Alienware X16 vs M18 - Which is the ultimate Alienware for 2023?

so for today's laptop comparison we've got a real David and Goliath fight here with the alienware's new x16 laptop versus the big bad anywhere M18 the largest anywhere laptop on the Block so we're going to help you try and decide whether you go for the more premium x-series range with its thinner lighter and more feature-packed set or do you go for the full power Big Bad Boy the anywhere M18 now I've set ourselves a 3500 pound budget for both of these machines so for 3 500 pounds on the anywhere x16 we're getting the I9 13900 HK CPU and an arch x4080 we also get 32 gigabytes of RAM but it's soldered on and a one terabyte SSD now for that same 3500 pounds on the M18 range I managed to get the 13900 HX CPU with more cores than the HK and Arch x1490 but we've only got 16 gigabytes of RAM and a 512gb SSD but the good news is you can upgrade the RAM and you can upgrade the SSD yourself for a fraction of the cost of Dell's upgrades right so let's get started looking at these machines so first things first obviously we're going to be looking at the size and it looks kind of ridiculous the six inch laptop looks pretty big until you bring in the Alienware M18 a heavy four kilogram chunky solid laptop and it does look massive compared to the x16 you can see when I put them side by side how much deeper it is and also how much wider it is it also feels ridiculously heavy and it is quite a bit thicker but if you can forgo all of that this M18 an absolute Beast so to start I want to talk about the build quality and the colors well you can see straight away they are a completely different color scheme the X Series range gets the lunar light vents the aluminum lids and the dark side Palm rest now the look has grown on me but I don't like the fact they've got so many different materials on this laptop but the actual build quality is fantastic it feels solid yet light and is a really great feeling machine the M18 on the other hand it's just Dark Side of the Moon color and that isn't a problem for me I much prefer this all sort of blacks and gunmetal Grays on this laptop still feels very solid but you certainly know it when you pick it up with four kilograms it is heavy but there's still no Creek and it does feel solid so build quality on both these machines is great it's a big step up from the m17r5 or the m157 cheaper range from last year this does feel like a much more premium laptop now for the port situation the Alienware X Series puts all of the ports on the laptop at the back now it does keep the laptop looking very clean but personally if you're plugging things in and out regularly I do find it a little bit annoying especially the headset Jack and the micro SD card it's a real shame having to try and find your way around the back of the machine to plug those devices in now the M18 has a slightly better Port selection and a slightly better Port location we've got two USB A's on the side and an RJ45 plus a headset Jack and on the other side we've got a USBC so there's a good range of ports at the side now at the back we've got a thunderbolt 4 and another USBC an HDMI 2.1 a mini display port and a USB a and a full size SD card reader so it is a better Port selection obviously being a large notebook than the x16 but there are some strange questable choices why do you put the full side SD card reader at the back and an RJ45 at the side but otherwise a really great selection of ports on this machine right so let's open these machines up and take a look inside so opening them both up they do look very similar and they both got that Alienware look to them now you'll notice straight away that the M18 has still got the anywhere head power button I do love that and that's something is missing on the x16 we've actually got just an ordinary power button integrated into the keyboard with regards to the RGB the x16 takes quite an advantage over the M18 because not only do we get a lip touch pad in comparison to a plastic touch pad on the M18 which feels a lot cheaper and we also get the mini LED Tron ring on the x16 which looks absolutely fantastic whereas the M18 gets just a single zone Tron ring that we've had for a few years and they've both got the RGB alien heads at the back as well now you will notice the difference in the keywords between these two models because the M18 is so much bigger we actually have a number pad on this model so if you are looking for a laptop with a number pad anywhere are finally back with you with the M18 and with regards to the actual Keys themselves they all feel great and they both have mechanical keyboard options if that's something that you like I've got the scissor switch in mind and they feel absolutely fantastic but the mechanical feels like a cherry blue it's also a great keyboard I've tested it in the past now the x16 has the realm of multimedia keys at the far side of the keyboard because the M18 has an actual number pad it doesn't get that there but it has some multimeter Keys above the actual number pad so you're not missing out by having the number pad on this keyboard and with regards to actual speaker sound system you'll notice that there's speaker grilles on either side of the keyboard on the x16 are nothing on the M18 the x16 laptop has a six speaker system setup whereas the M18 only has a two speaker and they sound like this speaker test of the Alienware x16 versus the Alienware M18 will be at 50 volume to start and they're both using the same music EQ [Music] now 80 percent [Music] an easy win for the anywhere x16 there despite the M18 having a much much bigger chassis it still sounds quite tinny and certainly isn't as full of sound as the six speaker system in the nmware x16 now moving up to the screens they've both got a 2560 by 1600 display panel but obviously this is an 18 inch this is a 16 inch now the x16 has a 240 hertz panel whereas the M18 has a 165 Hertz panel you can also buy a 1080p version on the M18 with this for 480 Hertz if you're an Esports player but I think you will start seeing those pixels at 10 HP on an 18 inch so personally I think this is a good panel to choose if you're buying the 18. now with the ghostly screens they are both great panels I was a bit worried about this 165 Hertz because a lot of the other competitors are using 240Hz 500 nit panels but this is still a pretty bright panel and it's still very fast with no ghosting and it feels as fast as this 240Hz panel so if you buy the M18 I don't think you'll be disappointed with this screen above the screen both these machines have Windows hello IR facial recognition to log you in and the webcams look and sound like this so this is a test the webcam and the microphone are the new Alienware x16 and this is the test of the webcam and the microphones on the Alienware M18 so now let's power both these machines down and look at the internals so getting into both these laptops is relatively easy you take a few screws off and you prize off the base panels now I have to be honest the MC's range is harder to get off and I had to use a pry tool to pry that panel off but once inside the M18 takes the win for upgrade ability by a mile now if you buy the higher ranged M18 to the 4080 or the 4090 you get a great selection of SSD ports you get the two 80 millimeter Gen 4 drives you also get two 30 millimeter Gen 4 drives giving us four SSD options plus we get two upgradeable Ram slots and an upgradable Wi-Fi car so that's absolutely fantastic now the x16 being obviously Slimmer more compact you only get two envelope 2 ssds and that Ram is soldered on the Wi-Fi card can be changed but I still can't forgive Dell for soldering on the RAM and when it comes to the cooling for both of these machines they've both got great cooling setups the x16 has a full fan system a vapor chamber and the element 31 compact pounds now the M18 has an unusual cooling looking solution we've got the two main fans shooting hot air at the back and the sides we've got another fan shooting hot air out of just one side and there's a funny tiny little fan shooting air over the ram slots which is quite unusual but obviously keeping that motherboard and Ram at a cooler temperature so that would be interesting to see how well it forms so in order to compare both these laptops and our usual Benchmark and gaming test Suite we made sure that both of the laptops were running in that overdrive performance which is the highest performance available in anywhere Command Center to start with we tested the CPU I'm running cinebench R23 the M18 scored 50 higher in a multi-core test over the anywhere x16 simply because the M18 has got 10 more cores than the x16s HK CPU and if it's a productivity workload you're going to be doing on these laptops you're going to see a real difference with that m18's HX CPU also with its bigger chassis and large cooling fans the M18 was able to hold higher wattage it was boosting over 160 watts and then held 130 Watts solidly through the Sony bench test whereas the Alienware x16 managed to boost about 130 and dropped down to about 105 and that really did make a difference to these scores then quickly moving on to keep bench fire for the single core and the multi-core score tests now this is quite a quick test so you're not relying on the long-term boost and we certainly found again that the single core was very similar between these two with the M18 slightly beating the x16 but the multi-core score as per the city bench was massively in the m18's favor moving over to the 3D synthetic benchmarks and starting with time spy the M18 was obviously going to win here not only has it got the 1490 over the anywhere's x16 with 48t because these were the same price you're obviously paying less for the M18 range but it was also able to run at slightly higher wattages but on both the CPU and the GPU this led to a Time Spike increase of 24 in favor of the M18 and when we look at just the GPU scores the 4090 scored 22 higher than the 4080. running through the fire stroke benchmarks and the normal gain benchmarks you can see how much better it's performing than the x16 but with both of these machines coming with the 2560 by 1600 displays either these graphics cards will easily be able to power any AAA title at probably Max settings and get great frames per second and while gaming on both these machines was a really comfortable experience so if you do just plan on gaming on your laptop you're really not going to notice much of a difference moving down from that 1490 to the 4080 in the majority of situations with regards to the actual fan noise in the profiles the one thing that was quite interesting is each electric profiles were very similar in fan noise so it's obviously something Dell have tried to work on this year but leaving the laptop in performance mode the M18 despite drawing higher wattages than the x16 did remain quieter for longer and with regards to external temperatures both these laptops remained incredibly cool as I discussed in the review of each of these machines the touchpad and the Palm rest on the M18 and the x16 is just amazing to Game On so if you're buying these laptops a game on the laptop themselves it's a really comfortable experience now my personal opinion gaming on the actual laptop itself is an easy win for that anyway M18 for that much much bigger screen if I've got the 18 inch 16x10 panel I don't feel like I want to be plugging into an external screen because I can't cope with the actual little screen I'm using but with the x16 and it's 16 inch 16x10 although I can get away with it in a pinch if I was going for a long time gaming session I'd want to plug in a monitor so with the performance section out of the way let's take a quick look at battery performance and power now on battery both these perform incredibly well as do most Intel gaming laptops but when it comes to actual battery life the x16 clearly had the upper hand here with six hours of battery life powering this smaller screen the M18 on the other hand in the same conditions only managed to get four hours but you don't really expect that much more from such a giant gaming laptop you're going to power that 18 inch Powerhouse for screen so obviously along with the portability of the laptop and the battery life if you're moving around with this machine the x16 is clearly the winner another Point worth mentioning with the premium x-series line you also get PD charging up to about 100 Watts so that means if you're in a pinch and you haven't got your power adapter with you you can use a USBC charger plug it into your actual x16 and keep it going and it does very well for office and very light 3D tasks the M18 on the other hand you need to use your actual charger there's no PD charging I think that's such a shame that they don't offer that because this is still a very expensive laptop and talking of the Chargers both these machines were supplied with their 330 watt slim Gan charger this really is a fantastic charge I haven't used the brick from years ago and I know some people the M18 have received the brick but in the UK on all of their actual listings for the M16 and M18 range they are offering the slim charges and it's so much easier to put this slim 330 watt gun charger in your bag with your laptop so that takes me through to the conclusion now these are two great machines the performance is excellent this year but unfortunately the price is not these are both very expensive at three and a half thousand pounds in the UK now when you're choosing a laptop there are a lot of things to take into consideration and the first thing is obviously the size so if you're looking for a 16 inch or a more portable laptop then you're probably going to be looking this direction or the M16 over this giant M18 but if size isn't a concern you can't help but be impressed with how much they fitted into this M18 chassis the performance and the upgradability is absolutely excellent on this M18 now with both of these being the same price I personally would have to choose this M18 I'm not so bothered about the size of a laptop once it's on my desk I don't care how big it is and I can still fit this in a bag and carry it around with me but then once it's on my desk that eight inch screen is absolutely incredible for gaming on also great for productivity work and I love the fact I put a ton of ssds in this machine and upgrade the RAM the 4090 although isn't a massive improvement over the 48t considering these are the same price is the icing on the cake and then lastly when it comes to the CPU the HX processor with its higher core count performs so much better in this machine and the HK CPU in the actual x16 so realistically I think unless you need that better speaker system and a more portable laptop I personally think this M18 is the better buy well that's my thoughts on these two laptops as usual I'd love to know what you guys think which would you choose between this M18 or this x16 at the same price pop it in the comment section down below and I'll get back to you and as usual thank you for watching

Channel: Mash IT

Views: 92,228

Keywords: mash it, alienware, x16, nvidia, 13th gen, x16 alienware, alienware x16, 16x, 16, gaming laptop, laptop, best gaming laptop 2023, alienware x16 r1, alienware x16 2023, gaming laptops, gaming, dell, intel, alienware x16 review, alienware m18, m18, alienware gaming laptop, gaming 2023, gaming laptop 2023, gaming laptops 2023, 4090, rtx, 18, alienware m18 review

Id: pLGGughSTn0

Length: 14min 56sec (896 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 18 2023