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Dell Alienware m15 is the firm's thinnest and lightest laptop

by Mark Tyson on 4 October 2018, 12:01

Tags: Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), Alienware (NASDAQ:DELL)

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Gaming laptops have had a reputation for bulk and poor battery life in the past, but this impression is changing, especially for those with deep pockets. Brands such as MSI, Razer, and Gigabyte have all launched capable premium 15-inch thin and light gaming laptops in recent months. Now Dell's Alienware brand hopes to muscle into the slim and light high-stamina gaming laptop space with the new Alienware m15.

If you head on over to the Alienware laptops landing page today you won't find the Alienware m15 available yet. There are just three Alienware laptops listed (but configurable) at the moment, the Alienware 13, 15, and 17. Those devices take their name from their respective screen diagonals. Hammering home how much lighter the new Alienware m15 is - it is lighter (and thinner) than the Alienware 13, the smallest/lightest of the current range.

Dell's new design features an aluminium alloy construction to form this laptop which measures 363 x 274 x 21mm and weighs in at 2.17kg. Keeping on the topic of outward physicalities, this laptop will be available in a choice of 'epic silver' or 'nebula red' colours. A full sized keyboard is installed with numeric keypad, 1.4mm key travel, and per-key programmable RGB backlighting. There are four other RGB lighting zones in this laptop to light up your gaming area. A good selection of ports is present on three sides, including; 3x USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a Thunderbolt 3 port, Ethernet, HDMI 2.0 as well as Mini DisplayPort 1.3. The m15 also supports the Alienware Graphics Amplifier eGPU.

Side ports, in addition to the ones at the back of the machine.

Dell will roll out three display options for the Alienware m15, as follows:

  • 1920 x 1080 pixel 60Hz anti-glare IPS 300-nit display with 72 per cent colour gamut
  • 1920 x 1080 pixel 144Hz anti-glare TN display with 5ms response time
  • 3840 x 2160 pixel 60Hz anti-glare IPS 400-nit display with 100 per cent sRGB colour gamut

Inside the new Alienware m5 you will find an 8th gen Intel Core processor with choice between Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 1060 OC, and 1070 Max-Q graphics. These powerful components are cooled via Alienware Cryo-Tech 2.0. Portability is enhanced not just by the dimensions and weight of this device, buyers can specify up to a 90Whr battery with a claimed 17 hours of untethered life.

Dell says that the Alienware m15 will be available direct and from retail stores starting from 25th October, priced from US$1,299.

HEXUS Forums :: 6 Comments

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Posted by ksdp37 - Thu 04 Oct 2018 12:23
Problem with all thin gaming laptops is that they all sound like a rocket when the fans kicks in during game use.

Also, unless they can work our the heat dissipation, the cards tend too be under-clocked for the equivalent desktop model.
Posted by Sumanji - Thu 04 Oct 2018 14:06
Nice, will see how this one gets reviewed… looking for something in the next year or so to replace my Razer Blade from 2013.

Dat bottom screen bezel though… :puke:
Posted by philehidiot - Thu 04 Oct 2018 14:54
ksdp37
Problem with all thin gaming laptops is that they all sound like a rocket when the fans kicks in during game use.

Also, unless they can work our the heat dissipation, the cards tend too be under-clocked for the equivalent desktop model.

Sooo good in winter though. My old gaming laptop used to pump out 50C heat from the side (GPU) and not far off the same at higher speed still from the back (CPU / chipset heatsink). 6 fans. 6. Never needed the heating on. Never had cold hands.
Posted by eviling - Thu 04 Oct 2018 15:21
ksdp37
Problem with all thin gaming laptops is that they all sound like a rocket when the fans kicks in during game use.

Also, unless they can work our the heat dissipation, the cards tend too be under-clocked for the equivalent desktop model.

Being a owner of a alienware m17x r4, i can safely say that even the thick ones sound like a rocket when the fans kick in.
Posted by TooNice - Sun 07 Oct 2018 04:37
philehidiot
Sooo good in winter though. My old gaming laptop used to pump out 50C heat from the side (GPU) and not far off the same at higher speed still from the back (CPU / chipset heatsink). 6 fans. 6. Never needed the heating on. Never had cold hands.
But any high-spec laptop will probably be hot enough under load. Thinner one will just spin the fans faster in an attempt to draw the heat out resulting in a much nosier machine.

Personally, I do like laptops to be within that weight (2.2kg) range. I move around a lot, so I don't want anything too heavy. But I do not want super-thin because they are so loud/hard to cool (sometime I end up moving to a place where I may not have control of the central heating and room are kept very warm, or to a hot country). Additionally, I find that the first point of failure in laptops are the fans. Thin laptops not only suck in more dust because of the higher RPM, but the enclosures are often also difficult to open for maintenance (in theory, it may not have to be that way, but in practice, I find that to be always the case), which means that not only do you have fans that end up clogged faster, but they are also difficult to clean.

(I will note that not every large machines are easy to clean either, but at least I've seen some. Nowadays that is the first thing I look at when looking for a new laptop, and I wish that reviewers would make a habit to report that aspect too).

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