Customer Ratings & Reviews

Hooray, got a lemon. Thanks best buy. It just blue screen of death constantly and won’t even let me set it up.

This machine is awful. It is the specific reason why I no longer shop at Best Buy and why I will never purchase a dell product again.

The Alienware M18 is a formidable modern gaming and productivity powerhouse delivered in a sleek package at a very reasonable cost. With an AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX CPU, NVIDIA RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, and 32GB of RAM, the Alienware M18 has soundly handled everything I’ve thrown at it. Whether you’re taking advantage of the beautiful, lightning-fast 480Hz 18” FHD+ integrated screen or using an external gaming monitor with a higher resolution, the Alienware M18 is happy to drive nearly anything you desire. Even in some of the most graphically demanding new releases like Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2, I was able to achieve satisfying 60+FPS performance, even at 4K resolution with higher graphics settings enabled. In addition to its gaming prowess, the Alienware M18 effortlessly drives every productivity application I typically use, latency-free. From photo and video editing software to less-intensive applications like spreadsheet and document creation, the M18 maintains stellar performance. Additionally, with a 1TB onboard SSD and an extra M.2 2280 solid-state drive slot, the M18 has plenty of space to store files alongside some of your favorite games with extra room to expand, if need be. In addition to the Alienware M18’s outstanding performance, I was also pleased with its construction as well as its I/O configuration. Speaking to the M18’s assembly, the entire package feels quite premium. With a mix of rigid, high quality, flex-free plastic comprising most of the base and Alienware’s sleek “Dark Metallic Moon” finished aluminum comprising the lid, the laptop looks and feels exceedingly sturdy. As for the I/O configuration, the M18 sports a plethora of connectivity options capable of accommodating most workspace setups. With options for HDMI 2.1 and Mini DisplayPort video output, two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports, three standard USB 3.2 ports, one USB 3.2 Type C port, one RJ45 Ethernet port, an SD-card slot, and a universal audio jack, the M18 will happily support all the peripherals and external storage solutions you desire. Overall, I’ve found the Alienware M18 to be an amazingly capable machine in both gaming and productivity. Since migrating into the laptop, I’ve experienced almost nothing short of perfect performance. Outside of a few minor housekeeping tasks like removing some of the free software bundled with the laptop and reconfiguring Windows 11 to suit my preferences more closely, everything has worked incredibly smoothly. On the topic of free software, I would also like to note that Alienware’s proprietary hardware management software is some of the best that I’ve ever used. This was quite surprising to me as, in the past, I’ve found that most manufacturer-specific OEM software often performs poorly. I am happy to report, however, that Alienware Command Center is some of the finest hardware control software I’ve used. From modifying overclocking and power management settings on-the-fly to defining lighting profiles for the keyboard and RGB accent lights, Command Center handles it swiftly. I have been very impressed with the performance of this machine, and I believe it will continue to serve my needs well into the future.

Had to bring back since the cable caught on fire. Will never buy again.

ordered a "LIKE NEW" USED LAPTOP I got a poor condition laptop, fingerprints, dirty screen, nasty keyboard.No power cord. Returned it the same day.

The hardware specs of this laptop are unmatched at this price point. While I’d argue a dedicated gaming desktop could never be replaced by a laptop, this one does come pretty close, and is a fantastic compromise if you need ultra gaming power on the move. As always with a “gaming desktop replacement”, you’ll have the typical tradeoffs: heavy laptop, oversized power brick, a 480 HZ FHD+ display, and lots of heat and noise when pushing the laptop to utilize its power. This laptop is no exception to that rule. Weighing in at close to 9 pounds, the power brick at about 3 lbs, this is definitely not the most comfortable laptop to lug around on your back all day. What you do get for all that weight, is a fantastic set of hardware components: AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX CPU (12 core, 24 threads, up to 5.2 GHz turbo), 32GB of RAM, and a dedicated nVidia RTX 4070 GPU. Those core specs handle almost anything I threw at this laptop, provided it could keep cool. That moves us on to cooling. If you can’t keep the laptop cool, you will definitely notice a performance hit. Additionally as with most high power laptops like this, full performance on just battery alone is limited, you get much better performance keeping the device plugged in. I’d highly recommend keeping the laptop on a hard flat surface to let it ventilate properly. Best case I would place the laptop on a dedicated cooling pad to help give it even more room and cooling power. Keeping components cool is the best way to make sure you maximize your performance. The initial setup is very standard. Unboxing is simple and you can breeze through the Windows 11 setup process fairly easily. The Alienware control center allows you to customize a handful of core settings from lighting to cooling profiles. Performance wise, on battery you’ll see about an hour before you need to plug in the charger. Again I’d recommend keeping the charger plugged in while gaming for maximum performance. WIth the 1TB SSD, you can install a good selection of games and have them available at the ready. Overall, if you’re looking for a sleek, ultra high powered laptop that could replace your desktop, you absolutely need to consider this beast. WIth any high power laptop you’ll have the drawbacks of heat, noise, and limited battery life, but there will always be a spot to compromise. I think Alienware has done well weighing those compromises and getting you the best performance for your dollar possible.

I would have rated this product 5 stars, but BestBuy delivered this product to someone else.

Really wished it worked like they said. Display issues. Gets stuck in between tasks.

Died after 14 days, screen would not turn on. Days before games would crash and would have trouble booting up.

Got 2 of these and each of got the blue screen of death

Screen starts to flicker when turning on sometimes ..and with color lines across the screen

When I got this laptop I figured it would be a good system for me. The screen refresh rate is the highest I've ever played on (even scrolling looks crisp), there's a second NVME slot for more storage, and on paper the Ryzen 9 and the 32GB of RAM and the RTX 4070 look good. I also like the array of ports - there's enough to attach all kinds of accessories. The keyboard is nice, the chassis feels solidly constructed, and the speakers are pretty great. All of this makes for a good gaming experience... when the computer actually works. I've had numerous issues. Games that this system should be able to handle will inexplicably freeze up, some flat-out refuse to launch at all, and others refuse to run on the dGPU and use the iGPU instead even when I change the GPU assignment in the settings. Furthermore, the system will sometimes freeze up completely on connecting the power adapter, and I can't do anything with it until I forcibly reboot it. Additionally, there appear to have been quality control issues - when it arrived, it had a defective battery that couldn't output enough power to keep the computer going when the charger came loose. This was replaced under warranty, but the fact that it happened on top of everything else that went wrong make me wary of the entire product line, particularly since I can't seem to fixes for half of the issues that occur. I've tested the laptop with the following games: - Horizon Zero Dawn (crashes immediately) - Overwatch 2 (mostly fine, but sometimes has issues with stutter and framerate drop) - Halo Infinite (seems to be perfectly fine) - NieR Automata (also perfectly fine, unless you turn the anti-aliasing up to the highest setting) - Elden Ring (runs perfectly) - Borderlands 3 (runs okay) - Project Wingman (I can't seem to make it use the dGPU, and it has a lot of stutter) - Scarlet Nexus (runs perfectly) - Titanfall 2 (It took more effort than I expected to get this one to use the dGPU) - Tales of Zestiria (had to manually set it to dGPU but worked fine) I've also noticed that if I play games while on a voice chat, at random points the entire system audio will sound like a TV with bad reception for a bit. This coincides with drastic framerate drops and stutter. This seems to happen less often when not using voice chat. Other things I've noticed: - While the machine gets hot, the cooling system is actually pretty good. I can put it on my lap without burning myself. - Once or twice one or two of the USB ports became completely unresponsive. - Taking the bottom off is easy, but putting it back on is annoying due to the two corner screws and the angle they're tilted at compared to everything else. You sometimes have to jimmy them around with a pick, and if you want any hope of actually sealing the case back up properly you need to screw them in first. On the plus side, it makes it easy to get the dust out of the cooling system. - I like the fact that the RAM is two discrete and removable modules. - The main SSD is also not integrated, which is nice. - The Face Unlock is a bit iffy - it doesn't seem to have long enough range to unlock without me shoving my face right into the camera. - The charging brick is huge, and almost feels heavier than the laptop itself. For what it's worth, I have noticed fewer issues after some driver updates yesterday, so hopefully the problems I've experienced are things Dell is aware of and working on. However, as it is, I can't justify recommending this system to someone just because of the lack of stability I've experienced with it. If they ever fully fix that, then I would definitely recommend it, however - the screen is great, and the modularity of the system would make it a great pick if it just ran better.

I don't even know where to start. This Alienware Laptop is so amazing. I have been using it almost non-stop for gaming for the last few days and I can say that I am truly impressed. The speed of the computer is amazing, it hasn't had a problem yet with any of the games, and the graphics card is an absolute monster when it comes to gaming. The overall performance of this Laptop is so phenomenal that I am completely at a loss for words. It has exceeded my expectations by far. Aside from an amazing processor and an amazing graphics card, the battery life is by far one of the best. While using the laptop in performance mode and gaming, I'm able to get approximately two hours of gameplay in before I have to plug in back into the power supply. the fact that it has a 1TB SSD does make life a little better, and again it makes the game play that much better. The laptop itself is kind of big, but it is beautiful. The RGB of the keyboard and logos on the laptop just make it that much better. I can't say enough great things about this laptop, and as far as I can tell there is nothing that I would consider a flaw at this point.

The Alienware m18 w/Ryzen 9 and RTX 4070 has proven to be a very capable gaming laptop. Although I think using the term laptop is a bit of a stretch, as no one is gonna be rocking with this boat anchor on their lap. Nevertheless it offers a solid build with a quiet, yet powerful punch, in gaming performance. Let's start with the chassis and build. This machine is huge. It has an 18" display and a well built housing for all the gear inside. It seems solid enough to handle a bump or two, but I might not recommend testing that. The hinge is fluid and the design could definitely stand up to frequent open/close maneuvers. But know one thing...this beast is HEAVY! It could potentially sink the Titanic if it could float. It does come equipped with some high-quality and effective venting in the back. And the RGB LEDs are fun and can display in just the right way as to not be obnoxious. Here's the elephant in the room. If you thought the PC itself was heavy...look out for that power brick. That thing is MASSIVE, and easily competes with the laptop on mass. This will make stowing in a backpack for a trip a real chore. But alas, all that horsepower is gonna require some serious power. The display is reasonably bright for a plain old 1080p IPS panel. Aside from the overall heft of this device, the display is the only other con overall. It's only FHD+ and it really should have been QHD+ at a min with an upgrade option to OLED 4k. The 480hz refresh is overkill and doesn't really do much other than sound cool because it's a huge number. For gaming purposes 4k is a tough sell, but on a non-ultrawide display with a 4070 it should perform well enough. QHD+ would have been fantastic!! The Ryzen 9 CPU does its job...It's fast and has plenty of cores for multitasking and gaming. I really can't say much here that will sway a person's opinion one way or another unless they are a die-hard Intel fan. The sound system is good and for a laptop delivers a clean enough sound that I don't feel like I have to use headphones to enjoy the game. Matter of fact, I've been switching to this device from my desktop PC because I wanted to give my ears a break from headphones. It comes with a license for ATMOS too, so that's a win! The keyboard and touchpad do their job, and tbh the layout on the keyboard is easier to use than most laptops. I have big mitts so I always struggle a bit with typical laptop keyboards and their tiny size. I feel that this one is comfortable to use and I find myself making fewer keystroke mistakes than I do on a typical laptop. It comes with 32 gb of RAM and a 1TB SSD. The 32GB is a fantastic choice and is a nice step up from many gaming laptops that come standard with only 16GB. The SSD seems to perform well and I've got no complaints when it comes to load times for games. There's a built-in webcam that supports Windows Hello, which is nice to have. There's plenty of external ports with 6 USB ports, 3 of which are USB-C; as well there is a couple displayport ports, an ethernet port, and an SD card slot. As far as gaming performance goes, I've installed and played the following titles to date: Diablo 4, Baldur's Gate 3, Madden 23, FIFA 23, and Overwatch 2. It's ran them all perfectly. I truly couldn't be happier with the gaming performance of this machine. But that's all thanks to the RTX 4070 inside. Overall I would give this machine a 4.5, but alas I cannot choose that here. I feel like it needs to drop a half star for the display choice. It's not a deal breaker, but it's definitely not as nice as it should be. Again, it's more of an issue with the resolution vs anything else. The brightness seems fine even though it's still a bit low. There's no HDR, but let's face it...HDR sucks on Windows PCs for gaming. It is so buggy and not worth investing in...still. Which is crazy because that should totally be worked out by now. Get it together Microsoft! And even if it did have HDR this display is only about 300nits which is far too low for HDR. Aside for all that griping it's still a positive gaming experience for something portable. I would totally recommend it to a friend. I've played with plenty of gaming laptops in my day and this one is a really solid build overall.

I never thought I would have an 18 inch display on a laptop before, but here I am. TL;DR report, I love this machine. Long story longer, The Alienware M18 is a beast. I have another gaming laptop with a 3000 series RTX Nvidia chip, but the form factor is slim, light, and hot. I've had nothing but issues with it sleeping during gameplay. The manufacturer after taking a look at it concluded that it was a "feature". I realized for the gaming I want to do, I should probably just go for a chunky, desktop replacement type computer. I realized I don't move around a lot anyway when I game, and I have a tablet for travel reasons anyway. This does gives me the option to move around the house though when I want change of scenery. This M18 in particular comes with a 4070 chip and so far I've not found a game it can't handle. Diablo IV is smooth on this 480 Hz screen. The speakers are solid but nothing special. So headphones are recommended for an immersive experience. Back to the display, it is FHD+, and I thought I might be disappointed with a lower resolution display, especially at 18 inches, but to be honest, with this high refresh rate, this thing is actually really fun to use. It has a dedicated number pad, which works great for when I'm doing non game stuff (some light coding, excel, CAD stuff) and having the screen real estate for these things is huge! literally. The keyboard, the color ring on the back vent, and the alien head power button and on the back of the display can all be configured with various colors, rainbow, various sequential patterns, super fun. The function keys default to their system functions, and the FN key gives you the F1-F12 option. I prefer it this way. There are so many ports for expansion, with just a couple of questionable things for me. The SD card slot is on the back rather than on the side, and this sort of is a head scratcher for me. Not a dealbreaker though. There is an ethernet port, three USB C 3.2 ports, one of which is labeled for displayport, three USB A ports, an HDMI port, a mini displayport (so three ports for displays), and a headphone jack. AMD has yet to adopt Thunderbolt so another minor disappointment for me is no TB support on this machine since it's the Ryzen edition, but again not a dealbreaker. The trackpad is a "surfboard" style which means you can click at the front of it, but not at the back of it. Also having a Macbook, I have gotten used to a trackpad that clicks all over the surface, but it works fine for me and it's a very large trackpad, so there isn't really a need to click toward the back. Windows 11 feels great on here. It's smooth and fast, I am still tweaking my settings and configuration. I'm really enjoying it though. I would say Dell has really made an amazing machine here. I'm still running it through paces with gaming, I have tried both Game Pass and Steam titles and both run amazing. I highly recommend considering this machine, this model is what I consider a reasonable price for what you are getting, and believe this will last for a good while. I understand this machine has expandability, both for memory and storage, so it's pretty future proof. If you are looking for a power machine, that's mostly for stationary use, but is able to be moved around when needed, I wouldn't hesitate getting this machine.

The graphics are amazing in this pc and its so fast, but Ive had it for only a month and I cant count how many times Ive seen the blue screen already…

Equipped with the ADM Ryzen 9 7845HX (with built-in graphics) and a Nvidia GeForce 4070 RTX (Laptop), this laptop is extremely powerful and rivals a desktop. Testing the system on various games such as Icarus and Universal Sandbox, the lowest fps was about 80 while on the highest detail/graphics settings including Ray Tracing in Icarus. During the stress testing of the CPU in Universal Sandbox, the highest it got to was 20% (with a star system of about 20 Sun-like stars). In addition, this laptop is capable of running the Valve Index at 120 FPS without any stuttering (tested using Pistol Whip and different performance checkers). Stepping away from games, the bulky design of the laptop hides the large number of fans. The 18" screen itself is massive with a 1920x1200 resolution, but looks amazing with a very wide range of colors. Brightness wise it does seem to be slightly lower than others, but I still had to turn it down to 50%. The built in digital keyboard is very comfortable and silent with full RGB backlighting, but I am noticing the caps lock light is very dim in comparison to the num lock or rest of the keyboard lighting. I did have to click it a few times to tell the difference between on/off caps lock, and at first I thought the button was broken but it is working as intended. The touchpad is placed perfectly and fluid, detecting some very light touches. Though I do wish there was more marking on where the right-click is located. In terms of the available ports, with a single HDMI port and mini-DisplayPort, there are not many options in terms of external displays. There are 3 total usb ports and no apparent thunderbolt usb-c port, but there are several. The full SD slot is a very nice addition though. In addition, the ethernet port's cover fits perfectly within the case. All in all, if you are looking for a laptop that rivals most gaming desktops, this is the laptop to get. I have yet to really find a single flaw (beyond the caps lock light) and will be using this laptop regularly.

You can't beat this computer its the best and will be number one always

This Alienware has no issues playing most games on max settings and less fan noise. Major upgrade from previous generations. Highly recommend for on the go.

This laptop is massive. I know it said 18” but I really underestimated the size. There isn’t a cover or bag that can hold this, but my husband uses one of his larger backpacks and that works fine. It is also a battery drainer and the fan is pretty loud. My husband plays DND on it 90% of the time and it doesn’t last a full session (usually 3-4 hours). So that’s slightly annoying. The charger is just as big as the laptop it seems but it does charge quickly which is nice. Everything else is pretty good. The resolution is good, the RAM (16gb) is perfect for what he wants to do.