CRISP. Gaming: Alienware M15 R2 Laptop Review

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Portable Gaming at its very best!

Following on from the hugely successful Alienware Area 51M, Dell and Alienware have brought top performance PC gaming to a slick, stylish, and more importantly, thin and portable device.

In July 2019 they released their thinnest laptop ever, the Alienware M15 R2, along with its bigger brother the M17 R2. Taking its design cue from the aforementioned Area51M we have a smaller, more compact unit that still packs all the punch needed to game, stream, and edit on the go.

The Alienware M15 R2 is an accomplished laptop with a stunning design. This is a gaming laptop first and foremost, so it’s got the hardware inside to reach very high levels of performance. Of the variety of games we tried, there was nothing that seemed to trouble it, even on max settings. 

However, with such good performance comes really high internal temperatures. Definitely too hot to keep on the lap for any period of time, but the smart design keeps the main heat generation away from the lower part of the keyboard deck so it’s still comfortable to use when on a desk or table.

Battery life could be a little better, having a smaller battery than the previous M15 R1 models does seem strange but an understandable sacrifice for this thin chassis, that still has a multitude of connectivity options dotted around it in a convenient manner.

 

 

Size and specs

Price from £1349 to £4349.

The specs for the unit we had:

9th Generation Intel Core i7 – 9750H 2.6GHz

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8GB with Max-Q design

16GB DDR4, 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD

15.6” OLED UHD (3840 x 2160) 60Hz

240W AC Adaptor, Windows 10 Home 64bit

Lunar light

Dimensions – (H)19mm x (W)362mm x (D)275mm. weight 2.2KG

Connectivity

USB Type-C x1, USB 3.1 x3, HDMI 2.0 x1, Mini display port 1.4 x1, 3.5mm Audio jack, Bluetooth 4.2, Intel dual-band AC WiFi 2×2, Ethernet connection x1.

 

The Design

 

The ‘Legend Industrial Design’ is absolutely beautiful, honestly one of the most stunning laptops we have ever seen. It comes in two different finishes ‘lunar light’ and ‘dark side of the moon’. We had the lunar light version and if you’re into white coloured tech, this is a real looker.

It is worth bearing in mind that with such a thin laptop pushing out an awful lot of power, there isn’t much space for internal cooling so good ventilation is a must.

The large honeycomb grilles along the rear, bottom and across the keyboard deck are the most noticeable characteristics of the new design. Dell claims this pattern helps optimise airflow and firmness better than the standard parallel grilles on most laptops. The slightly rubbery matte white-grey surface hides fingerprints better than the dark grey colour option.

The single bar hinge is firm and sturdy at all angles but only provides a maximum lid angle of 140 degrees. Hardly a game-changer but worth noting.

The keyboard is comfortable to use, with a 1.7mm spread it feels open and accessible. The keys go deep enough into the unit without making too much noise and provides good spongey feedback.

We can say it is definitely one of the most comfortable keyboards we have used. Speed and accuracy of typing is definitely given a boost on this keyboard. As for its layout, Dell has removed the integrated NumPad of previous models meaning you’ll have to go for the larger m17 R2 if you must have it.

The glass touchpad, on the other hand, is going to be a bit more divisive. It is a little on the smaller side (10.5cm x 6cm) and has noticeable moments of lag. Precision pointing wasn’t great and sometimes you may find yourself closing windows instead of minimizing or maximising them.

However, as most people using this for games would very likely use an external mouse, I don’t think it’s that much of a problem. We found that turning the touchpad off was more beneficial and avoided accidental touches and gave us more space to rest wrists while typing. 

The speakers sound is serviceable too, but to really get truly crisp immersive audio, headphones are the way to go. There isn’t really much bass so things like explosions and deep sounds can feel hollow due to the lack of a subwoofer.

Dell decided to go with the usual bottom-mounted speakers that are standard these days, which seems like an odd choice for a premium model focused on immersive gaming. Front-facing speakers would have been a better-suited addition. 

Software

Alienware command centre lets you monitor and adjust the system performance, fan settings, and the lighting system, which includes the accent lighting for the keyboard and the backports. The keyboard even has individual RGB lighting for each key allowing for plenty of customisable set-ups, which is never a bad thing.

If you wanted to, you could make each key light up in a different colour. The software that controls the lighting and other commands were less user-friendly than it could be.

We had to uninstall and reinstall the app multiple times and change some system settings to get it working properly and still it didn’t feel like every option offered was actually available. Having looked online it seemed to be a common problem people were facing.

There is a nine-minute ‘how to fix’ video on the Dell website, but it’s something that should be ready out of the box really. Overall the command centre is a nice tool to have, and be familiar with, as performance, fans speeds and lighting are very much tied to this software as opposed to the default windows power settings menu. 

A new addition to this unit over the previous M15 models is the Tobii eye-tracking system. It’ll sense when your not looking at the screen and will dim automatically, and it can instantly place the cursor wherever you’re looking once you touch the touchpad.

Gaming though is where this really shines. The eye-tracking enabled tool lets you see what areas of the screen you’re focusing on too much or not enough.

On certain compatible games, you can move the camera around just by looking in specific directions which takes some getting used to, but can be a really helpful addition to gaming in general. If you’re a streamer it will let your viewers see where exactly your eyes are focusing. 

Performance

It gets a little more techie from here (so feel free to skim if this isn’t your thing). High-performance laptops like this have a tendency to run very hot as you’d expect. In spite of Alienware’s ‘Cryo-Tech v3.0 cooling system and its fire-resistant, Kevlar-like liquid-crystal polymer fan blades, this unit pushes way past the realms of warm.

We ran a few tests and we did see the temperatures pushing upwards of 100 degrees Celsius maxing out at 108. Temperatures these high are not ideal if you play games on your lap and still have aspirations of children one day…

You can mitigate this somewhat by configuring your CPU and GPU for performance or a more balanced approach. This balanced option puts limits on the CPU, keeping the temperature slightly lower but at the expense of power output, so you might get a slight dip in frame rates depending on your setup.

Is it noticeable? Not for your casual user, but more serious gamers will have an issue with it for sure. If you absolutely need max performance, however, the dual-intake and dual-exhaust airflow design, load-balancing heat pipes, dynamic thermal control and all 106 fan blades do their best to counter thermal throttling. Basically it stops the internals (mainly the GPU) from getting so hot it slows down the game in an attempt to keep the CPU running at safe temperatures.

Screen and graphics

Alienware has four display options available for the M15 R2: 60Hz, 144Hz, 240Hz full HD and an ultra-HD OLED with a 60Hz refresh rate.

They also offer the thinnest left and right bezels (5.6mm) of all Alienware laptops for gamers who demand the best visual experience possible.

If you’ve only ever played on 60Hz which is standard for most TV’s, the higher refresh rate will make a big difference to how smooth your game feels, especially for your high octane first-person shooter games.

Our unit had a UHD 60Hz display and we can say games never looked this good. It’s not something you really notice until going back to standard 60Hz.

Playing Street Fighter 5: Champions Edition on PC and then going back to PS4 was almost like going back an entire console generation. The display covers 100% of the sRGB colour gamut so vibrant colours really pop, and enhance details visible on the screen.

Graphics performance was exceptional, textures and detail were so clear it was hard to imagine it could get any better but apparently it can; our unit came with Geforce RTX 2070 – one of several different options available. We tested personally loved classics on this laptop and the visuals made us appreciate them on another level.

 

What’s inside?

Battery life was okay when doing some light browsing and basic tasks averaging about 3.5 – 4 hours.

However, throw in a demanding game like Gears 5 (which requires some beefy specs to really shine) and you’ll see that battery life disappear it what feels like moments. We got about 90 mins of gaming on average just using the battery.

Your more complex video editing software can also really drain the life out of the M15 R2 but it can be expected and is a pretty small price to pay for such a compact laptop with such high-level performance. Still, you’ll be able to head over to the coffee shop and get in a few hours of work before the frantic search for your charger occurs. 

Future-proofing the M15 is something that for the PC purist might be a deciding factor. The 512 SSD hard drive is enough to store a vast library of games, but you can open it up with a Philips screwdriver and add another 512GB SSD in the empty slot provided very easily and double your drive space in a RAID configuration.

But that’s it. Access to anything else is impossible as the CPU, GPU and most of the circuitry inside are soldered to the underside of the motherboard. So updating graphics cards and increasing RAM is not an option, although you should be okay for a few years at least before these specs are going to start to look outdated.

 

Our Verdict

This type of gaming experience has traditionally been reserved for desktop PCs, so the fact that you can get that experience in a more compact unit is impressive and unique. But is it worth the price?  

This laptop is presented in a beautiful modern design, with some of the best screen resolution and display options available today. It’s RAM processor speed and graphic capabilities are second to none. You will easily be able to play any game currently on the market flawlessly. Alienware command centre and Tobii eye-tracker are also good additions. With a wide variety of connectivity ports that are handy for all the peripherals you could possibly need.

The keyboard is comfortable with good feedback. However, It runs very hot and has sub-par battery life. Fan noise can get a bit intrusive and the speakers struggle with bass. Inability to upgrade RAM though could be a real sticking point if you are the type of person who must be at the front of the tech game all the time. 

The M15 R2 does everything else just fine – so if pristine gaming, streaming and video editing on a compact portable device aren’t essential, then you might not need to spend £2000+ on a laptop.

Check out prices and start to customise your model right here.

Hardware loaned by Alienware for review.