At Rs 3.36 Lakh, This Alienware 17 R5 Will Make Your Gaming Laptop Or PC Cry In Embarrassment
Alienware has had a good 22 years of experience building gaming PCs and accessories. Suffice it to say they know what they¡¯re doing, and that¡¯s apparent in the all new gaming laptop from the company, the Alienware 17 R5.
Alienware has had a good 22 years of experience building gaming PCs and accessories. Suffice it to say they know what they¡¯re doing, and that¡¯s apparent in the all new gaming laptop from the company, the Alienware 17 R5.
Images courtesy: Gwyn D'Mello
This thing is a beast even at first glance, with a 17-inch display and an anodized aluminium chassis that brings it up to approximately 4.4kg. In any other situation, this would be a serious problem, because who the hell is gonna lug that around. But, of course, the 17 R5 isn¡¯t a laptop in your typical sense. It¡¯s instead a gaming behemoth, meant to sit squarely on your desk in pride of place.
He¡¯s got the look
Inside that resistant metal chassis is a softer interior, one that unfortunately is still a dust and fingerprint magnet. On the plus side, the hinge-forward design makes the laptop a mite slimmer, running 1.18-inches at its thickest. It's also got only minimal thermal expulsion off the sides, with most of it coming out the rear. Go beyond that though, and it¡¯s a real thing of beauty. This time around, Alienware has outfitted the laptop with even more lighting customisability. From the logo on the lid, to the chassis stripes, to the key backlights and more, you can customise and pulse colours to your heart¡¯s content. Be warned, do not try this if you¡¯re allergic to awesomeness.
Bring out the big guns
On the performance side, Alienware¡¯s thrown everything at the 17 R5, including the kitchen sink and family dog too for good measure. It sports the latest 8th generation hexa-core Intel Core i9-8950HK @ 2.9GHz. Backing it up is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB), with 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 1TB HDD and 1TB SSD to boot.
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Fire Strike Extreme 1.1 Benchmark
Time Spy Extreme 1.0 Benchmark
Cinebench R15 test
As you can see, those numbers translate to some buttery smooth gameplay, even at ultra settings. Frankly, it¡¯s going to be very hard going back to a "normal" PC. The entire time playing, whether Geralt was pulsing out an Igni sign between slashes of his blade, or whether my Reinhardt was pummeling through the enemy team, there was not one moment that I didn't thoroughly enjoy. Every motion was fluid, every blade of grass perfectly rendered, and every particle effect popping my eyes out.
Eye to eye
The great thing is that all this performance thankfully isn¡¯t wasted. The 17 R5 uses a 120Hz G-Sync panel with an unorthodox 2560x1440 resolution, but the outcome is fan-effing-tastic. Honestly, It¡¯s impossible to describe except that you immediately get the feeling that this is your vision¡¯s natural state. And, especially for you FPS of choice, it makes for wonderfully smooth and crisp particle effects. It¡¯s also one of the brightest displays in the market right now, hitting 400 nits at max according to Alienware.
The only downside is that, to achieve that high refresh rate, Alienware has gone with a twisted nematic or TN display, instead of the more common IPS. Though these of course remain matte, so you don¡¯t have to worry as much about fingerprints on your display, it does mean colours aren¡¯t as vibrant as with some others. However, this one certainly more than makes up for it in the delivery. Just make sure you¡¯re not only playing FPS-locked games, because otherwise you¡¯re missing out.
Hear me roar
Thanks to the new hinge, Alienware¡¯s also had the chance to modify their audio system. The speakers are placed on the front bottom edge of the chassis, right in your face, but the extra rear room allows for a pair of smart amplifiers. Taken on it¡¯s own, the Alienware 17 R5 isn¡¯t particularly loud at all. After all, unlike a Bluetooth speaker, the internals are geared toward performance not just sound. However, it is one of the louder gaming laptops I¡¯ve come across recently. It¡¯s also clear as a bell, though somewhat lacking in the way of a base kick. In addition, the Alienware Command Center allows you to tinker with a few presets and equalisers. If that¡¯s out of your wheelhouse, the ¡°Movie¡± mode seems to output the best balance of power and tone.
Push my buttons
As far as the keyboard goes, it¡¯s as orgasmic an experience as you can expect from Alienware. Keys have 2.2 millimeters of travel time, better than average pushback, meaning this should actually improve your typing speed. Not to mention of course that gaming in the dark isn¡¯t a problem because the keys are lit (pardon the abysmal pun, #sorrynotsorry). Alienware has also stuck to the traditional layout, where other recent gaming devices have been moving to an island layout, with the touchpad housed between keys and display.
The touchpad here is a massive 4x2-inches here, giving you room and more for your scrolling and tapping, and also backlit for extra cool measure. Lastly are the two rows of hotkeys, vertically aligned on the left edge of the keyboard and horizontally on the right. These can be affixed with a custom macro, with a tenth button in the top left corner cycling the left keys through another two sets of 5 macros.
Paging Command
Speaking of the Alienware Command Center, this preloaded app is your quick destination for all your customisation. As already mentioned, it¡¯s got your sound tweaks available, as well as the lighting options for pretty much any variation you could want. Most importantly though, it lets you manually control your fan speeds for quiet, balanced, or full power running, and it also houses the overclocking center. For this laptop, that¡¯s just a matter of moving a slider until you hit an unreal 5.0GHz.
The best part here is that, while you can save overclocking, lighting, thermal, and audio settings to custom profiles, you can also save these collectively under a ¡®Theme. Then, scan from the command center to add any games on your system into the library and you can assign a theme to each of these. That way, when you¡¯re playing Overwatch or The Witcher 3 you have everything set for ultra performance. But the minute you shift to Hearthstone or Minecraft, while trying not to wake your sleeping partner, everything will automatically shift to quiet mode.
Load the trunk
CrystalDisk Mark 6.0.1 test
For connectivity, the Alienware 17 R5 is prepared for every eventuality. Aside from the WiFi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.1, it¡¯s got a Mini Display port, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, and ethernet ports, all alongside the AC in on the rear. In addition is the Alienware Graphics Amplifier port, for the add-on GPU box. On the left side is the a USB port and one USB Type-C, as well as audio and headphones out, with another USB port on the right.
Meanwhile, within a glossy strip just above the Alien head on the inside is a housing for the Tobii eye tracker. For those of you that don¡¯t know, this is a tool used most often while commentating on gaming tournaments. It senses where¡¯ you¡¯re looking and, if you look to the edge of the display, tracks the view that way. Alternatively, you can use it during furious gaming sessions trying to rank up, to help show you what parts of your HUD you¡¯re not paying attention to for example.
Unlimited Powerrr!
Well no not really, this being a gaming laptop and all, but it is one of the best readings we¡¯ve got from a similar device recently. Though the Alienware boasts that the 17 R5 achieves 10 hours on idle, you can expect only about an hour and a half on battery with the system overclocked and the fan at full speed. Then again, not every game requires that even at highest settings, so more moderate performance settings will give you around 3 hours, with an expected 3 hours and 45 mins of non-stop web browsing, all of the above done at 200 nits brightness. Of course, most of the time you¡¯re not even going to be relying on the battery at all, given the device isn¡¯t really easily portable to begin with, but it¡¯s nice to have.
Final Countdown
So as it stands, the Alienware 17 R5 is a monster, but it¡¯s the monster you want on your side during the heat of in-game battle for sure. Heavy-duty performance and smooth visuals to augment it, as well as decent sound quality, it might seem unbeatable. On the cons side, you could consider the massive weight, but you might most likely just have it sitting on your desk permanently anyway. Another jaw-dropping attribute of the Alienware 17 R5 is its price, which will lighten your pockets by a staggering Rs 2.8 lakh. Of course, as Alienware is so smug to remind this particular peasant, after GST the price is kicked up to Rs 3.3 lakh. This machine is definitely not for the faint of heart, justifying the huge investment given its unique look and hardware firepower.
Specifically, two versions of the Alienware 17 R5 will be sold in India:
1. GTX 1080 OC, Intel i9 ¨C 8950HK, 1440p 120hz G-Sync, 1TB SSD + 1TB HDD, 32 GB RAM
Price: Rs 3,35,990 (Inclusive of taxes)
2. GTX 1070 OC, Intel i7 ¨C 8750H, 1080p 60hz, 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD, 16GB RAM
Price: Rs 2,19,990 (Inclusive of taxes)
You¡¯d think for most people, that would be well out of a reasonable budget range, but the company is happy to point out that¡¯s not entirely true. They say, aside from the expected kids whose parent have the money to burn, quite a few buyers of the Alienware line are young professionals. These are modern-day office-goers with the disposable income for a truly uncompromising beast of a PC, and a more contemporary outlook on gaming in general than generations past.
Hopefully, this reviewer too will one day not have to choose between the Alienware 17 R5 or a place to sleep at night. C'est la vie.