Alienware m18 review

Alienware m18 review.. The company’s first 18-inch gaming laptop in over a decade, the Alienware m18 ($2,099 starting price) packs a ton of power into an equally impressive design.

At CES 2023, Alienware unveiled the new m18 with a gang of macho computers. It will go up against other 18-inch gaming laptops including the Razer Blade 18 and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18.

These are the newest heavyweights in the gaming laptop market, and their larger screens and increased weight solidify their status as desktop substitutes. If you really wanted to, you could definitely carry Alienware’s m18 to work or class, but it’s unlikely you’d find it enjoyable.
However, if all you want is a gaming laptop that’s more portable than your typical desktop, the Alienware m18 is among the finest due to its top-notch components. This Alienware m18 review will demonstrate that, while it is priced similarly to some of the top gaming PCs, it offers performance that is on par with the newest titles.

ALIENWARE M18 REVIEW: PRICE AND CONFIGURATIONS

At an initial cost of $2,099, the Alienware m18 may be bought right now via Dell’s website or a few other shops.

An M18 with a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13650HX CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics card, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD is yours for that amount of money. The standard 18-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600) 165Hz display is also included.
You can spend a lot more on enhancements, however, if you’re feeling really frivolous. The most expensive Alienware m18 available at the time of this review is around $4,949 before taxes. In exchange, a m18 with an elite 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900HX CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and 8TB of SSD storage (split between two 4TB SSDs) is provided. The improved 18-inch FHD+ (1920 x 1200) 480Hz display is also included; it has a lesser resolution but a significantly quicker refresh rate than the baseline.

Dell provided us an Alienware m18 with an Intel Core i9-13980HX CPU, a GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD for evaluation reasons. It costs around $3,549 if you were to purchase the identical laptop on your own, and it comes with the standard 1600p 165Hz display.

As you can see, the CPU in our review device is more powerful than the most that the M18 can currently support, as I said before. This is due to the fact that while Alienware released the m18 in February 2023, it will not be adding the Core i9-13980HX CPU option to its configurations until April 2023, at which time it will cost $50 more than the high-end CPU option that is now available.

By default, all of these laptops are equipped with Windows 11 Home; but, for an additional $50, you may upgrade to Windows 11 Pro.

• $2,099 initially, with a potential increase to $5k.

ALIENWARE M18 REVIEW: DESIGN

It’s a huge Alienware m18. Although the design has many clever details, the first thing that strikes me—and the one that I keep noticing—is how difficult it is to grasp with one hand. This is a big piece of technology measuring 16.1 x 12.6 x 1.05 inches and weighing between 8.5 and 8.9 pounds (depending on configuration). Additionally, it weighs a little bit more than the two rival 18-inch gaming laptops, the Razer Blade 18 and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18.

When you lift the lid, this is what’s on the upside of that girth: Luxuriously spacious keyboard deck with an eye-catching ribbon of hexagon-shaped cuts running along the top edge, topped by an enormous 18-inch display (very huge for a laptop). The narrow bezels on both sides gradually increase at the top and bottom, where the camera and Alienware logo are located, respectively.

The dark gray (pardon the pun) metal chassis, adorned with hexagon-shaped cuts and visible emblems, makes it impossible for you to believe this is anything other than an Alienware gaming laptop. Naturally, you can alter the RGB lighting for the Alienware logo on the lid, the RGB light strip around the back of the laptop, and the RGB lighting for each key on the keyboard.

• Almost 9 pounds heavier than the competitors
• An adjustable RGB light strip on the rear is a lovely addition.

ALIENWARE M18 REVIEW: DISPLAY

Our Alienware m18 has an expansive 18-inch QHD+ (2,560 x 1,600 pixels) 16:10 165Hz display that provides enough space for gaming and multitasking. When sitting in front of an 18-inch laptop for the first time, you may be taken aback by its size if you’ve never used one before, but you’ll soon grow accustomed to it.

Even while the screen alone wouldn’t make me suggest this laptop, I will admit that it’s becoming more and more difficult to appreciate using smaller computers. After reviewing the somewhat smaller (but much lighter) LG Gram 17 Pro and Razer’s Blade 18, your typical 13- or 14-inch ultraportable screen seems claustrophobic in comparison.

With the exception of direct sunlight, the Alienware m18’s display is bright enough for me to enjoy it for gaming and movie viewing. Although it didn’t seem as bright as I would have expected from a laptop, this is consistent with Alienware’s claim that it can reach 300 nits of brightness. Although 300 nits is not in the 400–500 nit range that many of the finest laptops these days inhabit, it is still nothing to sneeze at.

Our display testing findings confirm this. Utilizing a Klein-10A colorimeter, we conducted our battery of tests on the m18 and discovered that it attained an average brightness of 280.8 nits, with a peak of 310 nits in the upper-left quadrant. The majority of the time you would use this laptop inside, so that’s okay, but it’s not as bright as the Razer Blade 18 (495.2 nits) or the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (402.2 nits).

The color gamuts that the display on our m18 review unit achieves are 111.9% of the sRGB color gamut and 79.3% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, respectively, with a Delta-E score of 0.2 (the closer to 0, the better).

The aforementioned graphic illustrates how the m18 performs in comparison to the Razer Blade 18 and Asus ROG Strix Scar in all categories except brightness. It’s not that different from the other two 18-inchers, except it becomes much less bright.

Of course, their resolution and refresh rate are different. While the Alienware m18’s QHD+ (2560 x 1600) resolution and 165 Hz refresh rate are more than sufficient for gaming, they are not nearly as quick as the screens found on the Razer Blade 18 and the Asus ROG Strix Scar. Both sports displays have a quicker refresh rate of 240 Hz, but they provide the same resolution. The Blade and the m18 lack HDR compatibility, which is another feature exclusive to the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 display.

Remember that you can change the Alienware m18’s screen to a faster 480Hz panel with a reduced resolution (1,920 x 1,200 pixels) for an additional fee. We just so happened to test an M18 with that panel as well, and I can assure you that, at an average brightness of 335.8 nits, it is unquestionably brighter than the default screen. Other than that, the color accuracy is quite close to the standard model, with a little lower performance in terms of sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts and the same Delta-E score.

• A sufficient 18-inch QHD+ 165Hz monitor for gaming
• Not as intelligent as the opposition

ALIENWARE M18 REVIEW: PORTS

Although the Alienware m18 has a good number of ports, you may be surprised by how they’re arranged on the laptop.

Two USB-A 3.2 ports, a headphone connector, and your RJ-45 Ethernet connection are located along the left side of the m18. They are located between the laptop’s exhaust grille at the back and speaker grille in the front.

There is merely a single USB-C 3.2 port on the right side. Its peculiar location toward the front edge of the laptop (as opposed to near the back, like other laptop ports) means that anything with a wire that you put in here might make it difficult for you to use a trackball or mouse with your right hand. It also looks a bit lonely on its own.

You could wonder, however, where the other ports are. Two USB4/Thunderbolt 4 ports, one additional USB-A 3.2 port, an HDMI 2.1 out, a mini-DisplayPort, an SD card slot, and the power connector are located on the rear of the m18.

As was already noted, a wonderful addition is the RGB light strip that can be customized and runs around the back port array.

By the way, this laptop’s power brick is the first I’ve seen in a long time that is truly the size of a genuine brick. If at all possible, you should only be carrying this laptop and charger inside of an automobile.

• Many ports are located on the laptop’s back and sides.
• It seems strange to put a single USB-C port next to the right hand.

ALIENWARE M18 REVIEW: GAMING PERFORMANCE

Thanks to its top-notch components, our Alienware m18 review unit is a beast of a gaming computer. I had no issue playing all my favorite games at 60+ frames per second at the maximum graphics settings.

To give you an idea of what I mean, I’m writing this review just after Cyberpunk 2077’s “Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode” update was made available by CD Projekt Red. This update enabled players to play the game with path-traced ray tracing if their PCs were strong enough (think GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs and higher).

It’s a technical phrase for what is essentially the lighting of video games of the future, where each light’s path is computed and produced in real time. Although it requires far more work than the conventional approach of pre-programming the game’s lighting, the result is significantly more realistic light, shadows, and reflections.

Cyberpunk 2077 in this mode is unplayable on most PCs, much alone very good at it, yet our evaluation device, an Alienware m18, ran it flawlessly. I was able to play Cyberpunk 2077 at a buttery-smooth 60+ frames per second on our m18 with all settings maxed out and Nvidia’s DLSS 3 image-upscaling technology enabled on. I did not observe any appreciable reduction in visual quality.

The m18 was still capable of producing around 20 frames per second even when I turned off DLSS 3 and maintained all the settings at their highest. Though not optimal for gameplay, it is nevertheless enjoyable and a remarkable demonstration of this monster’s might. The noise level of the fans reached a point that I wouldn’t want to play the game without headphones, but that makes sense considering that this device has enough power in a much smaller package to rival a complete gaming PC.

The M18 outperformed the competition when we put it through our rigorous battery of gaming benchmark testing. It delivered comparable incredible performance.

The figure above illustrates how, while being somewhat less expensive, our Alienware m18 review unit ($3,549 as tested) outperformed the Scar 18 (~$3,899 as tested) and Blade 18 ($3,799 as tested) in terms of performance. In several of these gaming benchmarks, our m18 review unit actually outperformed the Alienware Aurora R15 gaming PC, even though it cost about $1k less, demonstrating that it is worthy of the title of desktop replacement.

For those who prioritize performance above all other factors in an 18-inch gaming laptop, our research indicates that the Alienware m18 is the better option.

• When it comes to gaming, our premium (~$3.6k) review unit is a beast.
• surpasses rival 18-inch gaming laptops in performance

ALIENWARE M18 REVIEW: GENERAL PERFORMANCE

Just to give you peace of mind, our Alienware m18 review unit is equipped with top-notch components that can easily handle any job assignment you throw at it.

I often had more over 30 tabs open on Chrome across many instances while writing this review on the m18, streaming music and sometimes a 4K movie without experiencing any lag. Programs open rapidly, and I’ve never had any lags, crashes, or freezes.

Again, our m18 review unit outperformed worse devices when we put it through our typical performance tests. In the Geekbench 5.4 multi-core CPU test, it achieved a score of 18,070, outperforming the majority of gaming and productivity laptops, including the Razer Blade 18. It is, nonetheless, somewhat lower than the score (19,233) of the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 in the same test.

The Scar 18 also outperformed our evaluation unit, Alienware m18, in our SSD performance test, which gauges the laptop’s ability to copy multimedia files totaling 25GB at a time. The m18 lagged behind the Scar 18 (1,885 MBps) and the Blade 18 (1,637 MBps) at its maximum performance of 1,531 MBps (megabytes per second).

If you plan to work with video in any capacity, be aware that our video encoding test is the only general performance test in which the Alienware m18 outperformed its 18-inch rivals. We timed how long it takes the laptop to convert a 4K movie to 1080p, and the m18 topped the Blade 18 (4:56) and the Scar 18 (2:49) by doing the process in 2 minutes and 35 seconds.

• Superior components turn this into an enormously productive machine.
• slower SSD and CPU than rivals, yet quicker while working on videos.

ALIENWARE M18 REVIEW: AUDIO

• Speakers become nice and loud, and there’s no discernible high-end distortion.
• Poor bass

Even at maximum volume, the Alienware m18’s speakers provide a pleasingly powerful sound without any discernible distortion. While writing this review, I relished the opportunity to listen to some of my favorite playlists. Games sounded crisp and clear, regardless of whether I was shooting evil guys from Hell or driving around Night City (in Cyberpunk 2077 and Doom Eternal, respectively).

Having said that, the lack of bass is noticeable, which is expected but still a little disappointing. I find that smaller, less costly laptops like the MacBook Pro 2023 and Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 8 can produce stronger bass, so it’s a little disappointing that this large, pricey gaming machine couldn’t compete in that area.

Maybe I’m expecting too much, but of course those lighter, smaller laptops don’t have to fit a gaming-grade laptop GPU and cooling system into their chassis like this Alienware does. Fan noise will probably make you want to use headphones when gaming anyway, so why not get a decent set? For more suggestions, check out our list of the top gaming headsets.

ALIENWARE M18: VERDICT

The heaviest and most powerful gaming laptop I have evaluated to far is the Alienware m18. Our fully equipped review device is deserving of the title of desktop replacement since it offers state-of-the-art functionality in a reasonably portable size.

Naturally, carrying about a large PC costs several thousand dollars, and even while the large screen and mechanical keyboard are fantastic, you won’t want to use it in a classroom or coffee shop. You could be happy with something like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 if you’d rather a gaming laptop that can be carried around all day without causing you a spinal injury and yet plays games well.

But the Alienware m18 is now my #1 pick if you’re looking for a large gaming laptop. The rival Razer Blade 18 is fun to review and play games on, but it just can’t match the performance of our m18 review unit in terms of gaming.

The Alienware m18, with its low-profile CherryMX mechanical keys, has a keyboard that feels more comfortable to operate than either the Blade 18 or the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18. Although both laptops are lighter and have brighter screens than the m18, those advantages are less significant given that the majority of the time both devices will be used inside while seated at a desk. Not for nothing are they referred to as desktop replacements.

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