The Unbelievable Gaming Laptop - Alienware Area 51M Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,758 words · ~8 min read
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when you've reviewed as many laptops as i have getting excited about a new
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machine can be difficult to say the least like take the latest ASUS zephyrus
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the engineering that went into making something that powerful that slim is
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seriously impressive and yet the zephyrus just doesn't turn me on
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but looking at the new alienware area 51m
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i have an 85 percenter
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at eight and a half pounds the area 51m
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doesn't care about you your back your ears or even your dog all
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it cares about is insane gaming performance but can a laptop
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no matter how big really tangled with the desktop
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let's find out after you find about glass
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instantly see your current and past network activity detect malware and
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block badly behaving apps on your pc or Android device use offer code Linus to
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get 25 off glasswire 2.0 at the link below
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with our model coming in at 4 500
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the alienware area 51m is one serious piece of kit and it feels like a two the
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magnesium chassis has to be one of the most rigid i've ever felt like there's
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absolutely no flex and opening the screen just it just
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feels so good it also has a strong assortment of i o
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with the highlights being Thunderbolt 3 multiple display outs and my personal
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favorite a 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port maybe the most interesting hole though
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is the power connector or should i say connectors this power brick alone
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this this one right here weighs a quarter pound more than the
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surface laptop itself and it's not even the only one there's two power bricks
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and together they pump out over 500 watts
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now why do we need all that power well dell hasn't just put laptop parts in
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here that's that's just garbage they put in a full fat desktop grade Intel core
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i9 9900k that's paired pleasantly with an NVIDIA
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rtx 2080 32 gigabytes of RAM and two
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terabytes of storage now all of this computing power is
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delivered to your eyeballs through 144 hertz 1080p ips display with HDR and
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g-sync there is a 60hz version but just
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don't buy that one because this one right here is awesome to game on i do
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kind of wish they had a 1440p version but
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they couldn't do it with a smaller bezel so oh well and it's not like the 1080p
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panel here is hard to look at we also have damn near desktop level
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upgradability removing the bottom gives you access to four sodium slots for the
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RAM the m.2 slots and a 2.5 inch drive bay
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delving deeper ups difficulty a bit but thankfully alienware has created videos
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showing how to properly take this machine apart along with convenient
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guidelines here on the ribcage showing just how many screws need to come out
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and hopefully go back in after removing the battery the back
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shroud thing and a couple of ribbon cables we can see the real meat of the
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beast like look at this cooling they've got six massive heat pipes spreading the
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load around four heat sinks all with these two chunky fans what does chunky
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mean james put that in there apparently it's cool beneath all of that dell
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wasn't lying when they said this is a desktop processor so if you didn't get
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the 9900k from the factory you'll have no problem just plopping one in and
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assuming the standards don't change too much the GPU should be upgradable too
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like to be clear this isn't a standard desktop GPU it's kind of like a
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spiritual successor to mxm developed in-house by dell but with any luck this
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will be upgradable to an rtx 21 series
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or whatever NVIDIA decides to call it next but with all this desktop-grade
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hardware in such a small package like relatively speaking compared to just a
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desktop was alienware able to bend the laws of thermodynamics and really
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deliver that full desktop performance well
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not quite but they did get damn close although the area 51m does lose in
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basically every test that we threw at it compared to the MSI trident x it didn't
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fall very far behind like it's pretty much within the margin of error and it
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absolutely destroys every laptop we've ever tested in CPU tests the i9 9900k
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absolutely shreds the ASUS gx701 and
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like even with that having a blowing micron strap to it and also it
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comfortably outpaces the AMD 2700 in the acer helios 500. as for GPU performance
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well we just published a video titled the fastest gaming laptop we've ever
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tested about the zephyrus and the area 51m is just whooping it like this thing
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is a solid 15 faster in 3d mark and even better in games like the processor holy
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crap this thing is fast okay it's just like alex keep it in your pants so many
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frames yeah i know it's really great okay we know it's powerful but have you
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been telling the viewers the whole story yep
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yes so when you got those test results
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how hot exactly was the processor a
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100 degrees uh-huh and uh how fast were
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the fans spinning at max all right all right get out of here
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listen i got something to say all right i'm gonna tell you what the area 51m is
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actually like to live with so first of all going anywhere with it
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is basically a fool's errand like it's got not one but two power bricks and
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like alex said this one here alone weighs a quarter pound more than the
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surface laptop and you need these bricks it does have a 90 watt hour battery
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close to the maximum allowed on a plane so they can't exactly make it bigger but
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with power hungry components like we have here you'll be lucky to stay away
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from the wall for more than two and a half hours then there's the performance
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mode which just literally pins the fans all the time which is great for
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performance but it's really loud meaning you'll be regularly going to the control
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center between tasks to pick your poison lower performance or super noisiness
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and speaking of noise that's pretty much the only thing these speakers make like
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they get loud but above about 50 volume the whole thing just becomes a muddled
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mess which is particularly annoying since alienware has traditionally had
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awesome speakers another thing the area 51m boasts is toby eye tracking a
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technology that tracks where your eyes are looking on the screen to occasionally do cool things but mostly
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to do literally nothing due to poor support in games and to be clear i don't
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want to put down having this as a feature but it's just unfortunate that
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despite this laptop having ir and eye tracking that it also doesn't support
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Windows hello facial recognition for faster unlocking or even just a simple
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fingerprint scanner this is the kind of thing that should
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just be here on a laptop that's this expensive and will make everyday use
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just that much more smooth although at least they did manage to fit it with a
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half decent webcam unlike the trackpad which is just a big load of suck
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not using Windows precision drivers gives it that synaptics drunken driver
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feel and even despite its small size i've
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still had some palm rejection issues i do appreciate the two dedicated buttons
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and the glass top feels nice but bad scrolling mediocre gesture support and
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subpar tracking all mean a real mouse will definitely be your friend while
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using the area 51m and the keyboard don't get me started the lighting on
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these secondary keys would not pass razer's qa but i do have to give
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alienware some real credit for this keyboard in general the strokes are
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surprisingly long and although tactile also very smooth
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of all the gaming laptops on the market alienware might have the best keyboards
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easily beating razer MSI and even ASUS
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exactly it is awesome not as a laptop maybe but as a desktop
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replacement and that's what this actually is
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so the real question is should you buy one
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well honestly if it was my forty five hundred dollars as much as i think the
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area 51m is really cool i just get a desktop and a surface
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laptop but i say that having the luxury of a good place to put a desktop and
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lots of people just don't maybe you're a co-op student who get whisked off way to
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any city with little notice or someone who travels a lot for business or just
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generally don't have the space or stability for a full desktop setup so if
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that's you and you have loads of cash to throw down then the area 51m is going to
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make you feel like a badass every time you open it up
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and speaking of a badass when you open it up i fix it the new line of marlin
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screwdrivers is fixed blade and features an ergonomic knurled rubberized handle
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with a swivel top plus a black oxide coated tip so it hangs onto those tiny
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screws with a steel grip the lid of the set is held in place
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magnetically and can be also used as a sorting tray and it's all manufactured
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in germany and backed by ifixit's lifetime warranty we've been using
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ifixit for years and it just makes building pcs repairing electronics
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taking apart this laptop just a breeze so get the marlin screwdriver set for
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24.99 at ifixit.com forward slash Linus
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today so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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