Gaming laptops from Alienware have always been famous for their futuristic design, even before it was mainstream, and very powerful hardware. Today we will tell you about the game model m17 R2… In our modification, it costs about 2,600 euros, which at the exchange rate at the time of this writing was a little less than 240 thousand rubles.
PACKAGING AND DELIVERY
The laptop comes in a large, predominantly white cardboard box with black sides, the recognizable iridescent alien logo and Alienware wordmark.
The box opens like a casket after you tuck the plastic handle into the grooves it sticks out of. Inside you are immediately greeted by the crown of this review – His Majesty a laptop, which is well protected from all sides by dense and soft foam rubber.
You will find two notches under the laptop. On the right is only a thank you booklet indicating all the official addresses of the manufacturer on the Internet and social networks, and on the left is a black envelope with three documents: information on compliance with the European Union directive on radio equipment, visual instructions for dummies and information on safety and compliance with standards.
Behind the place where the laptop is, there is also another section, where they put a huge power supply and a network cable. The power of the charging box is 240 W. Together with the power cord, it weighs about 0.94 kg, which is quite standard for gaming solutions.
APPEARANCE, LOADING AND NOISE
The laptop is made in a futuristic elegant style and is dressed predominantly in a dark gray magnesium alloy case with black details and chopped sharp edges. On the lid you will find the alien head logo, which by default glows in a pleasant turquoise color. Also on the lid is the number 17, reminiscent of the N7 logo from Mass Effect.
If you are a fan of touching equipment with dirty hands, for example, right after eating, then it is worth noting that this laptop is quite resistant to fingerprints and practically does not get covered with them when touched, which is a big plus.
The mounting location is designed so that the back is about 6-7 mm higher than the rest of the case when the laptop is open. When closed, the rear lip is flush with the cover.
As for the connectors and holes, on the left side you will find a hole for a Noble lock, an Ethernet port, a USB 3.1 Type-A port and a 3.5 mm headphone / headset output, as well as a hole for exhausting hot air. On the right, there are two more USB 3.1 Type-A connectors and an additional hole for hot air outlet.
On the back in the middle you will find one HDMI 2.0b connector with HDCP 2.2 output, Mini DisplayPort 1.4, Thunderbolt 3 connector, a port for connecting an external video card via the Alienware Graphics Amplifier module and a power connector.
On the sides of the back, the creators placed two more cooling system holes, which are covered with plastic honeycomb-style perforations. The back edge has rounded edges, as well as a nice thin strip of RGB lighting, which, by analogy with the alien from the lid, glows by default with azure light.
At the bottom of the laptop there are two long legs and a honeycomb perforation of the cooling system, under which you can see two cooling fans at the edges of the holes. In general, the body resembles the original PlayStation 4 turned back side.
The front edge is made of glossy plastic from top to bottom at an angle of 45 degrees. On the sides of it there are holes for stereo speakers.
The laptop lid opens effortlessly with one hand. Inside you will find a screen with an 8-bit IPS-matrix Chi Mei 173HCE, which opens approximately 120 degrees and its diagonal is 17.3 inches.
The screen has a Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) and a refresh rate of 144 Hz, and the response is 9 ms. The brightness of this panel is around 320 cd / m2, and the contrast is 1450: 1. The matrix supports 92% sRGB color gamut. The thickness of the screen bezel is 8 millimeters at the sides, 10 millimeters at the top and about 15 mm at the bottom.
The frame is made of glossy plastic, which leaves marks and scratches. The inscription ALIENWARE flaunts at the bottom of the frame in the middle. The top edge also houses a video conferencing camera in the middle, which does not support the Windows Hello facial login feature.
The laptop is launched by the power key in the form of a corporate logo in the form of an alien head, located in the upper right part of the case, and has a backlight that constantly changes color. There, along the entire length of the case, there is another perforation of the cooling system in the form of honeycombs.
The keyboard unit is slightly recessed so that the buttons are flush with the surface of the case inside. The travel of the keys is 1.7 mm, it is very convenient to type. The clicks are deep and quiet. Also, the keyboard has a numeric block, which is quite convenient if you often use the pin-code entry, calculator, or keep accounting records between rollers in CS: GO.
By default, the keyboard is highlighted in blue, but there are different options.
For example, you can divide your space into zones and set several different Alien FX lighting tones through the Alien Command Center app.
The touchpad here is shifted closer to the left side and does not have separated physical keys, but offers only edges pressed from the bottom, imitating the main buttons on the mouse. The touchpad supports gesture control without any problems. Its only drawback is that due to the shift to the left side, part of it is under the palm when you use the WASD buttons in games, so false presses are possible.
The laptop is about 2 cm thick, excluding the legs. It is 40.5 cm long and 30.5 cm wide. The laptop weighs 2.5 kg, which is quite normal for a portable gaming solution. Although, with its cooling vents, the Alienware m17 R2 is unlikely to fit on your lap.
The time from pressing power on to full boot takes about 13 seconds, which is quite standard for a device with Windows 10 installed on a built-in NVME M.2 drive.
The device is quite quiet – in normal mode the noise level is about 32 db. In the maximum performance mode, powerful cooling begins to work, against which the laptop becomes not only hot, but also noisy. Average noise level under load is 45-46 db.
TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND TESTS
The laptop comes with a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery with a passport capacity of 76000 mWh. A full charge will last only three hours in maximum power saving mode. In active gaming mode, the laptop runs for about 50-60 minutes.
The computer itself is built on the basis of an Intel Core i7-9750H processor, clocked at 2600 MHz. The processor is 6-core, operates in 12 threads, and the maximum frequency is 4500 MHz.
The laptop has a 16GB dual-channel DDR4 memory (clocked at 1333 MHz) with a maximum frequency of 2667 MHz. There is no possibility of expanding the RAM.
The storage is a 512 GB PC601 NVMe (v1.3.0) disk drive from the South Korean company SK hynix. The device’s storage can be expanded with a second M.2 slot.
The built-in Intel (R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 network adapter is responsible for the wireless connection in the laptop, and the Killer E3000 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet Controller for the wired one.
There are two video adapters in the laptop: the Intel UHD Graphics 630 accelerator built into the CPU with 1 GB of video memory and a discrete NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 card in the Max-Q design with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. Intel Comet Point PCH – cAVS, Realtek ALC289 and NVIDIA TU104 are used as sound adapters.
As for the screen, in spite of its good characteristics, during testing we found several highlights on the black bottom in the lower part, as well as a small glow on the left side, mainly from the bottom. They are visible to the naked eye the first time the device is turned on from the Alienware boot screen.
The brightness values of the display are quite normal, so it is quite possible that it will be difficult to see in the sun. We found no problems with viewing angles.
In standard (quiet) mode, AIDA64 shows on average the following temperatures:
- CPU – 69 ° C
- GPU – 53 ° C
- PC601 NVMe SK hynix 512GB – 49 ° C
CrystalDisk Info tests indicate an average solid state drive temperature of 45 ° C. The disk speed in Crystal Disk Mark was 3226 MB / s for reading and writing 1868 MB / s. The AS SDD test shows more modest speed results – 2469 MB / s for reading and 1663 MB / s for writing.
In graphics tests, the GeForce RTX 2080 gives good results.
In the fresh benchmark Boundary Ray Tracing at maximum settings in Full HD, the device showed an average value of 49 frames per second.
In the Unigine Superposition Benchmark in the same 1080p at extreme settings, the system showed from 26 to 50 frames, and in 4K with optimization, the average value was 50 FPS.
Final Fantasy XV Benchmark performed in Full HD at 6808 points and a High rating.
Directly in games with Full HD resolution at high settings, the laptop showed quite good results. So, in the Gears 5 test on ultras, the device was able to produce an average frame rate of around 34. DOOM Eternal – not the most demanding project – was able to produce an average of about 130 frames at maximum graphics settings. And finally, Shadow of the Tomb Raider showed 53 frames per second on “ultra” without rays and DLSS.
The hardware of this laptop is quite enough for comfortable Full HD gaming at high settings without ray tracing. In the maximum performance mode, the temperature during the tests kept around 90 degrees, occasionally reaching the maximum 100. The GPU warmed up to a maximum of 75 degrees.
RESULTS
Alienware laptops have come a long way. The design of the m17 R2 stands out for its vision of a portable gaming device, combining not only futurism, but also elegantly austere features. Even the built-in backlight doesn’t look pretentious here, as it usually happens on gaming devices from other manufacturers. The laptop works quite quickly, and like all other similar solutions, it warms up well when the heating has not yet been turned on in the house. Only a small autonomy from the built-in battery is frustrating, since 3 hours in power saving mode is too little.
Author: Sergey Dyakonenko (Madnfs)
A photo: Sergey Dyakonenko (Madnfs) and Alexey Olkin…
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