Alienware 17 R5 Review: Your Tank for All Sorts of Fights?
Ever since Intel announced the Core i9 processors, manufacturers have started sporting the new hexacore processor in their laptops, specially the ones oriented towards gaming. With over 22 years in the gaming business, it's right to say that Alienware is one of the best companies out in that location in the market, and as it happens, is as well one of the get-go ones to prefer the i9 processor technology into their new Alienware 17 R5. Priced at Rs. three,36,000 and powered by 32GB of DDR4 RAM and a Nvidia GTX 1080, the laptop sounds like a animate being. And looks similar a tank. Just is it worth recommending? Let's find out, equally we review the Alienware 17 R5, Beebom mode:
Note: We have the higher end i9 variant with u.s. for review. At that place is, however, an i7 variant available too, which comes with the Nvidia GTX 1070, and is priced at Rs. ii,20,000.
Alienware 17 R5 Specs
Before starting off with the bodily review of the device, how nearly nosotros talk over the kind of horsepower that the Alienware 17 R5 comes with. The Alienware 17 R5 packs in an 8th-gen i9 processor, coupled with 32GB of DDR4 RAM. There's 1TB of SSD storage for super fast read/write speeds along with an extra 1TB of HDD storage. The 4K display has a refresh rate of 120Hz with back up for Nvidia'south Yard-Sync technology. Beneath is the detailed list of the hardware powering the Alienware 17 R5:
| Dimensions | 424mm x 29.9mm x 33332mm |
| Processor | eighth Generation Intel® Cadre™ i9-8950HK (6-Core, 12MB Enshroud, Overclocking up to 5.0GHz) |
| Retentiveness | 32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz (2x16GB) |
| Storage | 1TB SSD + 1TB HDD |
| Brandish | 17.3 in QHD (2560 10 1440) 120Hz TN+WVA AG 400-nits NVIDIA G-SYNC |
| Graphics | NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 OC with 8GB GDDR5X |
| Wireless | Killer 1550 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Ports | 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB three.i Blazon-C, 1x Thunderbolt 3, 1x HDMI 2.0 Output, 1x Alienware Graphics Amplifier, 1x Mini-Brandish Port |
| Weight | 4.53 kg |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home Plus Single Language, English language |
| Battery | 99 Wh |
Design and Build Quality
For a company that has been in the gaming laptop business for over ii decades at present, Alienware certain knows when to change their design language and when to not. The Alienware 17 R5 comes every bit a production of the latter thinking, and honestly, it works. The pattern isn't as out there every bit information technology used to be in the earlier versions of the laptop, but it really gives the device a subtle yet powerful await, all while looking (and costing) premium.
The Alienware 17 R5 features a super premium chassis made of anodized aluminum forth with magnesium alloy.Yes, information technology is quite heavy, merely and then again, Alienware laptops, or for that matter, any 17-inch laptop isn't designed for portability, just for efficient desktop replacement. With such high-grade materials on the body, the Alienware 17 R5 certainly looks its game and offers a build quality similar none other.
If you're a gamer, and so you must be familiar with the #RGBEverything feeling, and boy is the Alienware 17 R5 what you're looking for. The tendency continues with this laptop, allowing you to customize literally everything you tin, including the keyboard, the touchpad, the Alienware logo, the Alien head, and the calorie-free lines on either side.
The only thing letting this thing downward are therubberized palm rests, which might look premium, but that look lasts for only a couple of days. Or even less. The surface is prone to getting dirty, and what's worse is that it is almost impossible to go rid of the stains on this surface.
It's 2018, and bezels aren't exactly what you desire in your laptop. And then again, information technology'southward 17-inch mammoth aiming to replace your desktop, so bezels shouldn't really be bothering you that much. I've reviewed the Alienware 15 R3 previously, and while the pattern is almost entirely same, one departure that I've noticed with the 17-inch variant is the hinge. This time around, the laptop's screen does not go all the way to a 180-degrees.
All in all, Dell has done a fantastic job with the Alienware 17 R5. The pattern is still the aforementioned, and yet, it feels good. It'due south non something that really needs any changes, except for a few flaws that I'll be talking well-nigh in the sections that follow.
Ports and Connectivity
Oh, how I wish this affair could satisfy my thirst for ports. While the Alienware 17 R5 offers plenty of ports, there is nevertheless something lacking on this beast.
On theleft side of the device, you get a noble lock port followed by an exhaust. It is further followed by a USB three.0 Type-C port, a USB 3.0 Type-A port, and a microphone and headphone jack.
On theright side, there'due south just a single USB three.0 Type-A port, which is understandable, because y'all'd accept your mouse on that side. As such, you lot'd desire as minimal peripherals on that side as possible
The rear side houses the RJ45-LAN port, a Mini-DisplayPort 1.2 port, an HDMI ii.0 port, a Thunderbolt three port, Alienware'due south ain Graphics Amplifier port, and a power port.
While all this sounds keen, I cannot forgive Dell for non including an SD Card slot on this thing. I mean, that's one of the most basic things y'all can add to your laptop, and you've skipped on that. And it's non like they didn't have space. The Alienware 17 R5 is huge, with plenty of space in every nook and corner. Almost one-half of the left side and more than one-half of the right side have been left blank, a department that could have hands accommodated an SD Card reader.
Brandish
The 17.3-inch, matte anti-glare display delivers robust colour and unrivaled brightness with generous viewing angles. And the numbers speak for itself. The Alienware 17 hit 110 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which surpasses the 100-per centum minimum in panels.
The 2560 x 1440 panel is backed by Nvidia'south G-Sync engineering science, can deliver refresh rates of 120Hz, which makes things pretty smooth. However, the lack of a full 4K console does make you question Alienware'due south conclusion. It's not bad by any means, but so again, for a device at this price, you want the frigging best, and the Alienware 17 R5 does not have the best brandish resolution out there equally compared to its competitors.
Looking at colour gamut,the Alienware'southward display hits only 73 pct in AdobeRGB color infinite, which is decent for gamers, but not for someone who wants to purchase it for professional utilize by looking at the i9 and the GTX 1080 hardware. What's more than is that the Alienware 17 R5's display tops out at a contrast ratio of 560-to-1. All this is the instance becauseAlienware uses a twisted nematic or TN display panel, and they're typically not as vibrant equally more common in-plane-switching or IPS displays.
All in all, the display is good or even slap-up for gamers, who'll definitely fancy the loftier refresh rates. That existence said, the laptop's display isn't for everyone, and definitely lacks the accuracy one would expect from a device its price when fifty-fifty professional heavy duty laptops with i7 and a GTX 1070 offer meliorate color accuracy.
Keyboard
As a writer and a gamer, the keyboard on the Alienware 17 R5 is truly astonishing. The 17-inch variant packs in the numpad besides and leaves trivial to no room for any complaints.
The keyboard features matte-black, closely arranged and slightly rubberized keys which provide a typing experience similar no other. In that location is no chicklet design here, which is something I adore, considering the fact that game on those switches is a nightmare. Every bit for key travel, the keys feel groovy, for both typing and gaming purposes.
The keyboard comes with a full of x macro keys, with 6 on the left side of the keyboard and 4 on the right side. The only complaint I've had with the overall primal placement is how Dell has literally cramped the Folio up and Page Downward keys on either side of the arrow keys. It may non make much of a deviation to almost users, simply could really hamper the experience for others.
Oh, and how can I forget the AlienFX lighting on this machine.Thanks to the AlienFX installed on this device, in that location are inappreciably any limitations in terms of illumination, with four zones, dozens of colors, profiles, and modes.The illuminations are something that I find difficult to get over, they're merely too good.
Touchpad
The touchpad on this thing is something that really left me wanting for more than. No, it's non bad. But information technology could have been better.
For starters, the touchpad lacks Windows Precision Drivers. Yeah, Dell has its ain touchpad drivers that help you simulate every gesture possible, just for some reason, it still lacks the smoothness of an actual precision driven touchpad.
Secondly, the 4 x 2.1-inch touchpad might seem massive to some, but here's my issue with it. Considering the overall chassis of the 17-inch beast, there is a hell lot of infinite being wasted on the body. Sure, you'd want to give plenty space for palm rests, but the upshot with that is that both your hands are not distant from one some other, with the right hand beingness stretched out a little more to the right-hand side. Equally a result, the touchpad does feel rather small in real-world usage. I hateful, merely take a look at it, and you can realize that Dell had a whole world of infinite to insert a bigger touchpad here.
Only does the RGB lighting make up for everything? More or less, I guess. It still manages to make the unabridged surface expect cool, and despite its flaws, the touchpad still feels much better than most options out there. Most gamers would anyway choice upwards an external mouse for their use, but the touchpad should exist more only sufficient for everyday utilize.
Audio
The Dell Alienware 17 R5 comes with a swivel-forwards design that makes room for a seriously improved audio system. The blueprint now includes a couple internal smart amplifiers that monitor audio waveforms (a graph that displays amplitude or level changes over time), and the system uses that to meliorate regulate the speaker thermals for better sound.
What'south more is thatthanks to the Alienware Sound Heart, y'all tin effectively melody literally every aspect of the audio quality.Based on Gaming or Media consumption, the software assists you lot in every way possible to get the all-time audio experience possible. Providing an immersive feel, that most other gaming laptops don't, Dell hasn't really compromised on the actual speakers upwards front.
Camera
The photographic camera on the Alienware 17 R5 literally blew me away. Judging past my experience with about gaming laptops, including the Alienware 15 R3 itself, I wasn't actually expecting a lot from this device. But boy is the Alienware 17 R5 a breath of fresh air.
The camera on the Alienware 17 R5 is uncommonly great and offers true HD clarity. Additionally, it is equipped with the Tobii Center Tracking software, the Alienware 15 R3 packs in an Hd+IR presence detection camera which is also compatible with Windows Hello. It automatically dims the screen when you lot're not looking at it, and brights information technology back up when yous are.
The webcam should suffice for all your interests, be it the coincidental video call or the streaming night.
Alienware'south Bundled Software/Bloatware
Alienware is, after all, a laptop that comes from Dell, so there was spring to be a lot of pre-installed software on the device. That beingness said, I am so glad to say that it isn't bloatware. Almost every software here has a designated role and one that it performs outrightly well. Unlike the before generation that had a different software for everything, Dell now couples the Alienware Command Center with its laptops that work well for everything, and I'd like to consider it equally useful software instead equally bloatware.
The Alienware 17 R5 comes with a re-create of Windows 10 Dwelling along with a re-create of Microsoft Office 365. Plainly, yous'd take to buy a subscription for extended utilize, but depending upon your preferences, you might either similar or dislike the inclusion of Office 365 as opposed to a copy of MS Office 2016.
Performance
Powered by the Intel Cadre i9-8950HK processor, the Alienware 17 R5 is a beast! Normal day-to-twenty-four hours tasks shouldn't be an upshot, such as web browsing, watching a movie, working with function documents and more, which the Alienware 15 handled pretty well.
Considering that it is backed by the i9 processor, I was really interested to see how well information technology handles heavy tasks such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro, and truth be told, the operation is more than not bad. The device was able to render a full-fletched 4K video that y'all encounter on your YouTube aqueduct in under 40 minutes, which is pretty practiced.
Gaming Performance
Packing in an Intel Core i9-8950HK processor with 32GB DDR4 RAM at 2400MHz and a full-fletched NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X, the Alienware 17 R5 already sounds like a beast on paper. In games, information technology performs only how you'd expect information technology to. In all of my tests, I ran the games at 2560×1440 resolution and maxed out graphics quality, running settings labeled as Very High, Ultra, Farthermost etc. And honestly, the results were but amazing.
As yous can see from the list above,the Alienware 17 tamed the so-called stress testing benchmarks, and easily pushed above 100FPS on 1440p without breaking a sweat. Even on the well-nigh enervating of games such as Metro Concluding Low-cal, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and The Witcher 3, the GTX 1080 was easily rendering frames to a higher place 80 FPS while being on the highest of settings. The relatively newer Far Cry 5, which has been critically acclaimed for being well optimized, was running at a stable 95 frames per second, which is just sick. And then there'south the fan favorite game, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), which the laptop was able to run at a comfortable 125 FPS. As well, I tried playing DOOM on it, the Vulcan animal, and the game was once again rendering at an easy 100 FPS mark.
What's more is that despite the loftier graphics fidelity and continuous hours of gaming and testing, the laptop never broke a sweat, and never heated. Like literally! As such, I was actually intrigued to encounter the how Dell has managed the thermals on this affair.
Thermals
A lot of companies brand gaming laptops, but few offer thermals like the Alienware 17 R5. Thank you to its revamped cooling organisation, dubbed Alienware Cryo-Tech v2.0, the Alienware 17 R5 manages to stay cool even under the heaviest of loads. The company managed to reduce the thickness of its fans' blades by l percentage and added a vapor chamber on top of the CPU to assist keep things cool.
In my experience, the laptop was running at a decent 40-degree Celsius mark on normal usage. Pushing things higher with gaming didn't touch on the system much since it has been designed for this load.The max temperatures that I managed to hit were 70-degrees, which is exceptionally groovy, because this is a gaming laptop that nosotros're talking well-nigh, and that too, after rigorously gaming for upwards of an hour.
Bombardment Life
Gaming laptops don't tend to terminal long on a charge, and this ane didn't either, though it lasted slightly longer than others.The laptop packs in a 99 Wh battery which should last y'all for about 3-3.5 hours on medium usage, with the screen at maximum brightness. Add together a little more load to it, such as gaming, and the laptop should last you for just about an hour.
As for charging, the 240W power brick was able to completely charge the device in under 140 minutes, which seems to be decent enough for a device this big. The Alienware 17 R5 has the power just it lacks the display and the bombardment life for your productivity laptop. If y'all're a graphics designer or a video editor, you probably should consider your options, since the Alienware 17 R5 is purely a gaming beast.
Alienware 17 R5: Would I Still Recommend It?
Available at a price of Rs. 3.36 lakhs, you become yourself a fully unlocked 8th-gen i9 processor with clock speeds up to a massive 5.0 GHz. There are no compromises in the hardware with 32GB DDR4 RAM and 1TB storage of SSD too equally HDD. The 17.3-inch 120Hz display on the device is bully and comes with support for Nvidia's Thou-Sync technology likewise. All this comes inside a practiced build and premium looking chassis. On the whole, the Alienware 17 R5 offers a premium device, with a great built quality and performance, which is any gamer's dream laptop. That being said, if you're someone who is looking for a value for coin product, there are better options out there in the market place. Here's why:
Come across, at this price betoken, the Alienware 17 R5 is probably ane of the few laptops offering an i9 variant. Even so, the i9 variant will simply be really required for professionals relying on the core power for their video rendering or 3D modeling tasks. Sadly, the Alienware 17's display, despite being good, lacks the color accuracy required for that. Equally for gamers, an i7 variant with the same GPU would work pretty much the aforementioned, and y'all'd really get meliorate value for money, unless you're a streamer. That beingness said, if you're hell-bent on going the i9 route, you can likewise get for the MSI GT75 Titan (Rs. 3.35 lakhs) or the Acer Predator Helios 500 (Rs. 2.5 lakhs), which offering a great rest between gaming and content creation. The MSI one offers a better display and an even better cooling system at roughly the aforementioned cost. The Predator Helios 500, on the other hand, offers a cheaper build quality and GTX 1070 but costs quite less. Personally, the Alienware 17 R5 looks like a product that would sell for its signature looks and the Alienware brand name in itself, for its competitors offer a better value for coin overall.
Pros:
- 120Hz 1000-Sync Brandish Works Really Well
- Exceptionally Smashing Operation
- Camera is Amazing
- Manages to stay cool under heavy loads
Cons:
- Touchpad feels small
- Display is still QHD and lacks professional-form accurateness
- Unjustifiable Value for Money
Buy Alienware 17 R5 from Dell Shop: (Rs. three,36,000)
Encounter Too: Alienware 15 R3 (2017) Review: Hits the G-Spot for Gaming
Alienware 17 R5 Review: The Alien God Amongst Beasts
The Alienware 17 R5 in itself is a smashing pick, merely should only be called by gamers who prefer the Alien brand. If I were you, I'd put my coin on the MSI GT75 Titan, since it offers a complete parcel, with a 4K 17.three-inch brandish and improve color accuracy, sports a mechanical keyboard from SteelSeries, and features an even better cooling arrangement. The only matter going for the Alienware 17 R5 is the supreme build quality and premium looks, that is notwithstanding unmatched.
| REVIEW OVERVIEW | |
| Design and Build Quality ix.5 | |
| Ports and Connectivity 9 | |
| Display eight | |
| Keyboard viii.five | |
| Touchpad eight.5 | |
| Audio 8.5 | |
| Photographic camera 9.5 | |
| Software viii.five | |
| Performance x | |
| Gaming Performance x | |
| Thermals 9 | |
| Bombardment Life 8 | |
| Value for Coin vii | |
| SUMMARY The Alienware 17 R5 is a great laptop that has been built exceptionally well and looks right its game. Powered by the i9 processor, 32GB RAM, and the GTX 1080, information technology is a fauna also. However, the laptop is solely for gamers, who as well, could go better value for money from its alternatives. | 8.eight OVERALL SCORE |
Source: https://beebom.com/alienware-17-r5-review/
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