Customer Ratings & Reviews

After reading reviews purchased this computer. First had problem with speakers then microphone then the keyboard started to fall apart. This was all within two weeks of purchased. Returned to the store for a credit and purchased a different gaming computer

At first I was thrilled to get an alienware laptop, but I soon realized that the entire computer is junk. I have had it for two months now and I have had to completely reformat and start from scratch three times. Seeing how I bought this computer for school and gaming, I was hoping to at least be able to enjoy it. The lighting on the keyboard and other areas has stopped working correctly. Issues with the software. Function keys have stopped working. Open up any game and have zero audio. Best part about all of this, I'm not able to return this hunk of junk because it went bad just outside of my return date. I will be getting rid of this thing one way or another. I would NOT recommend buying. Save yourself the hassle!!

I was excited when purchased however if I had known I would have problems In April I would not have purchased this pc. To much money to have bio problems!!!!

After rarely using this laptop over the past year the hard drive died.

I am very pleased with this amazingly fast computer.

My laptop comes without the ADAPTER CHARGER, and now I can't do nothing.. Please Best Buy, help me.

Wow! After trying out MSI, I decided to give Alienware a shot and it was a great decision. The material and build seems more premium than the MSI and the specs are amazing. I can run all my games at ultra settings and program and do editing without any lag or issue. Downside: This laptop is bulky and it will be heavy for traveling. I have a spare one for traveling and this one is just fine. A+++ - recommend if you have the money.

Purchased this as open box. Laptop was refurbished and had replaced motherboard. Not ever purchasing open box again. Alienware would not honor warranty because it was registered under prior owner. Returned this within 5 days.

I've owned Alienware before they were purchased by Dell and after. Alienware has had in the past 2 years the best Customer Service hands down. It's not said on Best Buy site, all Alienware's come with at home service for the first year, within 2 business days a technician will show up with replacement warranty parts and replace/fix at your home. The 128 GB SSD is a toshiba sata SSD not NVMe. The PCIe lanes for NVME are 4x8 (same as Apple's, only Alienware and Apple use it) the new 960 pro from Samsung will own in this laptop as it needs 4x8 PCIe lanes to shine. all the Sata slots are Sata and NVMe compatible. I have an NVMe in slot 2 and Sata 3 in slot 3. Bios recognizes this. The display is 60hz. Every game I have can play at Ultra without dropping below 50FPS. The benchmarks I ran placed this model in the 94th percentile and 99th percentile for graphics. One recommendation I have is to install all nvidia drivers and re-install the ones from nvidias site or you wont be able to use geforce experience, it's blocked in Alienwares version of the driver. The Tobii eye tracking is using a realtek IR camera to sign in and wake up the computer and use infinite display (if compatible game is running). all models with the 1080 FHD display do not come with Tobii Core, the 3 cameras for eye tracking in the bottom bezel of the display, only the QHD and 4K models have it. Tobii Core will give you the ability to light up your keyboard LED zones independently depending on where you look (It is an immense battery hog). Every LED light zone can be changed in color, pulse or timing. For older Alienware users, both the 17 r4 and 15 r3 no longer come with "Battery Desktop Mode" since Alienware switched to a smart lithium ion battery that now stops charging when it hits 100% and will automatically keep the battery there through a constant trickle. I tested the wear rate of this and it should be .2% a month wear rate, same as when the mode was available.

I've spent 12+ years gaming on low end PC's with FPS around mid to low 20's. I'd buy budget machines with poor or no graphics cards and slow processors. Low effects, lag spikes and FPS drops was just something I had gotten used to. I reached a point to where I realized gaming will always be a part of me, whether it's a 12 hour grind-a-thon on a Saturday, or just playing a couple hours before work. If I'm going to invest that kind of time gaming, I didn't want to spend any more time looking at low graphics and choppy frame rates. So when researching for a gaming laptop that would improve my gaming experience, I knew I wanted a machine that was a beast. I researched this one online before I went into Best Buy, and I already knew this was the one I wanted to look at. At first glance I couldn't help but say "WOW this thing is HUUUGE..." After looking at the MSI laptops and picking them up and handling them, this laptop almost turned me off because of how absolutely enormous it is. Prepare yourself, for this thing is MASSIVE.... You will have to buy a bigger, probably hiking bag if you want to transport it, because it just won't fit into a regular laptop bag or backpack. That was the only negative in my first impression, and I didn't let that stop me from purchasing it. I liked the design (the blue lights on the sides are pretty cool), and I knew that with size came a lot of power (If you want a smaller, lighter laptop you'll have to downgrade the hardware a bit). After taking it home I installed a couple of my favorite games (Diablo III, Overwatch, Starcraft 2 and LoL) and played them for almost 12 hours straight. I was on the couch, and the laptop was on my lap the entire time. I have to say, you get used to the size. Its weight didn't bother my lap at all, and the screen is big and beautiful. The laptop stayed cool (important because it was on my lap), and handled the games at max settings with no trouble at all. It was great to finally see my favorite games run smoothly in max settings. I didn't realize how much I missed when I turned most of the FX off to lighten the load for my slower low end devices. I'm never going back! I love this machine.

This machine is a powerhouse. But I will be returning it. I have owned, Dell, Sager (clevo) and Asus gaming laptops. There is a lot to like about this machine but one thing kills it for me -It has great build quality, no flex at all. Very sturdy. I like the venting in theory this machine should have great heat management. - The display is impressive and the gpu and cpu are great. Runs games at very high detail levels. -Keyboard is very good, but the touchpad is annoying (I don't use touchpads in general, so a non factor for me) However: The wifi card is worse than my 2 year old asus. Not sure why AW would cut a corner a cheap but vital piece of hardware. I also had issues with it dropping the wifi signal, which at first I thought might be a driver issue. It just not as fast as the intel wifi in my asus. The fans run extremely loud whenever the CPU is used at higher settings. The go full blast, and right away playing CPU heavy games. If you game in private with a headset, this isn't an issue. I like to play without a headset often, so I don't like it when the laptop sounds like a jet turbine. I did some testing running games with this system and my asus (with an intel i7 4700 and GTX 965m) at the same graphical settings and with each game my asus was whisper quiet and the Alienware 17 sounded like a 747. That was with settings that should stress the far weaker asus and be a breeze for this powerhouse. I did some research into this on the notebookcheck forums and this is apparently a known issue. Alienware used bad thermal paste and heatsinks for the cpu and have tried to improve the thermal issue with a new bios that basically throttles the machine down (generating less heat). It is also my understanding that not all of these machines have been affected by these issues equally as thermal dissipation can be changed by numerous factors. So its possible that I just got a bad machine. To be fair, I haven't contacted Dell to see what if anything they would do to remedy this machine. Dell's decision to roll with lackluster QC/QA and just back it with a great warrantee is a bit perplexing. I will just be returning it to Best Buy.

I'm new to gaming laptops, but I understand enough to know this computer is amazing. Screen looks great. I read many reviews about laptop screen with light bleed, and now realize it is either a silly thing to be worried about or this laptop just has an amazing screen. I noticed light bleed in one spot and only because I looked very hard for it. Battery modes can turn off gpu to save battery when not gaming. Biggest con is that it's the biggest laptop ever (I assume). The size doesn't bother me other than I'm having a really hard time finding a bag. Heard fans kick on during a game and they were not loud at all. I have not played with other gaming laptops so my opinions are not comparing other laptops, just my expectations from other reviews. I don't know the bench marks but I know with the gtx1070 I will not have problems with any games at 1080p. Overall, aside from the size (if I coulda got a 15" at this price I would have) this is a great laptop that, with my future purchase of a aw graphics amp, will last me a very long time. P.S. Battery life seems to be pretty good. 4hrs non gaming.

I Bought this to replace MacBook Pro, 1 terabytes in a MacBook is over 3000 dollars. This computer playes all the games I have at max settings and doesn't get that warm. It's got plenty of storage and runs great.

Excellent laptop, it's more of a desktop replacement. The lights are amazing. Works well. Only issue is the sound gets buzzing and very low sometimes.

Great laptop, purchased in 2017. Still works besides the battery doesn't hold charge, but I think that's because I left it plugged in all the time.

Alienware has always been at the forefront of gaming laptops, and this one is no exception. Awesome performance, awesome build quality. High quality components used, and this thing is a tank. My only con would be the size, but oh well. I'll take the heat dissipation in trade.

Amazing piece of technology! First Alienware ever purchased. I have always thought them to be way overpriced for the specs, but this one is actually very fairly priced AND I got it on sale for an insane price. Couldn't be happier with it's performance. It's actually faster than my GTX970 desktop. Loooooove this thing!

Very strong, stable laptop. So far does not suffer from any reliability or overheating issues as long as it is used sensibly. The components are very powerful and this could easily replace a desktop. Runs modern VR experiences stable on the Oculus rift headset including some of the more demanding VR games like Dirt Rally and Project Cars. I would strongly recommend that you immediately get the bios update for this machine before doing anything as it fixes a glitch with power on/off and waking the system from sleep.

Great build quality, great specs, great keyboard, great screen. Sound is very nice. This laptop is a beauty by all means. Where this beast fails is in its CPU cooling. Do not get me wrong, the cooling system is great buy there is a flaw that's causing serious heating issues. This topic has been debated extensively on reddit. THe CPU cooler doesn't seat properly on the CPU causing uneven CPU temps. When i run OCCT, Core 0 and 2 registered temps of 65-70 C but cores 1 and 3 whent up to 99-100C. This is my 5th laptop. I do not want a buy a different brand. MSI and ASUS build quality is not that nice compared to this one. I hope i'll get one that doesn't have this issue. 2 Starts. This is not acceptable. This laptop is too expensive. There shouldn't be any problems.

I am a gamer. Before this PC, I used a desktop with a 4790k I7 and a gtx1080, and as an on the go an ASUS ROG with an I7 and a Gtx 970M. This darn laptop rivals my desktop @1080p to the point I'd rather play on the Alienware. To put it in a nutshell; if you are cool with 1080p on a laptop for gaming this PC will be well worth your $1400 and last a decade