Alienware M16 Review | Trusted Reviews

Verdict

The Alienware M16 is a classy and well-made gaming laptop computer with an unlimited vary of configuration choices, together with a potent however environment friendly AMD Ryzen 9 Dragon Vary CPU.

Introduction

In case you are available in the market for a hard-core gaming laptop computer and cash isn’t a problem, chances are high you’re looking at one thing with an Asus ROG or a Dell Alienware badge. There are alternate options, however for dyed-in-the-wool thoroughbred gaming, ROG and Alienware are the default decisions.

ROG was first out of the gates with an RTX 40-series 16-inch gaming laptop computer within the type of the Strix Scar 16. Now we’ve the Alienware various, one other 16-inch machine referred to as the M16, powered by considered one of AMD’s most up-to-date and much-praised Dragon Vary CPUs.

Being an Alienware machine means you will have entry to many choices at buy. These embody 4 CPUs (two Intel, two AMD), 5 GPUs (4 Nvidia, one AMD), two keyboards, three shows, and extra reminiscence and storage choices than you may shake a stick at. The impact this could have on worth is dramatic. 

The most affordable mannequin prices £2149/$1699. That will get you a Ryzen 7 7745HX CPU, RTX 4060 GPU, a 1TB SSD, 16GB of RAM and a 165Hz show. On the different finish of the dimensions, £5129/$4599 will get you a Core i9 13900HX chip, RTX 4090 GPU, 8TB of storage, and 64GB of RAM, however, oddly, solely the entry-level 165Hz show. If you would like the 420Hz FullHD+ or 240Hz QHD+ display screen, you should downgrade to the RTX 4080 GPU within the UK, though that’s seemingly not the case within the USA.

Design and Keyboard

• Hanging Alienware design cues
• Mechanical keyboard possibility
• Small touchpad

Alienware laptops have historically been aesthetically placing, and the 2023 M16 R1 has all of the anticipated Alienware design cues. This consists of the intense, alien head emblem on the lid and keyboard deck, the latter doubling up as the facility button, the hexagonal exhaust grille above the keyboard and the Stadium LED strip surrounding the rear ports.

This yr, Alienware has taken an enormous step ahead with the construct high quality of the brand new M-series laptops. The 2022 mannequin M15 R7 wasn’t badly constructed, however the brand new M16 R1 feels extra strong and sturdy. The metallic case lends the M16 R1 a premium really feel, and the end resists greasy fingerprints. 

The lid continues to be a bit wobbly, although, a side-effect of it not being absolutely laminated with a glass cowl, one thing widespread to most gaming laptops.

The Alienware M16 R1 isn’t a lightweight laptop computer: at 3.25Kg, it’s significantly heavier than the two.4Kg Medion Erazer X20 or the two.5Kg Asus ROG Strix Scar 16. Even the hefty Acer Predator Helios 16 is lighter at 2.9Kg. The exterior dimensions of 368.9 x 289.9 x 25.4mm make it wider and deeper, if barely thinner, than the ROG and Medion machines.

There’s just one color possibility, the gun metal-grey Darkish Metallic Moon. It will disappoint anybody who, like me, appreciates Alienware’s placing and ethereal Lunar Mild colourway.

The keyboard is a fundamental chiclet affair with no design nods to the gaming neighborhood like emboldened WASD keys. It additionally lacks a numeric keypad although you get devoted quantity keys on the proper and full-sized arrow keys. A faucet of the Fn 1 key toggles the system into and out of high-performance mode.

You’ll be able to specify the M16 R1 with Cherry’s ultra-low profile mechanical keys. For an additional £35/$50, the mechanical keyboard is an apparent alternative until noise is a matter. Whichever you select, you get per-key sRGB lighting and the choice to create your personal macros.

A side-effect of the deep vent grille above the keyboard is the decreased area under the keyboard. That ends in a tiny touchpad, simply 112mm huge and 65mm deep. There merely isn’t room for something bigger. It really works completely properly, there simply isn’t sufficient of it.

Eradicating the metallic plate from the underside of the Alienware M16 R1 is straightforward. As soon as inside, you will discover room for a second SSD and quick access to the 2 SODIMM RAM mounts and the Qualcomm WCN685x Wi-Fi 6E wi-fi card.

Some Alienware M16 R1 fashions (these with the AMD, RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 GPUs) include a second pair of 30mm SSD slots, growing the potential storage capability from 8TB to 9TB and including RAID 5 to the RAID 0/1 configuration of the twin-drive fashions. Dell appears parsimonious to not have made this a function of all fashions as a result of, inside my assessment machine, the free area for the 2 smaller drivers was simply that, free.

The Sandisk 1TB PCIe 4 SSD in my assessment machine was a strong performer with sequential learn and write speeds of 7GB/sec and 5.2GB/sec, respectively. This implies sport loading occasions received’t be an issue.

The Alienware M16 R1 has a big selection of I/O ports with two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 and two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 2.5GbE Ethernet LAN, HDMI 2.1 and Mini DisplayPort 1.4 video outputs, a 3.5mm audio jack and an SD card reader. For those who go for an Intel CPU, the Sort-C ports are Thunderbolt 4 spec.

I do disagree with the positioning, although. A lot of the ports are on the again, aside from the audio jack, the LAN port and one USB-A. And people three are all very carefully grouped collectively on the left-hand aspect. Life could be a lot simpler if one or each Sort-C ports had been situated on the proper. By the way, you may’t cost the Alienware M16 R1 by both Sort-C port, so it’s good that the 330W energy brick within reason small and light-weight.

Display screen

• Vibrant 16-inch 240Hz 2.5K IPS show
• Loud Dolby Atmos speaker system
• Superior Optimus GPU switching

The Alienware M16 sports activities a 16-inch 2560 x 1600 16:10 IPS affair with a bunch of refresh price choices: 60Hz, 120H, 240Hz and Dynamic 120/240 and Dynamic 60/120 are all on supply. Larger refresh charges severely impression battery life, so I’d recommend choosing Dynamic 60/120.

The Alienware M16 R1’s IPS panel is a strong performer for a gaming laptop computer show. Color gamut protection is sweet, with 99.5% sRGB, 90.2% Adobe RGB and 96.6% DCI-P3. The Delta E color accuracy got here in at 3.14, which is okay for normal use however considerably on the excessive aspect for anybody eager to undertake colour-critical work.

The Alienware Command Centre app has no settings to vary the color profile of the show. That is in stark distinction to the plethora of choices that Asus ROG gives in its comparable Armoury Crate programme and that even Medion gives within the Erazer Main X20.

The utmost brightness of 346 nits was acceptable fairly than exceptional; the identical applies to the 1174:1 distinction ratio. Movement dealing with, nonetheless, was spot on, with hardly any ghosting or smearing and assist for Nvidia’s G-Sync adaptive sync expertise.

Above the show sits a reliable 1080p webcam that additionally helps Home windows Hi there facial recognition, which is a welcome function. Too many costly gaming laptops lack biometric safety.

The stereo audio system pump out a formidable quantity of quantity, 79.2dB(A) measured from a 1m distance, and there’s sufficient bass to make listening to music a pleasurable expertise. The soundscape can get fairly raucous at most quantity. Nevertheless, for those who dial the quantity all the way down to 80%, it regains its composure whereas nonetheless being greater than loud sufficient to fill a room.

Efficiency

• AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX Dragon Vary is highly effective and environment friendly                   
• Good gaming efficiency from the RTX 4070 GPU
• No thermal points and no extreme fan noise

The Ryzen 9 7845HX Dragon Vary CPU is AMD’s reply to Intel’s newest Raptor Lake Core i7 and i9 chips. AMD’s pitch is comparable efficiency however better effectivity, and judging by our expertise with the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17, AMD is being truthful.

The 12-core 7845HX processor within the Alienware M16 can’t compete with the 16-core 7945HX within the Asus machine, nevertheless it nonetheless delivers spectacular efficiency with little warmth era.

Throughout the board, the Alienware M16 R1 in contrast properly to the Intel Core i9-13900HX-powered Medion Erazer Main X20. Each laptops use a 140W TGP RTX 4070 GPU, however the Alienware generates much less warmth and produces much less fan noise when operating flat-out. 

It bears repeating how cool the Alienware M16 R1 runs. Irrespective of how I thrashed it, I by no means recorded an exterior temperature increased than 40°C, and even that was localised to the exhaust grille above the keyboard. The keyboard itself by no means acquired above 34°C.

The Alienware is surprisingly quiet, too. Even in Overdrive mode, the utmost efficiency setting that begins all 4 cooling followers spinning like dervishes, the noise is rarely annoyingly loud.  Once I positioned my sound meter subsequent to the exhaust ports, it solely registered a 25dB(A) leap from the ambient stage within the room.

Even at a 2560 x 1600 decision, titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal ran easily on the Alienware M16 R1, averaging 55.9fps and 60fps, respectively, on the highest element settings however with out ray tracing or DLSS. Metro Exodus, an actual system breaker, ran at 35fps, however partaking DLSS in Balanced mode upped that to a extra respectable 53.1fps, once more at QHD+.

The Cinebench R23 scores of 26,132 multi-core and 1872 single-core and PCMark 10 rating of 8667 imply that the Alienware M16 R1 can deal with heavyweight productiveness duties in addition to Triple-A gaming.

Indicantally, as is changing into increasingly more widespread, the Alienware M16 lacks a handbook MUX swap however comes with Nvidia’s Superior Optimus system, which switches between the built-in AMD Radeon 610M GPU and the RTX 4070 with out the necessity for a reboot. If you wish to choose the discrete GPU manually, you are able to do that within the Nvidia management panel.

Battery Life

• Battery life is poor, contemplating the 86Wh capability
• 3.5 hours is the most effective you will notice

My first battery take a look at returned a particularly disappointing results of 2 hours and half-hour. Adjusting the show refresh price from a set 240Hz to Dynamic 60-120Hz added an hour to that, however that’s nonetheless fairly poor, even for a strong gaming laptop computer. 

Whereas the 90Wh Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 lasted for five hours 51 minutes within the PCMark 10 Trendy Workplace battery benchmark, the 86Wh M16 lasted for 3 hours 23 minutes. Granted, the Medion Erazer Main X20 does even worse, nevertheless it’s solely acquired a puny 62.3Wh battery inside it.

To present you a real-world thought of how little you’ll get from a cost, one hour of Netflix viewing sucked 38% of the battery. Don’t begin watching a movie with a runtime longer than 2 hours and half-hour since you received’t discover out what occurs on the finish.

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