Verdict
The Alienware M16 is a stylish and well - made gaming laptop computer with a vast range of configuration options , including a virile but effective AMD Ryzen 9 Dragon Range CPU .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
If you are in the mart for a hard - core gaming laptop and money is n’t an government issue , chances are you are looking at something with an Asus ROG or a Dell Alienware badge . There are alternatives , but for dyed - in - the - wool pureblood gaming , ROG and Alienware are the nonpayment choices .
ROG was first out of the logic gate with an RTX 40 - serial 16 - inch play laptop in the form of theStrix Scar 16 . Now we have the Alienware choice , another 16 - column inch car called the M16 , power by one of AMD ’s most late and much - praised Dragon Range CPUs .
Being an Alienware machine means you have entree to many options at leverage . These include four CPUs ( two Intel , two AMD ) , five GPUs ( four Nvidia , one AMD ) , two keyboards , three displays , and more computer memory and storage choice than you may rock a spliff at . The effect this can have on price is spectacular .
The cheapest fashion model costs £ 2149/$1699 . That gets you a Ryzen 7 7745HX CPU , RTX 4060 GPU , a 1 TB SSD , 16 GB of RAM and a 165Hz presentation . At the other end of the scale of measurement , £ 5129/$4599 get you a Core i9 13900HX chip , RTX 4090 GPU , 8 TB of computer memory , and 64 GB of RAM , but , oddly , only the entranceway - level 165Hz exhibit . If you require the 420Hz FullHD+ or 240Hz QHD+ screen , you must downgrade to the RTX 4080 GPU in the UK , although that ’s seemingly not the case in the USA .
Design and Keyboard
Alienware laptops have traditionally been esthetically striking , and the 2023 M16 R1 has all the expected Alienware design cue . This includes the brilliant , exotic head logotype on the lid and keyboard deck , the latter doubling up as the world power push , the hexagonal exhaust grille above the keyboard and the Stadium LED strip fence the rear ports .
This twelvemonth , Alienware has taken a big footstep frontwards with the build quality of the Modern M - serial laptops . The 2022 model M15 R7 was n’t badly construct , but the new M16 R1 feels more solid and durable . The metallic element casing lends the M16 R1 a agiotage feel , and the goal resists sebaceous fingerprints .
The lid is still a snatch shaky , though , a side - effect of it not being fully laminate with a field glass cover , something common to most gaming laptops .
The Alienware M16 R1 is not a light laptop computer : at 3.25Kg , it ’s considerably heavier than the 2.4KgMedion Erazer X20or the 2.5KgAsus ROG Strix Scar 16 . Even the heftyAcer Predator Helios 16is lighter at 2.9Kg . The external dimensions of 368.9 x 289.9 x 25.4 mm make it wider and deeper , if slightly lean , than the ROG and Medion machines .
There ’s only one colour option , the gun metallic element - grey Dark Metallic Moon . This will let down anyone who , like me , apprise Alienware ’s striking and aerial Lunar Light colourway .
The keyboard is a basic chiclet social occasion with no conception nods to the gaming residential area like emboldened WASD keys . It also lacks a numerical keypad though you get dedicated loudness keys on the right and full - sized pointer keys . A tap of the Fn 1 fundamental toggles the organization into and out of mellow - performance mode .
you could specify the M16 R1 withCherry ’s ultra - low-pitched profile mechanically skillful key . For an surplus £ 35/$50 , the mechanical keyboard is an obvious choice unless noise is an issue . Whichever you choose , you get per - Francis Scott Key sRGB lighting and the option to make your own macros .
A side - effect of the thick venthole grille above the keyboard is the reduced space below the keyboard . That lead in a midget touchpad , just 112 mm wide and 65 millimetre mystifying . There simply is n’t room for anything larger . It work absolutely well , there just is n’t enough of it .
Removing the metal plate from the bottom of the Alienware M16 R1 is easy . Once indoors , you will find room for a 2d SSD and wanton access to the two SODIMM RAM mounts and the Qualcomm WCN685x Wi - Fi 6E wireless batting order .
Some Alienware M16 R1 model ( those with the AMD , RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 GPUs ) come with a second pair of 30 mm SSD one-armed bandit , increasing the potential storage capacity from 8 TB to 9 TB and sum up RAID 5 to the RAID 0/1 configuration of the twinned - drive simulation . Dell seems penurious not to have made this a feature of all models because , inside my limited review machine , the free space for the two smaller driver was just that , liberal .
The Sandisk 1 TB PCIe 4 SSD in my review machine was a solid performing artist with consecutive read and write speeds of 7GB / sec and 5.2GB / sec , severally . This means game loading times wo n’t be a problem .
The Alienware M16 R1 has a wide selection of I / group O ports with twoUSB - C3.2 Gen 2 and two USB - A 3.2 Gen 1 ports , 2.5GbE Ethernet LAN , HDMI 2.1 and Mini DisplayPort 1.4 video output , a 3.5 mm audio frequency jack and an SD circuit card reader . If you opt for an Intel CPU , the Type - C ports areThunderbolt 4spec .
I do disagree with the positioning , though . Most of the port are at the back , aside from the audio jack , the LAN port and one USB - A. And those three are all very tight grouped together on the odd - hand side . Life would be much sluttish if one or both Type - C ports were locate on the right . Incidentally , you ca n’t charge the Alienware M16 R1 through either Type - hundred embrasure , so it ’s good that the 330W power brick is reasonably belittled and clear .
Screen
The Alienware M16 lark about a 16 - inch 2560 x 1600 16:10 IPS social occasion with a innkeeper of refresh rate options : 60Hz , 120H , 240Hz and Dynamic 120/240 and Dynamic 60/120 are all on offering . high-pitched refresh rates hard impact battery life , so I would suggest opting for Dynamic 60/120 .
The Alienware M16 R1 ’s IPS panel is a unanimous performer for a play laptop computer display . Colour gamut coverage is good , with 99.5%sRGB , 90.2%Adobe RGBand 96.6%DCI - P3 . The Delta E coloration accuracy came in at 3.14 , which is fine for world-wide use but passably on the gamy side for anyone wanting to undertake colour - critical oeuvre .
The Alienware Command Centre app has no options to convert the colour profile of the exhibit . This is in unadulterated line to the superfluity of alternative that Asus ROG offer in its comparable Armoury Crate plan and that even Medion offers in the Erazer Major X20 .
The maximum brightness of 346 nit was acceptable rather than noteworthy ; the same go for to the 1174:1 line ratio . Motion treatment , however , was spot on , with scarce any ghosting or smearing and support for Nvidia ’s G - Sync adaptive sync engineering science .
Above the display baby-sit a competent 1080p webcam that also supportsWindows Hellofacial recognition , which is a welcome feature . Too many expensive gambling laptop computer lack biometric security .
The stereoscopic picture speaker system pump out an telling amount of mass , 79.2dB(A ) measured from a 1 m distance , and there ’s enough bass to make listening to music a pleasurable experience . The soundscape can get quite rowdy at maximal mass . However , if you dial the volume down to 80 % , it recover its composure while still being more than flash enough to fulfil a room .
Performance
The Ryzen 9 7845HX Dragon Range CPU is AMD ’s resolution to Intel ’s latest Raptor Lake Core i7 and i9 cow chip . AMD ’s sales talk is similar performance but greater efficiency , and approximate by our experience with theAsus ROG Strix Scar 17 , AMD is being truthful .
The 12 - marrow 7845HX processor in the Alienware M16 ca n’t vie with the 16 - sum 7945HX in the Asus car , but it still hand over impressive public presentation with petty heat generation .
Across the board , the Alienware M16 R1 compared well to the Intel Core i9 - 13900HX - powered Medion Erazer Major X20 . Both laptop computer use a 140W TGP RTX 4070 GPU , but the Alienware give less high temperature and produce less sports fan noise when run flat - out .
It bears repeating how coolheaded the Alienware M16 R1 run . No matter how I thrashed it , I never recorded an external temperature higher than 40 ° C , and even that was localised to the exhaust grille above the keyboard . The keyboard itself never got above 34 ° cytosine .
The Alienware is surprisingly quiet , too . Even in Overdrive style , the maximal operation go under that starts all four cool buff spinning like dervish , the haphazardness is never annoyingly loud . When I placed my speech sound meter next to the exhaust system ports , it only registered a 25dB(A ) jump from the ambient degree in the way .
Even at a 2560 x 1600 resolution , title like Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal ran smoothly on the Alienware M16 R1 , average 55.9fps and 60fps , severally , at the highest detail options but withoutray tracingorDLSS . Metro Exodus , a existent system breakers , ran at 35fps , but engaging DLSS in Balanced mode upped that to a more goodly 53.1fps , again at QHD+ .
Test Data
The Cinebench R23 loads of 26,132 multi - nucleus and 1872 single - core and PCMark 10 mark of 8667 mean that the Alienware M16 R1 can treat heavyweight productivity undertaking as well asTriple - A gaming .
Indicantally , as is becoming more and more common , the Alienware M16 lacks a manualMUX switchbut come with Nvidia’sAdvanced Optimussystem , which flip-flop between the integrate AMD Radeon 610 M GPU and the RTX 4070 without the need for a reboot . If you want to choose the discrete GPU manually , you may do that in the Nvidia ascendancy jury .
Battery Life
My first bombardment examination come back an extremely unsatisfying result of 2 hours and 30 minutes . Adjusting the showing refresh rate from a repair 240Hz to Dynamic 60 - 120Hz add an hour to that , but that ’s still pretty poor , even for a herculean gaming laptop computer .
While the 90Wh Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 hold out for 5 hours 51 minute in the PCMark 10 Modern Office barrage fire benchmark , the 86Wh M16 hold out for 3 hours 23 minutes . give , the Medion Erazer Major X20 does even worse , but it ’s only got a shrimpy 62.3Wh battery inside it .
To give you a existent - worldly concern melodic theme of how little you ’ll get from a kick , one hour of Netflix see sucked 38 % of the battery . Do n’t start keep an eye on a film with a runtime longer than 2 hours and 30 minutes because you wo n’t find out what happens at the end .
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Should you buy it?
The killer feature on the Alienware M16 is the wide range of options you’re able to choose from at the time of leverage . you’re able to clean your own CPU , GPU , refresh rate , RAM , SSD and even advance to a mechanical keyboard .
fashionable and solid , it may be , but at 3.25Kg it weighs a heap , and the battery life is poor . For £ 300 less , theMedion Erazer Major X20delivers like carrying into action and has a standard mechanically skillful keyboard .
Final Thoughts
The key question here is , is the Alienware M16 R1 a better buy than theMedion Erazer Major X20 ? The Medion is a few hundred cheaper when you tote up its standard mechanically skillful keyboard to the Alienware selection list , it has a numeric computer keyboard , and it ’s tripping .
The Alienware machine has a slim edge in public presentation , though , and it look much more stylish , so that ’s a tough interrogation to answer . If it were my money , I ’d probably go for the Alienware because I ’m a scrap of a badge snob , and my gambling laptop seldom leaves my desk , so the M16 ’s 3.25Kg weight unit is n’t something that worries me .
Of naturally , what really separates the Alienware M16 from loosely like laptops like theAsus ROG Strix Scar 16is the nonpareil list of options you may choose from . Short of build your own microcomputer , you just do n’t see that kind of choice in other places . And if there ’s another gaming laptop computer out there that can take 4 SSDs , I ’ve yet to hear about it . For more options , make certain to check out ourBest Gaming Laptoplist .
Trusted Score
How we test
Every laptop computer we review goes through a series of undifferentiated checks designed to gauge key thing , including figure quality , performance , filmdom quality and bombardment life .
These admit stately synthetical benchmarks and scripted tests , plus a series of real - world balk , such as how well it run popular apps .
FAQs
That depends . you could intend it with either a 165Hz or 240Hz 1600p projection screen or 420Hz 1080p . sham you opt for the 240Hz good example , you may limit it in Windows to either 60Hz , 120Hz or 240Hz or dynamically switch between 60Hz and 120Hz or between 120Hz and 240Hz .
Along with Asus ROG and Razer , Alienware ( a part of the rather less aphrodisiacal Dell ) are the doyens of gambling hardware . All three company will happily sell you gamey - quality , highly brandmark play laptops , desktops , keyboards , bags , mice , headsets and , in two cases , chairs . you could safely depict all three brand as high - end .
Full Specs
