Dell Alienware m15 R2 Review: More Power in a Slimer Package

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Dell Alienware m15 R2: At First Glance

Like they have done with most of their high-end line of laptops, Dell has gone back to the workshop to improve the Alienware line. In the course of this upgrade and slight remodeling, the Dell Alienware m15 R2 has certainly not been left out.

One of the most noticeable changes on the laptop is its slimmer and more compact build compared to that of its predecessor – the Dell Alienware m15 R1. Despite the re-shape of this laptop’s body, Dell ensured to leave enough room to accommodate a few promising hardware components.

To be more precise, Dell upgraded a few parts of the Alienware m15 R1’s specs. For instance, amongst a few other spec upgrades, the Alienware m15 R1 features a Core i9-9980HK processor instead of the Core i7-9750H on the Alienware m15 R2.

However, the upgrades come at a more expensive price. Will the more expensive price be justified?

Let’s find out.

Dell Alienware m15 R2: Design, Dimension & Weight

As years go by, the Alienware’s design gets better. This m15 R2 laptop comes with cleaner aesthetics that make it look more attractive.

To start with, the Alienware m15 R2 is available in either one of two color finishes – Lunar Light or Dark Side of the Moon. Models painted in either of these two colors will either have a light or dark shade as the name of the colors imply.

It is worth noting that our review unit comes in the Lunar light model.

With that being said, the chassis of this laptop is all white except for its backside that protrudes a little beyond the underside of its hinge. This backbit has a black finish that nicely contrasts the laptop’s overall white finish.

Speaking of the laptop’s finish, the Alienware m15 R2 features a premium magnesium alloy chassis that makes it feel incredibly sturdy. Though the surface of the m15 R2’s lid feels solid as well, it also feels tender and sweet at the same time.

On this lid, a light-up Alienware logo sits in the middle very close to the top. Meanwhile, in the lower-right corner, there’s a largely written “15” inscription written in military-lite style font.

Away from the lid’s surface, the m15 R2’s overall aesthetic looks even better when you open up the laptop. The interior part of this laptop maintains the same simple style layout as the exterior.

Asides from its full-sized well-arranged keyboard, the other design feature you can’t help but notice is the honeycomb vents above the keyboard. These vents act as an avenue for air intake.

To give more detail, the Alienware m15 R2 sucks in cold air through these vents and then blasts out the hot air through its back. Something I failed to mention earlier was that the back bit that extends beyond the underside of the hinge is a major component of the ventilation system on this laptop.

More precisely, this backbit houses two sections of the same honeycomb-shaped type of vents. The Alienware m15 R2 passes out hot air through these vents.

Another thing peculiar to this backbit type of vent is that it also accommodates some of the laptop’s ports. You’ll find the laptop’s power port, Thunderbolt 3 port, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI port, and the Alienware Graphics Amplifier ports all on this backbit.

The rest of the laptop’s ports which include 2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports and 1 ethernet port are located on either side of the laptop.

Back to the interior of the Alienware m15 R2, you’ll be glad to discover that the laptop’s keyboard is as beautiful to type on as it looks. The keyboard’s keys do not only have a deep travel, but they also feel excellent to touch and they aren’t noisy.

If you are wondering, a keyboard’s key travel is how deep you have to press the key before it registers an input.

Moving on, I only wish I could express the same joy for the touchpad. The touchpad is just too small for a laptop of this size.

If that was the only issue with the touchpad, it could have been pardonable, but this touchpad isn’t also as sharp as you’d expect. It tends to lag once in a while.

Moving on to the positives, you will be extremely pleased with this laptop’s display. In its switched-off state, the laptop’s display already looks promising.

Power on the laptop and you’ll experience the wonders of the OLED display panel with on-screen content. The colors on the display are deep, rich, and vibrant.

This display’s 4K UHD resolution of 3840 x 2160 plus its 300 nits brightness makes gaming on the laptop an enjoyable experience. However, its 60 Hz refresh rate may be a cause for concern.

If you are concerned about that, you can decide to equip your unit with the Full HD display option. This display option has a lower resolution of 1920 x 1080, but it offers better refresh rate options.

Specifically, if you buy the FHD display option of Alienware m15 R2, it offers a refresh rate of 60Hz, 144Hz, or 240Hz.

In terms of the refresh rate of the 4K screen, there are definitely tradeoffs, but given the overall quality of the display, it will probably be worth it for many.

For sound output and multimedia, the Alienware m15 R2 comes with 2 x 2 W speakers, an audio jack, and a web webcam on the upper bezels.

It is possible that you may be convinced at first that the honeycomb design on the keyboard deck is the speaker. However, it will come as a shock to you when you discover that the sound the laptop produces comes from its bottom.

I feel placing the speakers at the bottom is really awkward given the fact that there’s still a lot of space on both sides of the keyboard chassis.

Before I round off this section of the review, let’s consider the weight and dimension of the laptop. The Alienware m15 R2 weighs 2160 g.

In comparison, the Dell Alienware m15 R2 is considerably lighter than all the other gaming laptops in its category. For instance, it is much lighter than the Dell Alienware Area-51m R2 that weighs 4700 g.

Moving to its size, the Alienware m15 R2 gaming laptop has a dimension of 360.5 x 276 x 19.50 mm.

It is lighter and has a smaller dimension compared to the Acer Predator Triton 900. The compared Acer laptop has a dimension of 429.2 x 302.2 x 23.8 mm and a weight of 4499.6 g.

In conclusion, I will rate this Dell Alienware m15 R2 nine in this design section.

Dell Alienware m15 R2: Processor (CPU) Performance 

The Dell Alienware m15 R2 features an upgraded version of its predecessor’s Core i7-8750H processor. This laptop comes with an 8-core Intel Core i9-9980HK processor.

To give more detail, this processor has a base frequency of 2.40 GHz and a boost frequency of 5.0 GHz. It also offers a cache memory of 16 MB.

In use, the Alienware m15 R2 is capable of handling any basic computational task you throw at it without breaking a sweat. It is also efficient enough to handle some more intensive operations.

For example, you can carry out some minor picture and video editing tasks on the Alienware m15 R2.

To ascertain the laptop’s processor performance, I resourced for the Alienware m15 R2’s test results on the Cinebench R15 benchmark. The Cinebench benchmark is a test tool that evaluates the capacity of a computer’s processor performance by simulating various workloads.

On the Cinebench R15 test, the Dell Alienware m15 R2 scored 179 points which was a bit below the 184 category average score. Although the Alienware m15 R2 couldn’t exceed the category average score, it scored higher than some other gaming laptops.

For example, Dell Alienware m15 R2 scored better than the MSI GF 63 and Lenovo Legion Y540 – both scored 171 points each.

However, the Dell Alienware m15 R2 laptop scored less compared to the MSI GF75 and the Alienware m17. The MSI GF75 and Alienware m17 had scores of 189 and 191 respectively.

Nonetheless, the Alienware m15 R2’s processor performance is considerably good. Hence, it scores a seven in this aspect of the review.

Dell Alienware m15 R2: Memory (RAM) Performance

The Dell Alienware m15 R2 comes with a standard memory of 8 GB DDR4-2666 RAM. Fortunately, this laptop has two RAM slots that make it possible for you to upgrade its 8 GB standard configuration to a maximum size of 16 GB.

All you need to do is equip its second slot with another 8 GB RAM.

For most of your memory-intensive tasks, the 16 GB RAM should do the trick. In fact, it actually does.

In a real-world performance test, the laptop was able to transcode a 4K resolution video to 1080p resolution in 7 minutes 16 seconds. Though this test is primarily used to assess a laptop’s processor performance capabilities, it can also be used to test memory performance since the functions of the processor and RAM are closely interrelated.

The Alienware m15 R2 was also able to run smoothly with about 15 Google Chrome tabs opened while some apps were running in the background.

So as not to rely on only one form of testing, I also went further to confirm how well the Alienware m15 R2 handled the PCMark benchmark test. For clarity, the PCMark benchmark is a test tool that analyses the memory performance of a laptop and how productively well a laptop can handle multitasking.

The Alienware m15 R2 put up a good performance in this test. It scored 5374 points.

Though this score isn’t too bad, it is not enough to give the Alienware m15 R2 a better standing next to its predecessor. In comparison, the m15 R2’s predecessor – the m15 R1 – achieved a slightly higher score of 5485 points.

As a result, I will give Dell Alienware m15 R2 a rating of six in this memory performance review section.

Dell Alienware m15 R2: Storage Options & Performance

If the Alienware m15 R2 has barely impressed you so far, its storage options and performance will impress you. To start with, this laptop is equipped with 2 TB M.2 SSD storage.

Though it doesn’t offer the extra luxury of an SD card storage option, its huge storage capacity is a big plus. In fact, it should be sufficient for most of your regular storage activities.

Aside from its large storage capacity, the SSD storage drive type on this laptop is an added flavor to its already juicy storage size. Compared to the HDD storage drives, the SSD drives are a lot more reliable and speedy.

Most times, laptops equipped with this type of storage drive usually operate faster. Similarly, the SSD drive on the Alienware m15 R2 also boosts its performance speed.

To ascertain the storage performance, I recorded the m15 R2’s performance on the CrystalDiskMark test. In case you aren’t familiar with the CrystalDiskMark benchmark, it is a test used to determine the storage performance of a laptop.

On this test, the Dell Alienware m15 R2 offered a read speed of 1924.95 MBps. Meanwhile, it recorded a write speed of 2371.22 MBps.

These scores are not surprising as these kinds of incredible speeds are what you can get on an SSD drive.

In comparison with laptops in its category, the Alienware m15 R2’s performance is excellent. To give more detail, although, the Alienware m15 R1’s storage speed isn’t as fast as that of the m15 R2, its write speed is better.

The m15 R1 recorded read and write speeds of 1937.43 MBps and 1065.99 MBps respectively. To further help you with how well the Dell Alienware m15 R2 performs, I compared it with MSI GS 65 Stealth.

Though the MSI GS 65 Stealth was able to offer a better read speed of 2004.98 MBps, its write speed was nowhere near that of the Alienware m15 R2. The MSI GS 65 Stealth offered a write speed of 1579.5 MBps.

Overall, the Alienware m15 R2’s storage performance is impressive. Hence, it scores an eight in this storage performance review section.

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Dell Alienware m15 R2: Graphics Card Performance

Dell offers two graphics card configuration options for the Alienware m15 R2’s GPU. Before I proceed with the review, I will outline the laptop’s graphics card options along with a few details of their specs.

Firstly, you can equip your Alienware m15 R2 with an integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 card. This graphics card offers a base GPU frequency of 350 MHz and a boost frequency of 1230 MHz.

You can also decide to equip this laptop with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics card. Unlike the Intel UHD graphics card option, this graphics card comes with an 8 GB GDDR6 dedicated VRAM.

In case you are wondering what a VRAM is, it is a special graphics memory for video and graphics processing.

Most of the best gaming laptops usually deliver excellent gaming performance thanks to their dedicated VRAM. Likewise, the dedicated VRAM on this laptop actively supports its powerful NVIDIA GeForce graphics card to deliver excellent gaming performance.

To back up this claim, I checked how well the m15 R2 performed on the 3DMark benchmark test. Essentially, the 3DMark benchmark is usually used to determine the graphic rendering performance of a laptop.

On the 3D Mark test, the m15 R2 scored 21758 points. This score is a bit lower compared to the scores of its competitors.

In comparison, the Alienware Area- 51m scored 27228 points, while the ASUS Rog Strix scored 227080 points. With the above scores, these laptops outperformed the Alienware m15 R2.

Nonetheless, the Alienware m15 R2 is equally a great performer. I confirmed this when I took down records of how impressively well this laptop ran some modern AAA title games.

For example, the Alienware m15 R2 played Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 114 fps on low game settings. At this frame rate, the gaming session on this laptop will be a delightful experience.

I also discovered that the Alienware m15 R2 can play The Witcher 3 at 271.5 fps. This frame rate further proves the tremendous gaming capabilities of the M15 R2.

As a result, the Dell Alienware m15 R2 scores an eight in this graphics performance section review.

Dell Alienware m15 R2: Battery Life & Performance

Of course, you wouldn’t expect a gaming laptop to offer an incredibly long battery life because of its power consumption rate. However, things are a bit different with this laptop.

Even though its battery runtime is nothing extra-ordinary, it is quite surprising for a gaming laptop.

This laptop’s 6-cell lithium-ion polymer battery can offer a runtime of 9 hours 14 minutes when it is left on without any running operation.

Meanwhile, the battery lasted for 5 hours 34 minutes on the WiFi Websurfing battery test. For more details, this test involves a continuous web browsing session with Wi-Fi at medium screen brightness.

Unfortunately, on maximum computing workload load with maximum brightness, the laptop couldn’t last longer than 44 minutes.

Lastly, I also took a look at how long the Alienware m15 R2 can last on a video rundown test. This test involved looping a 4K video at medium screen brightness.

On this test, the Alienware m15 R2 offered a battery runtime of 5 hours and 1 minute. In comparison, the m15 R2 outlasted most of its close competitors on this same test.

For instance, the MSI GE 65 Raider-51 couldn’t last longer than 4 hours 5 minutes. Also, the Dell G7 was able to offer a battery runtime of just 3 hours 7 minutes.

In conclusion, the test results above proved that the Alienware m15 R2 offers a better battery life compared to most of its competitors. Hence, it scores a nine in this section for its impressive battery life.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Dell Alienware m15 R2 is one of the slimmest and most portable laptops in the gaming laptop space. It is an embodiment of what refined gaming laptops should look like.

Looks aside, this laptop is also an excellent performer when it comes to handling computing operations. If you are a gamer, you can be rest assured that you will get an incredible gaming experience on this laptop thanks to its NVIDIA GeForce Max-Q graphics card.

However, you will have to get yourself prepared to be confined to using earphones if you want to get the best sound output from this laptop. This is because of Dell’s decision to position the laptop’s speaker on its bottom.

Nonetheless, the Alienware m15 R2 is definitely worth its price tag.

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