Alienware M18 R2 Review - The Power House Returns!

so we finally have our hands on the Alienware m18r I the gargantuan gaming laptop with Incredible performance this laptop is so unapologetically large it won't fit in 99% of any laptop bag out there a laptop so heavy that only the strongest Gamers Among Us can lift it like Thor's hammer yet despite its size this laptop was incredibly popular last year with the R1 and was my favorite anywhere release of 2023 so how does it perform in the 2024 model let's get into it now I will put time stamps down below as if you've used the R1 then this R2 will look quite familiar to you we get the same chassis weighing in at 4.23 kg with the same cumbersome Dimensions including that rear Grill making this laptop deeper than most at 320 mm which is the main reason it won't fit in a laptop bag build quality is excellent as usual for Alienware it's built like a tank with no squeaks or creaks the laptop only comes in one color the dark metallic moon with with a nice metallic feel externally and a nice soft touch finish on the palmrest making the laptop incredibly comfortable to use with regards to the specs as always with d you can custom configure it on their website with a 14th gen CPU ranging from the 14650 HX right up to the 4900 HX you can also choose the Nvidia rx460 up to an RX 490 and the RAM and ssds can be configured to suit your needs and it has a Wi-Fi 7 as standard sadly this year there is only only one monitor choice and that's a 2560 by 1600p 165 HZ panel and we will look at that one more later and for the purpose of this review we've ordered the I9 4900 K with a 48 16 GB of RAM and a 1 terabyte SSD now looking around the laptop we get a great range of ports on the left side we get the RJ45 two USB and a headset Jack and on the right side we just get a USBC port at the rear of the lap laptop we get a power jack a fulls sizee memory card slot a mini display port an HDMI 2.1 another usba and two Thunderbolt 4 ports these are all the ports you really need from a desktop replacement and on the whole the placement itself is well spread over the entire laptop except for the RJ45 on the side and the memory card on the back I complained about it last year and I'm going to complain about it again and I'm sure you will too once you've given this laptop a few reach rounds trying to get the photos off your memory card being in Alienware RGB is a given with the usual overlight strip right around the rear now although this is only one color Zone it still looks great we also get the lit alien head on the rear as well as the alien head power button and the per key RGB keyboard and this is all controlled in the Alienware command center now lifting the screen is reasonably heavy and satisfying the screen stays firmly in place with little wobble when in use this reveals the large Palm rest and touchpad and a keyboard with a number pad as it's a large 18inch laptop there's plenty of room on that Palm rest meaning it's very comfortable to rest your wrist when typing on this keyboard itself the touchpad although not a premium glass touchpad like the X still performs very well for both gestures and control it's pretty large but not too big to cause accidental touches like on the Raaz blade 18 we reviewed last year moving up to the keyboard leads me to one of my favorite features on an Alienware laptop the M18 can be configured with either a standard or a mechanical keyboard both excellent and my advice would be if you want a quiet keyboard get the standard if you love The tactile feel of a traditional mechanical keyboard then get the Cherry MX version that I have here listen to this that sound and feel is amazing as is the layout and the backlighting the m has a keyboard with a number pad but fitting of such a large laptop but if you buy the M16 version you get the centered keyboard without a number pad itself so they really are catering to everyone the lighting is vibrant and bright and be completely customized in the Alienware Command Center but I just love this wave effect that I've got here from one of the presets and I always set my laptop to it we also get dedicated macro keys and media Keys as well as a F1 power boost button that you can use instead of going through the RW command center now above the keyboard we've got air intake Vents and unfortunately these are not speaker grills the speakers are downward firing and sound like this speaker test of the Alienware M18 R2 at 50% [Music] volume and now [Music] [Applause] 80% so the speakers do get very loud but unfortunately they're lacking in base and they do sound a little bit tiny and I think that's just the joys of just some two two wat downward F speakers moving up to the screen and we get only one option this year the 2560 x600 165 HZ 18in panel it brightness is only 300 nits yet again and it's a shame that Dell haven't looked at their competitors with their 500 plus knit screens and it's a real shame because it's otherwise a great panel with its color accurate and fast 165 htz which is great for fluid motion such as fastpac games now above the screen we got a 10hp webcam and this is the test of the webcam and the microphones on the new anywhere M18 R2 and it also includes Windows hello facial recognition which is my favorite way of logging into Windows okay so let's shut it down now and take a look inside the laptop once we've unscrewed the eight screws and popped off the bottom cover we can see an identical layout to the R1 we still have the 97w hour battery right along the front as as well as two 80 mm ssds that all the m18s get and two extra 30 mm that the 4080 and 4090 version get we also get two ddr5 Ram slots and a replaceable Wi-Fi 7 card with a heat sink with regards to the fans we have a small fan blowing cool air over the Ram plus two larger fans at the rear and one small one at the side to dissipate all that hot air from these powerful components sadly as usual with Dell the motherboard is inverted meaning we cannot see the vapor chamber and if you do want to paste it you will need to disassemble the whole laptop now that leads me neatly to the CPU performance the 14900 HX is pretty much a Rebrand of the 13,900 HX they both have the same eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores but this year the max boost is up to 5.8 GHz now that's up from 5.4 GHz on the last year's chip sadly yet again despite having an HX unlock chip in this laptop I cannot get undervolting working now looking at the bench Mark scores for this CPU and you can see there is a slight Improvement in the single course scores as expected with a higher Max boost clocks but the multicore scores remain almost identical as we're power limited even with a large chassis like the M18 the good news is the power available to the CPU is over 200 watts in CPU only task which is much better than Slimmer laptops like the razor blade 18 moving on to the GPU scores and it's a slight improvement over last year's R1 despite having that same 175 wat 48 GPU leading me to believe they have a slightly improve the cooling system as they now State the M18 R2 can handle 275 watts of combined Heat this year we are getting solid scores not only in time spy but also fire strike and all the game benchmarks we've tested plus with this model we get Advanced Optimus and a gcn capable laptop panel and that leads me neatly onto the gaming itself and this is a joy to behold on a large screen and large chassis laptop like this now yes it can get loud in anything but the quiet mode but we're getting a full 175 Watt on the GPU as well as very often over 100 Watts on that CPU plus the comfortable Palm rest and keyboard that never warms up and if you've watched my previous videos you know I hated hot WD Keys that's a complete Pet hate of mine especially on those long gaming sessions now the good speakers and large vast screen is really the icing on the cake but before we move off the performance section I have to talk about the Alienware Command Center and as usual this is an area that really lets this laptop down although we've had some subtle improvements this year such as a dedicated Muk switch and options to turn off the in-game profiles the Alienware component Center is still the same pile of rubbish that we've had for years the profiles are a complete mess with the balance performance and overdrive performing so close together I don't know why they've even bothered just either use it for quiet when you want a quiet experience or otherwise leave it unbalanced now we do have the F1 boost key which improves things slightly with louder fans but this just doesn't seem enough difference to to Warrant putting it in this laptop plus the lighting section is very convoluted the software is slow to start and also to update and the custom mode is a complete joke which leaves me wondering why the company the size of Dell cannot do better I've guessed they've just handed out this anywhere Command Center to an intern okay so enough of the gaming let's take a look at the battery performance and you probably aren't going to be buying this laptop to use a coffee shop but our usual battery test streaming YouTube over wi-fi at 200 nits of brightness we managed just over 4 hours before we ran out of power CPU performance on batter is also pretty good going be great for a bit of work on the go but sadly gaming performance is absolutely terrible meaning you're going to be limited to probably solitire when you're not on the mains and also sadly D still haven't added power delivery for the M series range of laptops meaning you cannot charge laptop from a USBC charger a power bank or a monitor which is something I've absolutely love doing on my razor blade 18 so it's a real shame that Dow won't add it to the Alienware line but at least they did Supply the smaller 360 W Gan charger okay then so let's get on to the conclusion and I have to be honest 2024 is a bit of a me year for laptops these are all pretty much refreshes of last year's models but the good news is that Del have reduced the price of the M18 R2 at least in the UK this year I got this model for £2,600 last year for a very similar spec I was paying nearly £3,000 that's quite a difference but if you didn't buy a laptop last year and you are looking for a laptop this really is a fantastic 18-inch desktop replacement it's a really great option especially if you're just planning on putting on a desk and gaming now there are a couple of niggles such as Alienware Command Center a 300 nit screen and no power delivery but otherwise you're getting a fantastic performing laptop that performs better than most other 8 in machines at not a bad price plus it's backed up with Dell's warranty and support making it in my opinion a great option for a desktop replacement now as always I'd love to know what you you guys think put your comments in the section down below and I will get back to you and lastly thanks for watching

Channel: Mash IT

Views: 78,791

Keywords: mash it, alienware, gaming laptop, gaming 2024, best gaming, dell, intel, 14th gen, 4080, gaming setup

Id: an5nlCQgBXU

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024