Alienware M16 R2 Review - New Design, New Target Audience?

here we finally have our hands on the new Alienware m6r I now of the whole new Alienware release for 2024 this is the only laptop that Dell have redesigned this year Dell have decided to refocus the M16 line on portability instead of power they've removed the large RAR Grill and slimmed down the laptop and decreased the weight we now get the new core Ultra CPUs and it maxes out with an RTX 4070 so were these changes worthwhile keep watching to find out I know from the comments I've received that there's a lot of disappointment that the M16 R1 Powerhouse has been retired replaced with the Slimmer R2 but Dell have decided to aim this laptop at a new target audience and having had my hands on this now I'm really enjoying it now if you need a desktop replacement your number one choice is the Alienware M18 which we've already reviewed and we really love now I'm going to put a link in the description down below just in case you miss that review plus you can also have the Alienware x16 that can be configured with up to an RX 1490 and we're going to be reviewing that one next so please make sure you subscribe if you haven't already now the M16 R2 can be configured with a new core Ultra 7 or 9 an rx460 or a 4070 and your choice of RAM and SSD configurations our review unit came in at 899 in the UK with a core Ultra 7 a 4070 a600p 240 HZ panel 32 G of RAM and a 1 T SSD as soon as you see this laptop you can tell it's an Alienware but sadly with this model we've lost the iconic rear vent and lighting as sad as that is when using the laptop you realize you don't actually see the lighting behind the actual laptop itself so that is an problem and having the rear Grill removed makes the laptop so much more Compact and it fits in a 15in laptop bag unlike the bulky M16 R1 build quality is still fantastic and the laptop is as solid as ever with no creaks or squeaks the body is still anodized aluminum in the usual M series dark metallic Moon color being more Compact and Slimmer it's lost some weight too and it now comes in only 2.6 kg making it very easy to cart around with regards to the ports we get an Ethernet and headset Jack on the left two USBS and a Micro SD card on the right and on the rear we get the power jack an HDMI 2.1 a USBC and a thunderbolt Port that finally includes power delivery now overall the ports are really good mix but as usual why is the ethernet on the side and who thought it was a good idea to put a Micro SD card slot instead of a full-size one on a 16-in laptop now opening the M16 R2 is satisfying with a solid hinge that provides a wobble-free display when in use and we're treated to the anywhere RGB keyboard and in the UK we only get the per key RGB option now other regions may also get the one zone RGB keyboard to make sure you're careful when you configure it if you want the per key and unfortunately there's no mechanical keyboard option here but the stock keyboard is still an amazing keyboard and one of the best laptop keyboards on the market sadly the same cannot be said for the trackpad it's plastic and although it Glides well and gestures are accurate it doesn't have the most premium feel above the keyboard we have the iconic alien head power button which shines blue when on mains and yellow when on battery and also the colors of this button can be changed within Alienware Command Center and whilst we're on the subject of RGB we also get the rear lit alien head logo and a light strip around the trackpad the grills with the keyboard are air intakes unfortunately not speakers the speakers are downward firing and they sound like this speaker test of the M16 R2 at 50% [Music] volume [Music] 80% [Music] volume and 100% [Music] [Applause] volume well now to be honest they're not overly loud they're very tiny and just not the best sign of speakers I'm afraid yeah very average moving up to the screen and we only get one option this year the 2560 x600 240 HZ IPS display the panel looks great and it's incredibly fluid but and this is a big butt it's only 300 nits and yes we have been using 300 nit screens for years and most people will be fine with a 300 nit panel but when all the other competitors offer either a 500 panel an OLED display or even a mini LED option I just can't understand why in Earth D are thinking just this 300nits panel is acceptable even the XPS range have a high refresh bright OLED panel now above the screen we have a 108p webcam and this is a test of the webcam and the microphone on the new Alienware M16 R2 and this is the new automatic framing feature that I'm quite enjoying now as part of windows it's a little a bit slow but it does work quite well here is the standard blur background effect and my favorite the portrait blur background effect and it also includes Windows hello facial recognition my favorite way of logging into Windows so now that we've looked around the laptop let's crack it open and take a look inside now opening the laptop is pretty easy as for all of the Alienware Laptops you just undo the eight screws the two of which of the corners are captive then you just prize off the base plates inside we can see a large 90w hour battery and the two Dam firing speakers there are also two m.2 slots but sadly Dell have only provided the heat sink for the drive installed so if you add a second drive you will need to also Source a heat sink for it like the M16 R1 the ram is still upgradable and we get two Ram slots hidden under the Mya sheets also upgradeable is the Wi-Fi 7 card but being the latest and greatest you won't need to do that for a while and lastly I want to talk about the cooling solution the bad news is it's a standard heat sink and two fan setup hence it maxing out at a 4070 graphics card but the great news they have finally given us a heat sink that is easily accessible it faces the user unlike the usual inverted motherboards that Alienware provide this will make future maintenance so much easier okay with all that out of the way let's see how it performs starting with the CPU we've had a few of these core Ultra CPUs in now and this M16 Falls in line with the other core Ultra CPUs but sadly loses out to the Intel HX range of CPUs or the ryzen HX range of CPUs because Alienware aiming this laptop at a more casual Market the performance certainly seems acceptable especially given how efficient these CPUs are leading to lower wattage and Del also provide a few profiles in the Alienware Command Center we have to make quite a difference the way the laptop performs and Sounds here we can see how they perform under the different profiles with CPU only load the single core definitely felt more sluggish though than the other Ultra core CPUs but those those have got faster solded Ram which is probably why moving on to the graphics performance Andel have kindly given us Advanced Optimus with these laptops along with the g-sync capable panel making it very easy to switch to the dedicated GPU when gaming and also have g-sync on this laptop the 470 performs very well and very often sits at 120 watts when using either the overdrive or the F1 performance profile now this leads to solid gaming performance and its native 1600p resolution for any games that are more demanded you can also switch on the dlss or frame generation which really helps boost the power of these laptops as with the CPU the laptop behaves very differently depending on the performance profile the alware command center naturally sets it to Performance mode when it recognizes a game but you can disable that setting entirely or you can set up a different profile per game with regards to the fan noise this laptop can be very pleasant with the Quiet profile to insanely loud when you hit that F1 key performance profile and must talk about the F1 performance key profile which maximize the performance and fan noise we should also mention the F2 key stealth mode which switches all the lighting to White and sets it to a low powerered and low noise profile similar to the quiet mode which is really handy if you plan to use this laptop when other people are around you and with regards to the anyway Command Center although it really isn't my favorite app by a long shot Del started making small improvements and stability improvements which have lessened my dislike for it we can now turn on the dedicated graphics MK switch override the in-game profiles and I also found that the other alware peripherals finally well integrate into this software but still adjusting colors and macros is a bit convoluted now moving on to the battery life and this is one area that really surprised me I don't know if I've got lucky with my model but the battery life was really good for a gaming laptop running our usual battery test of streaming YouTube over Wireless at 200 nits gave us 7 hours and 50 minutes and that was running at 240 HZ and the back lighting was on so you could easy squeeze over8 hours out of this laptop also performance on battery was only slightly lower than on Mains and the laptop ships with a pretty compact 240 W Gan charger and Dela finally enabled power delivery from the Thunderbolt Port meaning they can use a 100 wat USBC charger or a PD monitor for light use if you don't have your power adapter with you so then on to the conclusion and this is quite different to the M16 from last year and I know there were a lot of people disappointed and I get it it's only got a 4070 it's not got the most powerful CPU and still no OLED or a bright panel what Dell has created has actually really impressed me a lot more than I thought this laptop feels so much more portable and compact than last year's laptop meaning I actually want to just pick this up and take it with me unlike a desktop replacement and I also think this laptop would be a great work and play laptop especially with this new stealth mode it's good battery and excellent performance and range of ports my only real gripe is still that 300 nit display and with regards to the price when you compare it to the x16 it seems like a much more compelling option now that's my thoughts of this new Alienware M16 R2 as always I'd love to know what you guys think please put your comments down below when I will get back to you and lastly thanks for watching

Channel: Mash IT

Views: 19,841

Keywords: mash it, gaming laptop, alienware m16, alienware m16 r2, gaming laptops, gaming laptop 2024, best gaming laptop 2024, alienware m16 review, gaming laptop review, alienware m16 r2 gaming laptop review

Id: AqhoPsCXhhQ

Length: 10min 49sec (649 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2024