Alienware M17 R3 - Review

Alienware have been having a bit of a run of late, their redesigned products, most notably, their laptops have managed to gain attention for all the right reasons. With the new Intel CPU’s hitting the market over the past few months, that meant that a lot of laptops got a power boost, but does this make the use better or worse?

Most of the M17 is still the same as to what it was before, but the insides take things to a new level, but let’s focus on the exterior first. The design is Alienware’s new Legend ID and it has an incredible presence, the one that was provided for the review was in ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, a little much on the name, but in reality is a charcoal black colour and it looks great, even when not in use. When it is closed, there is a large Alienware head on the top, more towards the front and yes, it is does light up, near the rear of the lid is a giant 17, just in case you forget the size of the screen. Wrapped around the rear of the device, which is where most of the ports are located, is a strip that lights up and some nice hexagon shaped vents. When you open the lid, the same colour scheme from the outside follows it in, as do some of those nice hexagon shapes, located below the screen. The keyboard, which is full size, lights up and features a nice tactical click, below it is the trackpad, which is lowered just enough to stay out of the way.

There is one caveat to this laptop, that must be stated here and that is the size, it is a massive machine, weighing in at just over 2.5kg. Now it has to be said that there are other laptops on the market that are smaller in screen size, but heavier on the overall weight, so this is light in comparison. The only issue with its portability, apart from maybe needing a new bag to carry it, is the power brick itself, in fact it is an issue with most Alienware and Dell products and here it stands out for a very specific reason. Now Alienware have stated that they currently are not looking to redesign the brick, which would be fine, if the USB-C port on the rear of the laptop was useful, when it comes to charging, but sadly it is not the case. When your laptop weighs as much as it does, and is as big as it is, taking a power brick with you, that is almost a third of the laptops size, is a hard ask.

The reason why it is more annoying now than in years past is because located on the rear of the laptop, where the bulk of the cables go is the USB-C port, which is thunderbolt enabled and while you can charge with it, it is slow going. Given how other products are all shifting towards USB-C as the standard, I would love to see Alienware follow suit and while they missed out on it this time, perhaps next time around they will fix it up. While we are on the subject of ports, the M17 R3 is loaded with at least one of all the ports you could need and a few you might have forgotten about, let’s stay on the rear of the device and go from there. The laptop sports a full-size HDMI port, which is 2.0b compliant, as well as a mini display port, giving you some options for your second screen connections, next to those is the previously mentioned thunderbolt USB-C. Apart from the power cable port, the other option on the rear is the Alienware Graphics Amplifier Port, which is something I was not able to test, not having one, but also given the power contained within, isn’t something you should need, yet. For the remaining options, you have a microSD card slot and two USB-A 3.1 ports on the right side of the machine, another USB-A 3.1 on the left, as well as an ethernet jack and 3.5mm audio output.

The range of ports is large and does provide you with options, without the need for having to break out a USB hub, except if you have moved to mostly USB-C devices already, trading at least one USB-A for a Type C would have been a smarter choice. One still very impressive addition is the Tobii eye tracking camera, located above the screen and while not something you might think about, it quickly became something I miss on my regular hardware. The basic gist of Tobii is that when you look away from the screen, it sees your eyes not looking at it and dims the screen, when you look back, it registers that you are looking at the screen and everything comes back up to normal. While it might not sound like something important, it really is and when you combine it with the brightness of that wonderful 4K display, you will understand the benefits. There is even software to help in games, letting hud elements fade away, until you look to where they would be, and while I have not sampled that, I can see the benefits to it.

Of course, all the above are just the bells and whistles, the power inside of it and when it contains the latest Intel CPU and a powerful Nvidia GTX 2080 GPU, there is little it can’t do. The basic games like Minecraft or even some older games like Portal 2, all ran brilliantly on the machine, there is little issues with them, but testing out the newer games like DOOM Eternal or Call of Duty Warzone, the machine was more than up to the task. Alienware themselves claim that even games like Metro Exodus can easily break the 60fps + range and while I couldn’t test that specific game, what I was able to try did work, so I can see those claims being accurate. A nice touch to the machines behaviour was that when not using the GPU in games, the laptop would and without any visual indicators, switch over to the inbuilt Intel graphics chipset and things looked just as good, at least while in Windows.

Speaking of Windows, because of the power within, the machine ran smooth across the board, the boot times from power off to login where short, not the shortest I have seen, but close. I was able to have Photoshop running and Chrome, with a dozen tabs open and it did not stutter once, something I wish my usual laptop could to. Even trying to make something within 3D paint had no problems, in fact taking a 150mb Excel file and trying to get it to compute values and calculations within proved to be a simple challenge for it. But with all that power comes the downside, battery life.

The battery life in the M17 R3 is short, consistent use of it gave a good four, that is 4, hours of life, before it required it be connected to power again, even throwing on a movie, at modest brightness and decent volume output got only slightly better. The reason why this is a problem, again harkens back to the size of the power brick, given that if you plan to use it out and about, you will have to take it and that is a pain. If the battery life were better, even between six and seven hours, it would not be so bad, but sadly that is not the case and makes advising people to look at this one, hard to do, especially when there are cheaper options with better battery life out there.

The bottom line is that Alienware have managed to craft a piece of hardware that is just shy of breaking the mould, it has a striking design, again thanks to that Legend design and is packed with enough power to help you game with the best visuals, anywhere you go. The problems are more annoying, given they should not exist at this point in time, the power bricks size is one should have been cleared up years ago and the fact that it is still so large is crazy. Ports are plentiful, but the lack of proper charging with USB-C or even an easily accessible USB-C port is hard to accept and while not the be all to end all, it is something that in 2020 should be at the forefront of the designers minds.

Given its price, it is a heavy investment, but with the fact that it can be a true desktop replacement, it is easy to look at the benefits of the M17 R3, the question comes down to how often you will take it away from the desk, if that answer is often, you might need to look elsewhere, if the answer is hardly ever, then you are looking at your next laptop, without question.

The Score

9.0

Review hardware provided by Alienware

The Pros

+It is one very powerful laptop, capable of handling everything you can imagine

+The combination of the GPU and that screen, provide for amazing gaming on the go

The Cons

+The power pack is massive and makes taking it on the go awkward

+The battery life is less than ideal, which requires you to have the power pack handy