mostly use Audition and other music software. I have found that whether I am using Audition, Lightroom, Photoshop, or Premiere Pro, this system handles them with ease. Granted, if you are trying to edit 4K video in Premiere, you’ll need to create proxies first. No big deal. I even need to make proxies to edit 4K on my fully loaded 5K iMac. I digress. This is a beautiful machine. As a recent Apple convert, I am really digging the fresh style of this system aesthetically and Windows 10 is also a solid and stable OS. While the anti-glare screen is gorgeous for videos, photos, Netflix, and games, one thing I wish could get better quicker is how text looks on most PC laptops and monitors. This would be my #1 complaint. Coming from a 5K retina display will make the text on most any other display look horrible though. This is a minor complaint in the grand scheme, but should be noted. A couple of things to mention are the small upgrades I have made. The integrated webcam is okay if good light is available. Low light? Forget it. I upgraded my webcam for better low light performance. The ports are also very minimal, therefore you will most likely need to add a USB hub if you use a lot of devices. I have one powered 7 port USB 3.0 hub running a microphone, webcam, DAW input device, and a guitar effects processor. The Type-C port is plugged into an external SSD for music backup. The HDMI is hooked up to my large smart TV as a second monitor. All of this is easy to pack up and go mobile with, except the large TV of course. Lastly, since this is marketed as a gaming laptop, I took the opportunity to load up Diablo 3 since it’s been a minute. Hey, good excuse! I am not much of a gamer these days due to time, but I do enjoy a good dungeon crawler when time permits. I am happy to report that D3 runs flawlessly with everything maxed out to 100%. No tall order since this game is several years old, but I felt the need to mention a “game” nonetheless. Just to do a RAM test, I played D3 while having several tabs in Chrome open, Audition, and just for good measure, Premiere Pro open too. The game still ran flawlessly. This is one cool package. It’s perfect for my needs. I suggest you get yours soon. PROS: Great size for a 17” and very light Beautiful anti-glare display (other than the text) Really cool look and styling Build quality seems tough Battery life is good, but depends on the workload of course Love the customizable RGB lighting and Alienware Command Center Excellent and comfortable full RGB color spectrum backlit keyboard and Alien heads (Cool!) Responsive trackpad USB Type C Port HDMI Port CONS: Text isn’t very sharp No SD card slot Webcam is non-useable in low light scenarios The fan can be a tad noisy at times

The Alienware m17 is a great PC that has some very impressive features. Unfortunately, it also has some very disappointing points. AESTHETICS -Very thin (18mm). -Slick-looking while folded and slim profile. It feels nice to hold. -Dark silver top with black matte accents can look like a gamer’s laptop, yet serious enough to take to a business meeting. -The small, traditional alien logo is not extravagant. -The screen bezel is thicker than many similar builds, but not distracting. -RGB keyboard and Alienware logo but they are not fully addressable. • BUILD QUALITY -Not as heavy as previous models (6.7lbs) which makes it easier to carry around. -Hinges are strong -top stays up and/or closed. -The dashboard features a matte finish that can attract some smudges easily. -Screen’s bezel is glossy black which could be easily scratched. -The keyboard and dashboard (chassis) do not bend easily under pressure. -Keyboard has good travel feel, despite being only 1.4mm. Great for typing but does not give enough tactile feedback when gaming. Also, it takes a bit to get used to the layout -especially the smallish enter, home, end and delete keys. -The touchpad feels nice and, having windows precision drivers, is very responsive. However, I wouldn’t play most games without an actual mouse. Also, it shows fingerprints very clearly. -Sound is decent and loud, being that these are laptop speakers, I would rather use a headset or desktop speakers. -The battery is as expected, only lasts for 2-3 hours doing productive work on battery boost mode. Less than 1 hour playing games on medium-low. -The laptop features a good, large 1080p display which is bright enough at 300 nits with a good color range. However, it is only 60hz, which is one of the biggest letdowns because of the laptop’s specs. It also does not feature g-sync. -PC can get extremely hot. At idle, it hovered around the mid 40°C’s. During normal use, it went up to lower 50°C’s and during benchmarks (3DMarks) it got up to a whopping 98-101°C! Surprisingly, the PC did not throttle until the late 90°C’s. This is all at ambient 20°C room temps. I started to worry about the table’s surface! Luckily, the wrist area was not affected by these temps. o The fans can get very loud -especially while gaming. I settled on “cool” settings. Although this is usually an issue that all laptops share. -Features several 3.1 USB ports, display ports, and Ethernet connectivity. Sadly, no flash card slots. • PERFORMANCE -Boot-ups and applications are quite fast with the SSD and has decent space for games and general storage. -Alien Command Center software provides many options for dealing with apps, games, settings (including overclocking) and monitoring. -I conducted several synthetic benchmarks and I am pleased to have very good results come back. On 3Dmark and Unigine, most tests came back well above average (for a laptop). I had great framerates on max settings on new games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Battlefield 5, Anthem, and Resident Evil 2 (new). I also played multiplayer as well with no issues. I also tested the ray-tracing and DLSS features of the RTX 2070 GPU and it was decent (although I prefer not using them). Unfortunately, this was all disappointing since the display is only 60Hz… and it is better to play with v-synch to avoid tearing and flickering. • FINAL VERDICT -In the end, I am enjoying this laptop very much, especially for work. The specs, weight, build and looks are very attractive. However, all the shortcomings - extreme temperatures, key travel and placement, and the ludicrous 60Hz panel, combined with such a high price, can make it a tough sell, especially if you are specifically looking for a portable gaming rig.