Is Bigger WORSE? - Alienware 15 Gaming Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,361 words · ~6 min read
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last year we reviewed the Alienware 13 R3 and thought that it was a fantastic
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little machine but it has a bigger
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batter more bloated brother that's
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coming to take all your lunch money but
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in a world that is trending towards thinner and lighter can bigger be better
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let's find out
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the vitess from Phoenix features a lightweight design and an avago 3310
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Optical sensor check it out and enter for a chance to win one at the link in
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the video description the first thing you'll
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notice about the Alienware 15 is wow
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this is oh wow holy crap this thing is
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heavy coming in at almost 50% heavier
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than the 13-in model I think it's fair
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to say most people wouldn't want to
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carry it around in a backpack every day
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which actually got us thinking both are
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very similar and there's less than a $100 difference between the two that we
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have so then which one would we rather
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have so what started as a standalone review morphed into also a compar
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comparison so the alien wear 15 straddles the line between tasteful
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industrial design and over-the-top Elite
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gamer I think the RGB lights on the sides of the frame kind of push it
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overboard but those can be disabled through alienware's alien effect
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software and the beauty of this thing is more than Skin Deep on a desk or in your
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bag the laptop has a solid premium feel
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that comes from its magnesium and reinforced steel chassis the quality
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feeling Plastics of the outer shell especially around the keyboard and
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trackpad and the overbuilt screen hinge
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it really doesn't seem like Dell cut any Corners in the construction of these
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machines spec-wise the Alienware 15 is
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available in everything from low-end configs that cost more than the Dell
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Inspiron gaming for no tangible performance Improvement all the way up
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to our Beast that Sports a GTX 1070 for
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graphics a quad core core i7 and 16 gigs
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of ddr4 RAM yielding performance that
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was consistently breaking through the 60fps barrier and often cracking three
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digits in AAA titles and all of this is
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with no worries about thermal issues the
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CPU settled in at a somewhat toasty 87
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de in our synthetic tests and the GPU landed at a breezy 74° C neither of them
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were in danger of overheating or throttling at any time and this is
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unusual for a laptop we have no complaints about Acoustics either the
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cooling fans are nearly silent while the
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speakers pack a really nice punch Dell
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has gotten serious about audio on their devices lately but does the scen live up
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to the rest of the specs I mean sure the
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horizontal viewing angles and brightness are good the Windows hello enabled
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webcam is a nice touch but compared to
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the OLED display on the Alienware
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13 colors look flat there's a lack of
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depth to the blacks and adding insult to
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injury it isn't even available with
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touch support meaning that you might be fooled into thinking that it's outright
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Terrible by comparison until you move the cursor running at 120 HZ with g-sync
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this thing is buttery smooth and once you try High refresh rate gaming you'll
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be hooked going back to the 60 HZ on the 13 feels like putting on skate shoes for
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a basketball game but if the higher refresh rate is worth it depends heavily
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on your use case for csgo or OverWatch
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watch sure but if you're a filthy casual
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like me playing sightseeing games like rise of the Tomb Raider or Witcher 3 the
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OLED panel along with its crispy higher
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resolution compared to all but the top tier 15-in model not to mention it's
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better out of the box calibration and 95% coverage of the Adobe RGB color
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space contributes more to the experience
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both gaming and otherwise
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the keyboard and trackpad on the Alienware 15 other than some macro keys
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are identical to the 13 It's kind of
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weird when you think about it considering how much more space we have
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I mean come on Dell this move feels a little bit like you had uh that
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leftovers and you needed some laptops to put them on how about a number pad maybe
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here and a much larger trackpad let's say I don't know uh here I mean to be
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clear I'm not saying that this reuse is a terrible thing the RGB trackpad looks
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dank KF and behaved well in our testing
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outside of a couple glitches with two finger scrolling and as for the keyboard
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the backlit keys still have a nice long
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action to them that avoids being mushy
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gaming was a pleasure and getting up to full speed and accuracy while typing was
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no problem as long as that accuracy is
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near perfect back space and actually the indent on the s key instead of the W
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where everybody else puts it are both small skid marks on what is otherwise a
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really solid keyboard now let's say you were to save some costs up front how
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easy is it to upgrade this thing down the road well after removing these seven
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screws from the bottom panel I was pleasantly surprised although 1 m.2 and
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the hard drive bay are occupied there are actually two more m.2 slots making
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it super simple to upgrade youred CD storage RAM is easily accessed and the
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battery which held up about like you'd
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expect for something so powerful so not amazing is a quick swap making the
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Alienware 15 about as simple to upgrade
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as a laptop can be so bottom line then
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both are fantastic notebooks and if you have the money either of them will
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probably make you happy but you came here for a winner and for once we're
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actually going to give you one if you plan on gaming for hours every day the
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Alienware 15 is a pretty easy Choice
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with more power and the 120 HZ display option this thing is wicked to game on
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but for anything other than gaming the better portability and the utterly
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unique and amazing screen of the
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Alienware 13 helped it take home the
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