Customer Ratings & Reviews

Usually I am all for buying BestBuy open box, but let me tell you this was not a good buy. It was marked as excellent condition and it came covered in dog hair and food. The machine wouldn’t utilize the nvidia GPU and after two hours on the phone with dell they told me the motherboard needed replaced. Thank goodness bestbuy refunded my money. My experience with this machine was horrible. But it was open box.

Right out of the box, the "U" button on the keyboard has a burnt out red LED. The red LED on only the "U" button is dead. The screen has three marks on it (not dead/stuck pixels). It looks like something is stuck under the screen. VERY frustrating for having bought a $2,000+ laptop from Best Buy and Dell.

Open box** Laptop kept blue screening, got it rebooted by geek squad. The laptop will shut off and pop up with a “battery must be replaced” and turn off at random times. Games worked about as good as a potato. Not saying the laptop is bad just be careful when you buy an open box

It overheated. The fan was mound. Fortunately Best Buy refunded.

Sound sucks from this laptop. My X17s cpu was overheating at 100c° during installations of anything and ran at high 80s during gameplay. I probably got a lemon. Way too much problems for a brand new laptop. My m17 ran better.

Broke and would not turn on within a month. I think it was a defective one

This is an absolute dream gaming device. This unit is ready to roll right out of the box. It blows my old system away in processing speed. You get a 17” amazing display with a 360 Hz refresh rate. The keyboard is responsive and has a perfect feel for gaming. It comes with rgb lighting per key but you will really notice the ring of lighting around the back port of the unit. You can really customize the colors on this unit to your liking. I was a little surprised by the weight of the laptop, this is not something you will just quickly toss in your backpack and go but it is definitely sturdy. However this may be the thinnest gaming laptop I have ever owned. Considering the power this unit is capable of, you might be wondering about the fan noise. I forget the device has a fan as I rarely if ever even hear it. I can play for hours on end and the unit does not get too warm and the fan noise is never an issue. This unit does not have a number pad on the side, given the size of the device I would think one could fit nicely, not a deal breaker but just an observation if that is something you desire in a laptop. As for ports, you will get plenty, and I enjoy that the ports are located in the back of the unit. I always feel like I am going to break a dongle or usb drive off when they are on the side of a laptop, but now these ports are in the back. Out of sight, out of mind. Make connecting to an external display nice as all the cables will run to the back. The power plug and the headphone jack are the only ports on the side of the unit. All others are in the back. Love this design. The speakers are good for a laptop but I usually use a paired Bluetooth gaming headset for a truly immersive experience. I recommend this for anyone loki for a powerful laptop for gaming or even everyday use.

Product was not damaged but it shipped in a big box with no bubble wrap and the bottom of the box was torn

Best Buy will sell you a product not with even to correct items with it.

Dies extremely fast, loud fans, and loves to get scorching hot

Setup: It is your typical Windows 10 setup. Answer the questions and enter. Alienware at least didn't overload the PC with a ton of Dell Bloat either. Out of the gate there was a bunch of updates for the BIOS and other drivers and it is recommended you go ahead and let those install and reboot. Make sure everything gets setup and patched from Dell and reboot a few times to ensure a healthy system and you should be ready to go. Alienware does allow for an overclock on the GPU and while conservative it does help boost the performance of the Laptop version of the 3070 to boost it beyond that of normal laptop GPU's. Additionally they seem to have the cooling system well designed that keeps the GPU/CPU under 85C, at least when I stressed it with 3D Mark. Overall the system is fairly well balanced and out of the box the performance seemed great. Also the camera supports Windows Hello, which allows for fast face logins which is wonderful and handy and works well in most lighting conditions. So that is a nice bonus you don't see on most gaming laptops a good camera, but also one that supports Windows hello. The IPS 360hz 1080p display that is 17" is awesome and looks fantastic when doing anything from playing games to consuming media. The sound on the laptop is good too and fairly loud for a laptop which is a nice change. Though I do recommend headphones since during intense gaming the fans can get loud to keep the device cool. Dell also gets bonus points for publishing on their website a guide to opening the case and adding/swapping RAM since 16GB is fine for gaming but since the CPU is 8 Core and 16 thread monster it allows me to use it for work and support Virtual Machines too so I will be upgrading the RAM to something a lot more to support VM's. However if your gaming you should be fine. Also the 11800H is a great CPU. Able to power through any task well and providing not only a lot of threads for Gaming and Streaming if you wanted, but also a large L3 cache which really helps keeping the cores fed. The only weird thing is the the USB/Ethernet and most other connectors are in the back. Which for a large laptop is a pain to reach and plug in if you need to add something, but no more then if you were working with a desktop. My largest annoyance is the Power adapter. Dell provides one with a VERY bright LED that shows it has power. In a dark room this is really annoying and while I can tune all the other RGB this I can't turn off and had to mask off with tape. That really is my only major issue. Overall this is a fantastic laptop. If I was to change 2 things I'd increase the RAM (which would make it perfect for streaming or other work since the display is awesome and the chip can support light content creation I'm sure) and another NVME SSD. But to dell's credit's they made it easy and provide a clear guide on how to remove the laptop's case bottom and swap ram/add another NVME drive. So if you need a desktop replacement to play games/content creation/VM's on the go this is a great laptop to start with and use.

Overall, this new Alienware R17 has a great design, amazing cooling technology, solid 1080 P display, and delivers a powerful gaming experience. I really love the design of this laptop. It is 17" so it's not a small laptop and that allows the design to really stand out. I am digging the white outer shell with the RGB trim lights on the back and the little RGB alien. It really commands attention and just having this laptop out has the casual non gaming public ask what laptop I'm using. I have been gaming on this laptop for a little under a week now and what I have really noticed the new cooling technology that Alienware is calling it Cryo-Tech. As great as it sounds, it performs even better. My laptop never reached critical thermal levels even when pushing it and it never became uncomfortable to the touch either on my lap or on the keys. They really pushed this technology to the forefront of this series and I really am appreciative of it since cooling your PC components can hinder or boost performance and this one definitely provides that boost. My experience jumping on Warzone, trying out Battlefield 2042, booting up Tomb Raider, racing on Forza, and flying high on MS flight simulator was much above average compared to my prior gaming experiences. Although I do not have a 4k display, I was still able to notice performance boosts than any other laptop I've had especially in frame rate. I am booting up on ultra settings and immersing myself into the game a lot more as these developers intended when creating their games. I am having a solid and smooth experience all the time and I am extremely happy to boot up the R17. I know it's going to be fun every time.

In the box is the laptop with charging cord and instructional packet with Alienware logo stickers. First impression, the laptop is stylish (like it just fell out of a cyberpunk movie) and sturdy. This is my first Alienware and definitely will not be my last. The design is sleek and I appreciate the screen hinge. All of the USB ports are on the back of the laptop, meaning less tangle and trouble with no more cords hanging off the side, with the exception of the power cord that still hangs off the right hand side. Another thing you will notice right away are the vents for the fans. There are fans on every side of the base of the laptop. This omnidirectional airflow is great for keeping the PC cool and performance optimized. There is also a performance mode that kicks the fans into high gear for even better cooling. I am currently playing the new MMORPG New World, and this laptop lives up to the Alienware Hype. For hours of grinding or just fun, you definitely want to keep the charge cord nearby because you are going to need the fans going full blast. After about an hour of play, with the fans on low power, the laptop was definitely rising in temperature. After turning on the performance mode the fans did quick work of cooling the laptop back down, and I did not have any issues with the lowering of frame rate nor raising of ping. I would also like to mention to keep in mind that this laptop is a bit on the heavier side, but the design is brawn, brain, and beauty all in one; with its large screen, RGB keyboard, and angular shape. Who doesn’t love the illumination of the keyboard, even when you turn the fans to full power they have a pretty cool rainbow light show. Battery life is as expected, I was able to play for almost 2 hours with normal fan, full game volume and normal screen/keyboard lighting. Once I turned up the fans, the battery dwindled quicker but I made sure I was near an outlet to charge. I did have to charge for about 15-20 minutes to get battery out of red to play effectively but once I did, I was able to play back to normal again. Overall, I can definitely see myself splurging and purchasing another Alienware when the time comes. I would definitely recommend to friends and family.

This was the best fathers day present i could have received. Works super smooth, quick, brings a smile to my face

Great computer by the value. I have added more than 16 memory and another SSD of 1 TB. The camera help to unlock the windows

One of the best gaming laptops I've used in 2022. Unfortunately, I had a model with an issue regarding refresh rate and display(which I hear is common also unfortunately) but, outside of this, I could see it being powerful enough to stay relevant for years in a very fast paced market.

The laptop is a top notch, it handles heavy duties in a matter. The overclocking might work, but i never felt like using this overclocking to begin with. Battery life can vary in terms of the usage The key lighting and display is unique. I haven't done any benchmarks test on it yet, but im planning to... Im trying to push this product to the limits, so i would like any suggestions...

I like it so far, Light for it's size, thin, quiet, great speakers!!!

I will never buy a Dell pc again! I bought the x17 R1 with all specs maxed out. At first the computer was awesome! I loved it. But then about a month later I started getting flashing blue and red lights. After doing diagnostics it turned out being a motherboard problem. So dell ordered a motherboard replacement to have a technician replace it. With Covid this process took 3 months!!! Eventually they couldn’t even get the part so they sent me the new R2 as a replacement. At first I was super stoked to get the r2 because everything was upgraded to what I originally got! But then after a day of just using it the keyboard became completely unresponsive. I tried everything to fix it even resorting to a fresh windows install. A Dell technician even replaced the keyboard and it still didn’t work! Turned out it came to be a motherboard problem again! All these problems with spending $4,500 on a laptop! And not to mention all the wasted time going back and forth with Dell Tech support. What are the odds of getting two brand new x17’s and they both have motherboard problems!? It’s gotta be bad quality pc parts. In the end I ended up getting a full refund. So glad Dell at least did that for me.

I recently purchased the R4 version of this laptop, only later to discover that I can not upgrade the Memory, it is soldered onto the motherboard. Be very careful when purchasing this laptop.