Whereas it’s not the primary 18-inch gaming laptop computer we’ve reviewed since this XXL-size class of machines burst onto the scene firstly of 2023, the Alienware m18 (begins at $1,899.99; as examined $3,199.99) is not any much less a head-turner. Our expensive mannequin lives as much as that with an Intel Core i9-13980HX CPU and an Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU alongside its roomy 18-inch, 2,560-by-1,600-pixel show, and the gaming efficiency is as aggressive as you’d anticipate. Should you’re a deep-pocketed fanatic available in the market for a desktop-replacement for gaming, you’ll benefit from the blazing body charges and slick design. The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is definitely an alternate, however the Alienware m18 takes our Editors’ Selection award for big-screen gaming laptops. In the meantime, the smaller Lenovo Legion Professional 7i Gen 8 stays our prime choose for high-end gaming laptops total.
Unusually Restrained, for an Alienware
We favored the look of the m18 once we first noticed it again at CES 2023, and that is still the case throughout my time with it. Regardless of the huge 18-inch body, it peaks at 1.05 inches thick and tapers to 0.95 inch on the entrance, which isn’t a lot thicker than smaller laptops. Limiting thickness is admirable, however realistically, it solely helps a lot when you think about the complete dimension: The m18 measures 1.05 by 16.15 by 12.59 inches (HWD) and weighs 8.9 kilos. The bottom mannequin begins at 8.5 kilos, and sure element choices elevate the burden.
Even in contrast with different 18-inchers, the Alienware m18 is heavy: The Razer Blade 18 is the slimmest round at 0.86 by 15.74 by 10.83 inches, however it nonetheless weighs 6.8 kilos (a lot lighter, however nonetheless heavy), whereas the {powerful} Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is available in at 1.21 by 15.71 by 11.57 inches and 6.77 kilos. You’ll see later within the testing part if the additional heft is price it in efficiency.
The underside line is, whereas it’s not overly thick, the Alienware m18 remains to be in no way transportable. These 18-inch laptops are actually meant as desktop replacements which you could transfer if you could, however not steadily. You probably received’t need to take this to class, a café, or pull it out in an airport—although, not like a desktop, you could possibly. If that’s a significant consideration for you, maybe one of many above (comparatively) extra cell alternate options can be extra interesting, although a smaller display screen dimension is probably going a better option.
Past the scale, the m18’s design is minimalist at its core, however with well-chosen spots of favor or aptitude. The darkish “metallic moon” colour (the one choice) received’t stand out an excessive amount of, however the embossed “18” and alien head brand on the lid, RGB ring on the rear, and RGB keyboard deliver some pizazz to the in any other case restrained design. It’s a pointy combo, and if coloured animated lighting isn’t your factor, you possibly can all the time flip it off or tone it down with the customization software program.
The keyboard deck and backside panel are plastic, however the lid is aluminum, which provides to the high-quality really feel. Alienware additionally sells the m18 with completely different keyboard choices: The bottom mannequin remains to be a reasonably superior RGB keyboard with per-key lighting, whereas our evaluate unit options the upgraded Cherry MX choice.
It is a low-profile mechanical keyboard that Alienware debuted a couple of years again, co-developed with main key maker Cherry. After all, it is a pleasure to kind on, with extra audible click on and bodily suggestions than nearly any different laptop computer keyboard I’ve examined. It, too, options customizable per-key RGB lighting.
The 18-Inch Distinction
Driving the “18” within the Alienware m18 title, is in fact, the 18-inch show. Should you’re unfamiliar, 18 inches (or another display screen dimension) refers back to the diagonal measure of the display screen from nook to nook, which is how these are “18-inch” laptops with smaller bodily chassis dimensions. A display screen of this dimension on a laptop computer is a uncommon deal with, much like utilizing a small monitor in follow. You’ll neglect you’re a laptop computer display screen at occasions, with loads of digital actual property for gaming and operating different apps concurrently.
You’ll be able to selected between two show choices and, in a uncommon case, the upper decision choice is the bottom mannequin. That is what our unit has: a 2,560-by-1,600-pixel “QHD+” (or 1600p) decision with Nvidia G-Sync and a 165Hz refresh fee. This display screen appears to be like sharp, shines a lot brilliant, and pumps out vibrant colours.
So, why is the HD show $50 extra regardless of a decrease decision? That is as a result of it refreshes at a staggering 480Hz. It is a blazing-fast profit for aggressive multiplayer video games, the place the sport picture refreshing extra steadily offers you a pace benefit.
Video games additionally look smoother at greater body charges, to a degree that even single-player video games will profit, however these excessive refresh charges are actually for on-line multiplayer gaming. Plus, it’s simpler to push greater body charges at 1080p versus at 1600p. In any other case, the 165Hz display screen is the kind of refresh fee that is extra becoming for many PC video games, notably for the upper decision.
Unsurprisingly, the Alienware m18 has loads of room for ports on its sizable chassis. Nevertheless, most of them are positioned round again, which will be particularly inconvenient with a display screen this huge. It’s troublesome to look excessive and see what you’re doing, and cumbersome to spin the cumbersome system round, so I usually discover myself standing up and shutting the display screen midway to attach one thing to the rear ports.
Fortuitously, you may discover some connections on the edges of the laptop computer to restrict how usually you’ll expertise this. You’ll discover an Ethernet jack, a headphone jack, and two USB Sort-A ports on the left facet, and a sole USB Sort-C port on the proper. The rear holds the remaining: the facility port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one other USB-A port, an HDMI connection, a mini DisplayPort, and an SD card slot. It’s a strong choice, which fits a great distance in making this really feel like a desktop alternative alongside the display screen dimension.
Connectivity is additional supported by Killer Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth, with a pointy 1080p webcam rounding out the bundle. The latter produces an in depth and clear image, which handles completely different lighting situations nicely. Whereas the digital camera can get blown out by brilliant direct background lighting, it’s not distinctive in that sense, and nonetheless typically maintains a transparent image on this and different lighting situations. It’s not fairly as crisp as a standalone digital camera, however is best than most laptop computer webcams—particularly since even some laptops at this worth nonetheless go together with inferior 720p picks.
Part and Configuration Examine
Naturally, the elements inside make or break a gaming laptop computer, they usually typically contribute most to these substantial costs. We had been despatched an amped-up, costly evaluate mannequin, and whereas I can’t name any of the configurations low cost, the beginning fashions are a lot inexpensive, so let’s begin there.
The least costly configuration from Dell—some short-term gross sales however—is an $1,899.99 AMD-based mannequin. You may discover a few incompatible elements when configuring. So, with these picks compelled to a point, the bottom entry level for the m18 nets you an AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics, 16GB of reminiscence, a 512GB SSD, and the QHD+ display screen. For instance of the incompatible selections, you may discover a Radeon RX 7600 GPU choose as an alternative, however deciding on it forces you as much as a Ryzen 9 CPU and a 1TB SSD, elevating the general price.
On the Intel facet, the least costly choose is $2,099.99, utilizing the identical core elements because the AMD base mannequin, however swapping the processor for the Core i7-13700HX—an upcharge for switching to Intel. From there, you possibly can run by means of a variety of choices for each AMD and Intel variations—add a number of terabytes of storage, doubling or quadrupling RAM, and going as excessive because the RTX 4090 GPU.
In most features, that’s precisely what Dell did with the evaluate unit despatched to us. Our take a look at mannequin is priced at an eye-watering $3,199.99, for which you get a Core i9-13980HX CPU, 32GB reminiscence, a 1TB SSD, an RTX 4090, and the QHD+ display screen with the Cherry MX keyboard. The GPU is constructed out with a max TGP of 175 watts, an awfully excessive ceiling compared that makes a significant efficiency distinction, and that CPU is a processing beast with 24 whole cores and 32 threads.
From there, our unit has much more room for RAM and storage when you’re intent on emptying your checking account, however that apart, this can be a super-powerful loadout. Let’s see the way it carried out on our benchmark checks.
Testing the Alienware m18: A Massive-Time Silicon Showdown
To gauge this premium performer, we put it up in opposition to a number of equally costly and well-equipped gaming laptop computer alternate options. You’ll be able to try their names and specs within the following desk…
First, the cutting-edge Alienware x16 R1 is right here to point out off what Alienware’s barely extra transportable different can do compared with the m18. The opposite 16-inch laptop computer within the batch is the Lenovo Legion Professional 7i Gen 8 ($2,749 as examined), which is our prime choose amongst high-end gaming laptops for its high-value mixture of energy and worth. We’ll see how its comparable elements carry out in a smaller chassis.
Lastly, we now have the 2 different 18-inch laptops that price greater than most month-to-month mortgages, with costs far past any considerations for worth—and past even the m18. The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 was examined at $3,699, and the Razer Blade 18 configuration we reviewed price $3,799.99, so we’ll see how the m18 stacks as much as these beasts.
Productiveness and Content material Creation Checks
We run the identical normal productiveness benchmarks throughout each cell and desktop methods. Our first take a look at is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates quite a lot of real-world productiveness and workplace workflows to measure total system efficiency and likewise features a storage subtest for the first drive.
Our different three benchmarks concentrate on the CPU, utilizing all out there cores and threads, to fee a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a posh scene, whereas Geekbench 5.4 Professional from Primate Labs simulates well-liked apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease occasions are higher).
Lastly, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Programs, which makes use of the Inventive Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to fee a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia functions. It is an automatic extension that executes quite a lot of normal and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.
Throughout these checks, the m18, Scar 18, and Legion had been roughly in lockstep on the prime of the charts, usually buying and selling off for first place. That’s notable for a few causes: For one, the Blade 18, as we present in its evaluate, fell behind the opposite top-end methods, probably a results of its super-slim design limiting thermal headroom. The opposite cause it’s attention-grabbing is that the Legion hangs proper with the perfect performers regardless of its 16-inch dimension and smaller GPU.
That interprets to actually aggressive processing efficiency for the m18, as you’d hope for given the worth and dimension. This may assist with gaming, but in addition ensures you should use the m18 for any hobbyist or skilled content material creation and media enhancing, too. This stage of processing energy can crunch by means of these duties whereas minimizing wait occasions. Doing double obligation is a brilliant cause to purchase a laptop computer like this, and the massive display screen will make your job simpler, too.
Graphics and Gaming Checks
For gaming laptops and different cell gaming {hardware}, we run each artificial and real-world gaming benchmarks. The previous contains two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night time Raid (extra modest, appropriate for methods with built-in graphics) and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Additionally thrown into that gauntlet is the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which we use to gauge OpenGL efficiency. These GFXBench checks are rendered offscreen to accommodate completely different native show resolutions; extra frames per second (fps) means greater efficiency.
Shifting on, our real-world gaming testing comes from the in-game benchmarks of F1 2021, Murderer’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These three video games—all benchmarked at 1080p decision—signify simulation, open-world action-adventure, and aggressive/esports shooter video games, respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (Valhalla at Medium and Extremely high quality, Siege at Low and Extremely high quality), whereas F1 2021 is run as soon as at Extremely high quality settings and, for Nvidia GeForce RTX-based methods, a second time with Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing turned on.
Which laptop computer got here out on prime various from take a look at to check but once more right here, however the backside line is that the m18 can crush trendy 3D rendering and gaming calls for. The artificial checks confirmed its uncooked energy, whereas no person would complain in regards to the body charges on show right here—greater than sufficient to utilize the 165Hz show.
Nevertheless, you’ll word that these are 1080p numbers, and this laptop computer has a 1600p display screen. They’re not mirrored within the chart, however I examined the identical video games at native decision. Specializing in the utmost setting presets, at 1600p the m18 averaged 121fps on Murderer’s Creed, 169fps on F1 with DLSS, and 273fps on Rainbow Six. Naturally, this can be a dropoff, however not a considerably worse final result—this laptop computer will nonetheless ship blazing-fast body charges at its native decision, too.
Battery and Show Checks
We take a look at laptop computer battery life by taking part in a domestically saved 720p video file with show brightness at 50% and audio quantity at 100% till the system quits. We make sure that the battery is totally charged earlier than the take a look at, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
Moreover, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Home windows software program to measure a laptop computer display screen’s colour saturation—what share of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 colour gamuts or palettes the panel can present—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per sq. meter).
Battery life on this technique simply crosses the minimal threshold for acceptable, however it’s not particularly lengthy. You’ll be able to see it was the shortest-lasting laptop computer on this group, even when the remaining principally lasted about solely an hour extra of run time. 5 hours will allow you to use your laptop computer on the sofa or in a pinch with out instantly searching for an outlet, however it can drain shortly in notably taxing duties.
The m18 posted broad and almost full colour protection outcomes on the show checks, backing up the use case for content material editors. Whereas a few of the different methods right here blew it away with particularly luminous screens, the m18’s most brightness score is excessive comparatively talking. I, for one, discovered the utmost brightness to be sufficient however, if you understand you are in want of extra, you clearly will not should look far.
Verdict: Upsized Alienware Packs A number of Upside
Dell’s Alienware m18 delivers on its guarantees: It is a massive, {powerful} gaming laptop computer with the premium aptitude and really feel you anticipate from an costly buy. The drawbacks are actually the worth and battery life, which in context are affordable. (We might additionally wish to see extra ports on the laptop computer’s sides.) This worth tier exists for deep-pocketed lovers, and when you’re contemplating something on this vary, the m18 isn’t an outlier. For almost all of consumers, in fact, all of those mighty 18-inch methods are probably too costly.
In that context, that is the perfect 18-inch gaming laptop computer we have examined but. Simply going toe-to-toe with the pricier Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 and topping the sleeker Razer Blade 18 in efficiency weren’t sufficient. Dell topped that off with a restrained however high-end design that’s loaded with top-end extras, like a 1080p webcam and simply sufficient RGB lights to play with. You may additionally discover loads of configuration choices—together with two glorious show selections—in addition to an inexpensive beginning worth and loadout.
On a worth foundation, the Lenovo Legion Professional 7i Gen 8 continues to be unmatched in gaming laptops total. Amongst this new crop of 18-inch behemoths, nevertheless, the Alienware m18 is presently the perfect of the beasts, incomes our Editors’ Selection award.
