Customer Ratings & Reviews

The first thing you notice is that when you pick up the box it's really heavy for its size. Unboxing it reveals few accerssories -- there's just the laptop, and a humongous power brick with cables bigger than some of my outdoor extension cords. Lifting the laptop out of the box, it's clearly evident the build quality is premium. There's pretty much no flex anywhere. The second thing I noticed is that connectivity is excellent, from 3 USB-C ports to the SC card slot and the ethernet port. Lifting the lid reveals a gorgeous 18-in screen, a keyboard that's equivalent in size to a desktop counterpart, complete with number keys. The keyboard itself is a membrane-based (there i an optional Cherry MX mechanical keyboard) RGB unit that is comfortable and has a high quality feel, with no flex to be found from its center to the edges. The touchpad is merely usable -- it doesn't offer much feedback, but it does what it's supposed to do. Not a big deal as anyone who buys this laptop will likely use it with a high end mouse. The FHD+ (2220x1080 pixels) screen is large, beautiful, and crazy fast with an unheard of 480 Hz refresh rate. Colors are vibrant and accurate. The full DCI-P3 colors and fast refresh rate makes the Alienware m18 suitable for both gaming and graphics editing alike. The AMD 7845HX CPU was the fastest mobile processor for a shot time before being knocked off by the intel Core i9-13900 variants which are available in certain configurations -- depending on which are in general about 5-10% faster, but the MND 7845HX can still handle pretty much anything you may want to throw at it. The GPU in my configuration is an RTX-4070, and is probably this m18's biggest disappointment. It's not really a 4070 -- similarity is name only. The desktop 4070 uses the AD104 chip; the mobile uses the AD106 chip, which has fewer CUDA cores, lower clock speeds, and less memory with a smaller memory bus width. Being a laptop variant the vastly lower power draw and thermal output makes sense, but calling it the same name is at best, misleading. While AD106 chip supports the improved feature of the Lovelace architecture, performance is more comparable to the previous generation RTX 3060. If you want to play at any resolution above the built-in FHD+ screen, you'll find yourself compromising image quality for decent frame rates in most games -- you can pretty much scratch hooking up a 4K external monitor to run games. It makes absolutely no sense to me to pair a high-end CPU with a mediocre at best GPU. If you're going to get a configuration with a high end CPU, get the 4090 to run 4k, or at minimum a 4080, which may get you by without too many sacrifices in image quality, though the 4080 would be more suited to QHD. If your expectation is simply running 1080p games, the 4070 should pair nicely with the FHD+ screen, but in my opinion you should also lower the CPU and save yourself some money. From a gaming standpoint, it just doesn't make sense. Still, those who are okay with the CPU/GPU combo and appreciate the 4x M.2 SSDs (3 available), vast port options, integrated numpad, and fast 480 Hz refresh rate and don't mind the considerable weight or ginormous AC adapter will find a lot to like about the Alienware m18.

Ran diablo 4 and Undisputed boxing, ran great first day. Then screen flickering, laptop going into recovery mode somehow, game crashing and barely getting 30 fps happened soon after. Only gamed on for for about 3/4 hrs total

returned twice, there were drops in fps on such a laptop and such problems, which is why the second laptop I ordered turned out to have the same problems, I do not recommend it

Initial impressions: The Alienware m18 is massive. The m18 is truly a desktop replacement with its 17 7/8 inches diagonal viewable area and full-size keyboard. The outside of the m18 is metal, very well beveled along the inner edges for comfort, and feels durable and substantial in the hand. The screen has some flex but is not flimsy by any stretch. The tension on the cover hinge is heavy but very smooth throughout its arc. The m18 shares the same design DNA as its smaller cousins like the m15 and m17 laptops with the honeycomb intake vents at the top of the keyboard and the bottom of the case. This is a massive intake for the four fans that exhaust out the back and the sides of the m18. Finishing off the back is the unique Dell/Alienware gaming laptop heat sink/exhaust boot. I call it a boot. The AlienFX keys are comfortable, easy to type and game on, and have the kind of quality RGB lighting that I have come to expect from a premium keyboard design. Gaming is glorious with the 1920 x 1200 480hz screen. And, for its size, and number of fans, this is not the loudest gaming laptop I have ever used. Benchmark: I performed a single benchmark for you benchmark junkies out there. Time Spy v1.2 DX12 score of 12,380. According to 3D Mark’s website, the m18, stock, is 68% better than all scored systems. This beats out the average High-End 2020 gaming PC’s score of 11,085. Go m18! Games: For testing: Forza Horizon 5, Star Wars Squadrons, Apex Legends, Middle Earth: Shadow of War, Supreme Commander 2, Mechwarrior Online (MWO), and Wing Commander III. I used MSI afterburner to track CPU, GPU, and FPS. Forza Horizon 5 was the most feature rich and graphically intensive game I had time to test. Settings were set to Ultra, DLSS on, Frame Generation On, and Raytracing On. Probably the most intense particle and lighting heavy scene I could find was driving my vehicle through a shallow river. This scene was full of water reflections, splashy water and foam, spray droplets everywhere, and light refracting through those water droplets. It looked a lot better live than the included screenshot shows. FPS was in the 80’s while in the water. Otherwise, FPS fluctuated between 80 and 120. Very smooth and charming. Star Wars Squadrons is by far the star of the FPS show. 200 FPS or greater sustained at full graphical fidelity. However, this game does not sport any “special” Nvidia features like Ray Tracing and DLSS. This was brute force rasterization performance. Bonus, the fans were relatively quiet. Apex Legends ran smoothly at high graphics settings. High settings is as high as the game will allow with only 8GB of VRAM. The game told me so in the settings screen. FPS bounced between 170 and 250. The game ran smoothly without any glitches or FPS drops. This is without DLSS because Apex Legends does not support DLSS. Middle Earth: Shadows of War ran buttery smooth. I was able to maintain between 100 and 130 FPS consistently regardless of how many orcs or special effects were flying around the screen. Graphical settings were set to Ultra in most cases. I probably could have gotten away upping everything to Ultra. I think I could have gone full Ultra Saiyan but there was no need. The game already looked fantastic. Supreme Commander 2: I included this game simply because this is a single threaded monster that used to take my older computers to their knees due to the enormity of active military units it had to keep track of. I set up a customer game with 7 AI players, hid in a corner, and let them build and beat the heck out of each other. The Ryzen CPU handled itself beautifully with thousands of units in play. FPS bounced between 40 and 60. Believe it or not, this is normal. More importantly, the m18 did not show any strain as moved around the map, zoomed in and out of combat, clicked on individual units, and commanded my armies. Zero issues. Mechwarrior Online: This has been my go-to game for well on a decade now. MWO is an old Unreal Engine 3, DX9/11 game that was never fully optimized. Which is why this game can be tough to drive even on today’s hardware. I cranked up all the graphics settings to max. FPS remained consistently over 100 for every map. Typical behavior for this game is for the FPS to take a hit on city maps or when other players enter the field of view. The m18 powered threw everything like a champ. I will admit that I was a bit disappointed with the external monitor performance. Wing Commander III (Just because). Still has that glorious 1990’s “We Build Worlds” magic. Not a problem for you nostalgia junkies. Things to know: The m18 has an issue with sudden FPS drops. Randomly, the FPS will go from 100 to 30 for a second or two and then return to 100. This impacted all games except Apex Legends. ??? Alienware and Nvidia need to investigate. Most likely this is a driver or resource conflict issue. I did not see any evidence of the CPU or GPU throttling in the MSI Afterburner overlay. It is random with no obvious cause that I can detect. The CPU runs hot. At 30% overall utilization the CPU bouncing between 90- and 100-degrees C. I even saw it go over 100 a few times. Turning on performance mode will kick the CPU temps down below 100 and sometimes below 90 depending on the content. This laptop is not a lazy, hot summer day of gaming kind of laptop. Nor is it all that suitable for your lap. Find a table! AWCC still has bugs and room to grow. I set up a few lighting profiles. Sometimes AWCC gets everything right. And sometimes it gets really confused cycling through different profiles and sometimes going nuts repeatedly re-loading the same profile over and over again. Also, building lighting profiles needs a human usability pass. It is still confusing and feels half baked. Profiles cannot be edited without redoing the whole profile. And what I’ll call “layers” can be created within a color profile but not deleted? Why not? Everyone does a better job than Alienware on this front. Just copy what someone else is doing. 1440 Gaming: I only tested Mechwarrior online on my Alienware AW3423DWF 34-Inch QD-OLED 1440 monitor via Display Port. 3440 x 1440 is a lot of pixels to drive and the m18 really felt some strain here. I had to drop most settings to low or medium just to maintain 60 FPS. I was really expecting better than this since I already had been able to squeeze better performance out of lesser systems. I will admit that I did not spend a lot of time tuning the system for 1440 and probably won’t. The m18 is just too big to allow me to operate both the m18 and the AW3423DWF on the same desktop. To improve airflow, I recommend lifting the back of the laptop slightly. I use inexpensive furniture coasters on the corners to lift the back of the laptop about an inch. It makes a huge difference for cooling and noise. Keyboard and lighting: The AlienFX keyboard is one of the best gaming laptop keyboards I have used. The keys are large, well spaced, have an audible click but not loud enough to wake the kids, RGB lighting is fantastic, short travel, shallow actuation distance, instantaneous return, and each key is gently concave for comfort and accuracy. I could play and type on this keyboard all day long without any issues. Unless you need the hyper responsiveness that the MX will give you then I think the AlienFX keyboard is a fantastic choice. Screen: At 15 ¼ w X 9 ½ H X 17 7/8 diagonal the screen is equivalent to an 18” monitor. I realize that the measurement is just shy of a full 18” which makes it 18” class in marketing world vernacular. It has an excellent brightness range from dim to max brightness. It is colorful. During gaming, I did not experience any ghosting, screen tearing, or artifacts other than the unusual FPS disruptions I outlined above. Overall, the monitor provided a great gaming experience. Wireless: The m18 ships with Wi-Fi 6e wireless. I was able to maintain 600 Mbps download rates from Steam and Microsoft over a 1 Gbps internet connection. Performance is subject to several factors. I had one download that peaked at 100 Mbps. While viewing Netflix movies and during some heavy gaming on Comms I did experience some break up in transmission. Now, that could have been the laptop, the wireless signal experiencing interference, or my provider. Regardless, it happened enough that felt I needed to mention it. Bluetooth is rock solid. I connect a pair of noise canceling Sony headphones for gaming and movie watching. No issues with syncing or usage. Everything sounded as it should. In Closing: This is a desktop replacement for any gamer looking for a “portable” solution or a gaming rig in another room. This could also act as an entry-level workstation option. The CPU does run hot but the m18 has crazy cooling power. The fans will get noisy under load but nowhere near the leaf blower level of small Alienware laptops. The keyboard is fantastic. Great high refresh screen. I think if Alienware can address a few issue then this will be a true flagship system.

So to start off. My current gaming rig is and I7 12700K system with 32gb of DDR 40800 and an RTX 3080 graphics card and I play Call of Duty, currently Modern Warfare 2 usually the Resurgence maps. I was interested in something that would provide a quality gaming experience that could travel with me if needed - enter the Alienware M18 This is a large, heavy laptop and could easily replace most desktop systems. Probably the most impressive aspect was the video cooling system. My desktop connected to a 27” 144Hz Dell monitor runs at 115-125FPS at 65-70 degrees Celsius. The M18 was getting 160-170FPS and running 10 degrees cooler. You can definitely hear the cooling system if you aren’t wearing headphones. That being said the speakers for a system at this price point didn’t really impress. They are adequate for watching you tube videos, etc, but I couldn’t distinguish enough detail to determine which direction enemy sounds were coming from. So for any gaming I’ll be using headphones and probably for any serious entertainment activities (music, Netflix etc). The screen is large enough for gaming to be enjoyable, without having to strain to see details and it’s plenty bright. The keyboard is large enough that typing wasn’t a challenge and the keys have a nice feel to them. I did have some problems while gaming and concentrating on the screen (I use a mouse/keyboard combo) where I would find my left hand drifting off the keys a bit. It took me a few minutes to realize the left click right click features were built into the trackpad (there aren’t any buttons). There are enough ports to satisfy all my needs and I didn’t really see any change in gaming performance whether directly connected to the router or playing via WiFi. With a fully charge I ran on battery for a solid 4 hours between updating the Bios and drivers, downloading additional apps and gaming. The interesting part will be trying to travel with the M18. The laptop itself is obviously large, but then you also have to account for the power supply if you want to keep it charged. I’m currently looking for a bag/backpack that I like, which is large enough to hold the M18 and power supply and the biggest concern will be if it will fit under the seat on plane. I can only hope.

Great config but overheats and shuts down almost every time I play.

I purchased this laptop to play Helldiver's 2 with some buddies and it has been amazing. I also bought a cooling mat for it as it can get pretty hot when running on the performance setting. The laptop is a quality build, high performing and hasn't had any issues running HD2 averaging 115-120 FPS at 1440p. If you can grab an open box version or buy it on sale, it's an even better deal. If you want a laptop that performs like a desktop, I'd recommend this laptop. All the users reporting issues are letting the laptop overheat and aren't allowing for great airflow. If you're looking for a mobile laptop that needs a long battery life while gaming, I'd look elsewhere. This has a 90-120 minute battery when playing in performance mode. I don't plan to do any gaming without a power source nearby so it works perfect for my needs.

Pros: -Superior graphics -Amazing performance -Good looking design -Upgradeable RAM/SSD Cons: -Very heavy, portable but its a workout -Battery life, need to charge while gaming to get best performance -Ports located on the back, ports are accesible but in an awkward place Overall I love this laptop the cons for me are not really much of a concern for me. I was well aware of most of the cons before buying the laptop. If you want a portable gaming station this is the laptop. Not for college since it is very heavy but for setting up at a coffee shop and gaming its perfect performance I would highly recommend this laptop if you’re looking for something specifically for gaming.

Nobody in the pre-built computer world does gaming laptops like Alienware does! You don’t just get a high performance laptop but all the silly bells and whistles that come with it make it known to everyone that you’re not messing around with your PC gaming. With the Alienware M18 AMD R1 laptop you get a surprisingly modest looking chassis with the “18” logo on the lid beside an RGB alien head embellishment but other than a concave rear edge full of vents it’s surprisingly modest. Well, if you don’t count the gargantuan size that is! It’s like a laptop and a half or more, just a massive rectangular brick of raw computer power. Inside the box it’s just the bare essentials: some documentation to set up and view your warranty, a couple alien head stickers, a thank you card with some brief history of the company, a massive AC power brick, and the huge laptop wrapped in protective plastic. On the right side is a single USB-C port, on the left is two USB-A ports, an ethernet port, and a headphone jack, and in back you get the power port, an SD card reader, two USB-C Thunderbolt ports, another USB-A port, an HDMI port, and a Mini Displayport. That’s a lot of hookup options for any manner of accessories you could need. That rear panel is also hiding RGB lighting, which makes sure everyone behind the laptop knows you’re rolling big! Given the size, the keyboard is almost as large as a standard desktop keyboard so you won’t feel cramped like some laptops, and features RGB lighting underneath. THe power button is in the upper right above the keyboard number pad, it’s another alien head and it’s also RGB. The keyboard shares the lower half with a full length set of honeycomb vents and there are vents on both sides and along the bottom. While there are various configurations the AMD R1 I got came with a Ryzen 9 7845HX 3.0 GHz, a GeForce RTX 4070, 32gb of RAM, and a 1tb M.2 SSD, the RAM is split into two sockets and can expand up to 64gb while there’s also a 2nd M.2 slot for a 2280 size SSD to get more space for games and apps. I found the battery to be pretty wimpy, it lasts under 4 hours even on a full charge with the battery saver settings and all the lights turned off. That being said this is almost a 10lbs laptop so you’re not going to be taking it on your commute. As a portable desktop (work in the office, work at the table, work in the room, etc.) for gaming, 3D design, and all the typical computer tasks it’s amazing! You can run just about any game on the best settings and the M18 will destroy them in the best way possible! If you’ve ever played Elden Ring on your console before and thought it was a good looking game, you ain’t seen it until the RTX 4070 enhances the textures, shadows, and that RayTrace lighting. I didn’t notice any lags or hang ups besides the switch from desktop tasks to running the game either, which is a breath of fresh air from previous “gaming” computers. Everything looks so classy and gorgeous, you may just give up your Xbox or Playstation and join Team PC.

This was a graduation gift for my daughter. She took advantage of the COVID pandemic downtime to fastrack her education and finished high school at 16 and her associate degree at 17. I thought she deserved a new laptop after that achievement especially since her old one from five years ago was continuously breaking...pieces literally cracking and falling off. The screen size, number of ports and storage/RAM are just what she was looking for. She's quite content with the system and will be using it while she completes her BFA in illustration. She hasn't used it for games yet but said it looks like an excellent system for games. Since she hasn't used it to it's full potential yet I hesitate to give five stars but it seems to be a perfect fit for her. It got an enthusiastic reaction from some of the young adults I know who game on PC's so I'm guessing I made a good choice.

Let me start off by saying I was literally dumbfounded when I opened up this box and pulled out the Alienware m18. I have never seen a "laptop" this big before in my life. I know it is one of the new class of 18" laptops that are coming out, and perhaps this is the way of the future instead of towers or NUCs, I don't know. What I do know is that the Alienware m18 is an absolute beast of a machine and there wasn't any game that I could throw at it, that it didn't gobble up and spit out at 60+ frames per second. I really wondered who this is for when I fired up the m18 for the first time, but then I realized that this thing is REALLY a laptop, what it is is a compact desktop with an integrated screen and keyboard. THIS is for those people who used to haul all their PC gear to their friend's house and set up LAN parties. This is for that person, who doesn't have the room for a full tower and gaming monitor set-up. This is for someone who wants some portability but for the most part is going to have it firmly ensconced on their desk and plugged in all the time. I threw a ton of games at this from my Xbox Game Pass library (you get a free month of Ultimate), and both my Steam and GoG libraries. We are talking about everything from oldies like Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption to modern games like Red Dead Redemption 2 (weird that I have two games dealing with redemption... maybe I should talk to a shrink about that). The two games I'm going to focus on though are Star Trek Online and Microsoft Flight Simulator. These are my 'go-to' test games because one (STO) is an absolute mess of gaming code, and modern graphics cards struggle with it way more than they should. MS Flight Sim is obviously because maxed out, it can render some absolutely gorgeous scenery. I have hundreds of hours in each game and I can tell if anything is 'off'. In both cases the m18 and its RTX 4070 absolutely slays. STO never dropped below 100 frames per second with everything maxed and special effects going wild on the screen (if you've played STO you know that some of the 'space magic' can get to be a little much). On MSFS I kept the frame rate pegged at 60fps despite everything turned up to ultra. I also did this while unplugged and on just the 'Performance' setting. Despite being on battery and cranking out solid numbers, fan noise stayed pretty moderate and thermals were decent (though I did increase the temperature in my office by 3 degrees). Now I only tested the Alienware m18 with games, but I'm betting that with the horses she has under the hood, she would make an excellent platform for video, 3d, and image rendering. If I were talented enough to do any of that, I might have tried it out. So if the m18 is so great with games, why did I only give it 4 Stars? Well, I did have a few issues with the laptop, though far less than I've had with many others, but still enough for me to knock a star off. 1. Sound - While the m18 can crank out some serious decibels, there are WAY too many times that the sound card was either experiencing interference or stuttering and the sound would go 'crispy'. 2. Keyboard - This is actually not a knock on the keyboard itself, because it is actually really nice to type on and the keys are nice a clicky even with it being just the standard keyboard and not the upgraded one with Cherry switches. I just can't do a full scale keyboard and touchpad set up on a laptop. I'm too used to the ten-keyless and more compact keyboards for my work computer and desktop. I need my keyboard, touchpad, and hands centered to type the way I want. If you are used to a full keyboard and not thrown off by a touchpad skewed to the left, then this is a non-issue for you. 3. Touchpad - Not the best I've ever used. Too many times during testing, I thought that I had tapped hard enough to activate a button or pop-up and move on, only to see that it didn't register and I had to go back. It's responsive enough for movement and actual clicks of the corners but I use taps of the touchpad way more often and those aren't as responsive as I would like. 4. Power 'Brick' - This 330w behemoth weighs more than my regular laptop, and I'm not exagerating! If you tried to pack the m18 and this power brick into a backpack, it will give you scoliosis by the time you reach your destination! If the laptop size itself wasn't enough to limit its use to desktops, the brick pretty much cinches that. This leads us to... 5. Battery - I'm not really going to knock the Alienware m18 on battery life because there is no laptop on the planet that could drive this much power and screen and not suck through a battery in record time. The two times I recorded it, I got 1:15 and :50 out of the battery before it warned me to plug in. This thing NEEDS to be plugged in. It is NOT for playing marathon sessions strictly off the battery. All-in-all, I'm pretty impressed with the Alienware m18. It is staggeringly huge but it puts up the numbers and graphics to justify it. I also like how it follows Dell's repair/upgradeability ethos. It will be super easy to open up the bottom panel and throw in some more hard drive space (which is going to be needed). If you are looking for a desktop tier, semi-laptop, gaming rig, I think you need to take a look at the Alienware m18. She delivers.

This laptop is amazing. I love it so much that I will continue to buy Alienware laptops in the future. Built a full open loop liquid cooled computer and somehow get better performance on this beast! Pay attention ! When buying a Ryzen CPU model, you may discover that there are 2 GPUs! The CPU has a small GPU on it and it came with a rtx 4070! 32 GB of ram and this thing can run multiple versions of android studio and star citizen at the same time. if you know you know. Battery life is what you expect for a device like this, it needs to be plugged in!

After spending some time with this Alienware M18 laptop, I am simply blown away at the performance it showcases while running any game under the sun. While the performance is top-notch, this PC also has an amazing screen to show off the gorgeous graphical capabilities of the hardware used to run the software. Alienware has created a capable and powerful gaming PC that is up to the task of running the most demanding titles, all while looking stunning in the process. The first thing you'll notice with the Alienware M18 is the packaging, which much like the build quality of the computer, is very nice. One of my first impressions of this laptop was the size; this is definitely a huge laptop! Lifting it out of the box verifies that this is a hefty PC, weighing almost 9 pounds according to Alienware. Included with the laptop is the AC adaptor, which is also massive, quite honestly the largest power supply I have ever seen for a laptop. As I mentioned, the build quality is great. The outer shell is a dark aluminum, and any plastic pieces feel nicely textured and high quality. Opening and closing the screen feels nice and smooth, and everything just feels well-built. This particular unit has multiple ports of various types, much more than I would be expecting for any PC on the market. It also has customizable lighting for regions all over the interior and exterior of the laptop; this is so precise that you can make any individual key any color from millions of choices. I used this feature to highlight certain keys I would be using more regularly, like the volume buttons and screen brightness controls. The trackpad and keyboard feel great, with a satisfying click on the trackpad, and a nice responsive feel to the keys. It's great to see a full-number keypad as well, and there is enough room to include this and still have a full-size keyboard. While the 18-inch screen is not ultra-high definition (4k or similar), it still looks phenomenal at 1920 X 1200 and has an insanely high refresh rate of 480 Hz. Movies and TV shows look amazing, and every game I tested looked its absolute best. Now might be a good time to list the specs of this laptop: The Alienware M18 uses: - AMD Ryzen 9 - 32GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 - 1TB SSD - Windows 11 Pro To give an idea of the gaming performance capabilities, I’ll go over the games I used to test the hardware on the Alienware. Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas: Older titles with very low-performance needs (compared to modern games). This PC was able to run both titles completely maxed out on graphics settings, with absolutely no issues. I wasn’t expecting anything less, but I always like to run something I’m very familiar with to get an idea of what things look like. As far as these games go, they looked fantastic. I did set the refresh rate as low as it would go (which on this PC is 120 Hz), due to an issue I had with the next game. The PC’s fans ran rarely while I played these games. Fallout 4: This game takes a bit more to run properly than 3 or New Vegas, yet is still not as power-hungry as some modern games. When I first started it up, I noticed that the entire game seemed to be running faster than usual. After doing some looking online, it appears that the 480 Hz refresh rate can actually make some titles run "faster" than they are supposed to. I set it to 120 Hz, and the issue immediately went away. I was able to run Fallout 4 on Ultra settings, with every graphics option maxed out, with no problems. More taxing areas like downtown Boston still did not cause any issues with the gameplay while I was testing it. Besides the strange refresh glitch, this was the best-looking and performing version of Fallout 4 I've ever played. Much like 3 and New Vegas, I like to test this game because I've spent so much time with it, and know exactly what to expect. The PC’s fans ran intermittently while I played. Microsoft Flight Simulator: Upon starting this title, I was met with a message that my PC’s drivers would not work well with this game, and could cause issues while playing. I did some looking at posts and discussions online, made sure everything was updated, and decided to play the game anyway. While I can’t really say why I received that message, I can say that this game looked amazing and played flawlessly on this laptop. I never noticed any drops in framerate, and the refresh rate was set to 480 with no issues. Thankfully, nothing ever happened in regards to my PC’s drivers causing problems, so I’m still not entirely sure why that message appears when you start the game. The PC’s fans ran while I played, rarely at full speed. Forza Horizon 5: Another visually stunning and well-performing game. This title, combined with the screen and performance of this laptop, made my jaw drop numerous times. This game has an automated system that will determine what settings you should run, based on your PC's performance. Surprisingly, it indicated that it should be set on the "Low" preset. I played for a while on Low, and later moved it to High, but I honestly couldn't tell much of a difference, in terms of visuals. The Low preset was still enough to look absolutely insane, and run incredibly fast and smooth. The PC’s fans ran while I played, sometimes at full speed. Cyberpunk 2077: Let me just say, this game has almost too many options when it comes to setting up your graphics. I tried many different options, and found that “High” with ray tracing turned “Off” ran extremely well. The ONLY time I saw this laptop stutter and have trouble with framerates, was when I set this game to “Ultra and Ray Tracing On”. It still ran the game, it just looked a bit choppy, and not nearly smooth enough compared to other options. I realize that Ray Tracing supposed to be this amazing graphical achievement, yet I personally would rather have a higher framerate and just turn it off. That being said, when you DO find the settings you like (and there are a TON), this game really shines on the Alienware. Buttery smooth, non-existent load times, and killer graphics on that gorgeous screen. For this game, the PC’s fans ran at full speed for nearly 100% of the time. I’ve had a lot of fun playing games on this laptop, and I think that speaks to how great everything plays and looks on this hardware. With incredible specs, I believe that the Alienware M18 will also prove to be a machine that is not obsolete in a matter of months. If you are looking for a gaming laptop that can quite literally do it all, look no further than the Alienware M18.

great computer. amd means its not loud and cool temperatures. got a $300 off deal so the price is reasonable. 18 inch screen is the best option possible. of course, its heavy and the charging brick should be replaced with a modern lighter version (cmon Dell !!! people in Europe and australia get a light version of charger and America is behind on this???) 4070 video is enough for all you can think about. lots of upgrading possibilities (ram ssd) so if you like to play a role of computer geek then this is the laptop to buy. almost forgot to mention full size keyboard with numpad and I have no idea why it was not the case for previous generation models. Peace.

This laptop is great. It easily runs the latest games my older computer struggled with. Be aware that this laptop is heavy and I wouldn’t want it on my lap for very long lol. It boots up quickly and runs fast and runs cooler that I expected. I hope it lasts seven years like my old dell laptop did! I do recommend it for the price and quality.

This laptop deserve 5 start but the only issue is its not so very long battery life and it’s seriously heavy built . I really like the screw size , graphics and definitely keyboard feel on a laptop and this can definitely replace the Desktop at home

I've been using this laptop as my main gaming and work machine for a while now, and I absolutely love it. The performance is amazing, it handles the latest games and demanding tasks without breaking a sweat. The 18-inch 480Hz display is super smooth, making gameplay feel ultra-responsive, and the graphics are stunning. I’ve even watched movies and streamed YouTube videos on it, and everything looks great. The RAM and SSD make everything fly, and I’ve had zero issues with lag or slowdowns so far. The fans can get loud during intense gaming sessions, but I see that as a small trade-off for keeping the CPU cool and performance high. Overall, it's a powerful, reliable machine that’s great for gaming, work, and everything in between. Definitely one of the best laptops I’ve owned.

Literally HORRID. I see an open box for 1.6k in like new condition, so I jump on it right? Well not even 2 days into owning it, it went into Bitlocker recovery mode, no recovery keys were working, it just kept going in circles. Doing the same thing over and over again. Figured out the only thing I could do to get out of that repetitive cycle was to completely hard reset the entire laptop. Then this happened 4 more times!!! 5 times total in the matter of less than 2 weeks. The battery life is absolutely terrible, you can't play without it being plugged in for longer than a maximum of 30 minutes. The laptop itself weighs a literal ton so its definitely not for those who want to travel with it. The actual performance of the machine itself as far as games are concerned is absolutely magnificent so it's just a real shame. Super dissapointing coming from whats supposed to be one of the greatest brands out there for PC gaming. This whole experience has scared me away from ever wanting anything to do with Alienware again. Gonna stick to my ASUS Tuff laptop, amazing quality, FANTASTIC battery life, great performance, great specs, just great. This laptop however was a HUGE MISS. Run away. Even for 500 it wouldn't be worth it because of all the issues. BELIEVE THE REVIEWS YOU SEE. Not sure how its getting any positives. Believe the negative reviews. -1000000000/10. Steer clear.

Got $850 in Best Buy gift cards from work as part of our rewards program after the discount sale at Best Buy and that only cost me $1k. Works great! Heavy as heck and battery life is not much, but it's a performance computer. More of a portable than a laptop, but it is exactly what I wanted. Nice expansion for drives two different SSD M.2 hook ups beyond the included drive. Included drive is a nice performer. RAM can go to 64Gig which is nice.

omg I add many screens and many windows up and i can Edit my videos and stream multiple browsers and have multiple games and programs and videos on at the same time makes multitasking a breeze and I've yet have to use the OverDrive turbo system that is built in which is for keeping it cool and forcing the computer to run faster and keep itself cool never had to use that feature yet but it's there if I need it all my editing videos I have to do are super fast even in 4K quality I have nothing but high appraisal for this Alienware even the monitor's refresh rate is 400 and something I'm just completely amazed