Customer Ratings & Reviews

I wish it had a way to play blue ray or dvds, dic games with out paying extra for a burner

Not good. Don't buy it. Serves are bad. would not come anymore.

one year motherboard flatlines. Dell support not there.

This could have been a good laptop but it is somewhat glitchy. Even after installing all updates (it comes with 1607) and updating all device drivers, it would sometimes BSOD while not performing any intensive tasks. Strangely, it never seemed to BSOD during games or more intensive tasks. It doesn't matter if you are on dedicated graphics only or are on graphics switch mode. The BIOS in this model is spartan, it has very few options and looks like it's from 1983. Beware that if your laptop is glitchy or has problems, and you get a geeksquad employee of the month to test it before accepting the return, you may end up going back home with the laptop because the BB system only gives the option to send to Manufacturer for repair when the techie deems it defective for any reason. Then again, if it would be defective and you therefore lost trust in the model itself, you can't return it within 15 days instead of getting a repair on a new laptop that will, by the time the repair is done, won't be within the 15 days anymore? Ridiculous, but I got it returned regardless with some effort. Beware of this. You'll think "not me" but wait until you are talking to the geeskquad guy who has been there for 15 years and you don't know the BB lingo. You will be going back with the laptop because they simply won't accept it. You have the option to get a prepaid UPS or other carrier label from the return options on your orders page and send it back, but you will have to pay it and then you can hope all goes well in shipping and accepting the return and it may take 10 days before you know anything about a refund. Returning these type of laptops is not at all as simple as they make it sound in their return policy. This was not a special order, a final sale item, or anything like that. The laptop has really nice features (LED's, materials, expandibility, good cooling, etc.) but when it's not stable then what is the use? Even 1703 won't fix the BSOD if your laptop has the same problem. If I would ever try an Alienware again I would get one with overclockable CPU and better BIOS because then CPU undervoltage (one cause of BSODs) could be fixed whereas on this model you wouldn't be able to adjust voltages. Also, 128gb for the SSD? Why even bother? It has to be at least 256gb or it will fill up in no time and my experience full drives always slow down a lot. Just installing WoW and then pre-installed and such will fill that drive up. Yes, the power supply is HUGE. Like, you can jump your car with it huge. I do like the LED on the plug end (but you can't turn that off, which is the downside). As noted, the laptop is heavy. I'm kind of trying to figure out what laptops like this are even good for. I guess if you take it with you to game somewhere else it may be handy, but who wants to game that bad? Otherwise, desktops are much better for everything especially when the thing is this big and heavy. So meh, I'm not that impressed. I'm guessing I'm treading on some Alienware fanboys' toes but since I never bought into to the branding fad, to me it's just a fancy laptop and not one that worked particularly well (seem to be quite a few of those in other reviews). It's funny with fanboy items like this, when you read the negative reviews you'll notice these always have "5 people found this unhelpful" because they love the product so much themselves they try to invalidate the experiences of others. You don't see that as much with cheaper item reviews. In conclusion: It was interesting to experience a gaming laptop with nice LEDs and powerful graphics, only to have it fail at the basic stuff like stability. My 5 year old desktop motherboard has a BIOS that looks like it is 25 years ahead of this Alienware BIOS. The screen is OK. I'm not a fan of dull coatings but most screens have that now (it reduces the perception of depth). Would I buy a laptop like this again? Probably not. Maybe it's cool when you don't own a desk? I can't figure it out.

I purchased this laptop recently and felt more than compelled to write a review. Not only is this laptop built to the highest standards, it performs like no other machine. If you are truly in the market for the best laptop, here it is: Alienware R4 17!

I've had my laptop for about a month now. When it's working fine, it's fine. No more impressive than my last computer (Acer G6-710). However, it has a tendency to 'micro freeze'. It will suddenly catch and just stop working, usually for no more than 5 seconds, but it happens a lot and it is super irritating, especially when I'm typing! Also, with 16GB of RAM (same as my last computer) you'd think that I wouldn't be running at almost 10GB + at all times with only Google Chrome open. I've had the computer BSOD on me twice due to memory problems, but running diagnostics shows no errors with the RAM. For the $1800 price tag I am really disappointed in this computer.

This computer is definitely a beast. It runs every AAA game I play smoothly, and the aesthetics feel fantastic. HOWEVER, on the first day of getting this computer, I noticed that the speakers sound muffled when compared to my old laptop (MSI dominator GT72s pro). When I was playing Killing Floor 2, the sound cracks once in a while regardless if I have my headset on or not. The high pitched sounds in the game are amplified to such a degree that they sound unbearably screechy. At first I thought the Alienware sound app thing was causing this, but turning it off didn't help. AND THEN, the next morning, there was an Alienware software update notification. After installing the recommended update and restarting the computer, the speakers cracked permanently. Note that this is on the 2nd day after i bought it. Will be sending it back to geek squad and ask for a refund.

I got my computer 4 days ago. Wasn't able to use it till 3 days later. Spent hours downloading all my games and apps it worked fine. went to play some simple games to test it out they'd play for a few minutes then you'd hear a pop from inside the computer and it would shut off. Assuming it was overheating. It's fast it's cool looking but I want more than a web computer and a paperweight for the price of it. Returned it to store to get my money back.

Super fast laptop. The system SSD is small at 128gb, but it was easy to add another 512gb. This thing runs an external 27" monitor like a champ. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a mobile or small footprint gaming rig..

this is my experience with this computer: i saved up money for a whole year to buy this computer and i was so excited. I brought it home and played on it for a week and it ran fine, i was getting good fps and i had no heat issues then after a week i was getting 120 fps on csgo one of the easiest games to run on a gaming computer. I was also getting really high tempuratures when only playing for an hour or so. It doesn't stop there, the next day when i tried to turn it on it didn't even turn on so, i took it back to best buy and they sent it back to dell fro 3 weeks and they said that they fixed it but when i got it back after 3 week later it still wouldn't turn on again and i think for a computer that is almost 2000 dollars this is complete bs. I will promise you that i will never buy an alien ware computer ever again. Now that's over i will just be saving up for another year so i can build one.

Holy wow it's such a nice machine. The fans can be loud though! Sounded like a jet taking off in my living room when I was updating the bios driver, scared the cat! 10\10

I recently bought this laptop with high hopes. Out of the box it looks amazing. The screen right down to the last detail. Was very excited to get a game running on it. Spent all night uploading games and customizing it. I loaded up a game and Wow did it look amazing. Literally two minutes into the game it started to hiccup. I couldn’t believe how bad. I looked at the battery icon and noticed it didn’t even show it was plugged in. I tried several things as restarting the computer and updating the bios. I unplugged the power supply and it came back on. I again tried playing a game and it did the same exact thing. Wanting this thing to succeed I went back to Best Buy to replace it with another. Best Buy happily replaced it with another. I excitedly went home to get everything installed. Well guess what? Could bad luck happen again. Well yes it did. The same exact thing!!! A different laptop and power supply. Well it did. These laptops are utter garbage. Thankfully I was able to return this machine as well and get myself another computer. Do yourself a favor. If your gonna spend 1700 bucks on a gaming machine do not buy the good looking Alienware because all it is is a good looking chick with herpes. Hopefully the new computer I ordered, the MSI version will be better.

First of all. I love this laptop and I’m a little bit disappointed that the right speaker started making rattling noise and makes sounds when I unmute. Returning this tomorrow and probably would stay away from this since this is not a smart buy if it’s gonna break in such a short time. If I do end up exhanging for a new one then maybe I’ll update my review. As of now it’s just not worth the buy if it’s gonna break.