Such a rapid redesign is kind of a tacit admission from Alienware that last year's models were not too well received by fans, but we're not complaining: the new models look slick and science fictional, along with updated specs and cooling that should keep them competitive with some increasingly stiff competition.
Winning one of our Best of Computex awards for the laptop was enough-read on to find out why.
Legendary looks
The big changes here are cosmetic, of course, but that's slightly underselling things. January's Area-51 m introduced the company's products to the new Legend industrial design language, and new m15 and m17 see that aesthetic jump from that mammoth laptop into these more portable shape factors.
The m15 of last year was the first attempt by the company to shrink its shape factors and add some modern touches, but the sparse style and big bezels felt a little like a halfway house, lagging behind more streamlined competition from day one.
The fresh designs are going a long way to tackling this. All but gone are the bezels, with the almost edge-to-edge display sitting slightly from the main body thanks to a slick cut-out character. That lets it sit closer to the keyboard, and not quite at the back of the body: instead the rear ports stick out like a spaceship exhaust, in just one of the many nods to classic sci-fi aesthetics.
The aesthetic remains relatively minimal, with large blocks of solid black or white depending on your choice of color (or ' Dark Side of the Moon ' and ' Lunar Light ' to use official names) and relatively subtle strips of RGB lighting around the exhaust, keyboard, and Alienware logos.
It's not the slimmest gaming laptop around at about 20mm/0.8 in thick, but it's getting close, and even the full-speced version caps at 2.16kg/4.75lbs-heavy, but certainly not back-breaking.This is a laptop that you don't really mind carting with you, and the look is pretty subtle enough that you probably won't mind taking it out at work or at a coffee shop when you don't use it for real gaming.
The keyboard's gotten a bit of love in all of this too. Despite the slimmed down body Alienware has actually managed to increase key travel to 1.7mm, while also making each keycap larger and introducing N-key rollover and per-key RGB lighting. The company has sort of been playing catch-up with the competition here, so none of these features are groundbreaking, but it's great to see them make it into the m15. Even the trackpad got a bit of attention, with a new glass design that's supposed to be more precise.
Solid specs
For all that attention it's paid to the outside of the design, Alienware naturally hasn't ignored the internals - though there's less here that stands out from the competition.
9th-gen Intel chips sit at the heart of things, ranging from a 4-core i5 up to an 8-core i9 that runs at up to 5GHz. Graphics options range from a GTX 1650 up to the RTX 2080 Max-Q, so you should be able to push performance pretty far. Dynamic overclocking and voltage regulators should also help you eke out extra power as you go.
Storage ranges from 256GB all the way up to 4TB with dual SSDs, so there's no need to run out of space, but RAM is surprisingly limited, with only the choice between 8GB and 16GB. 8GB frankly isn't enough, and given how OTT the rest of the specs go it's really suprising that there's isn't at least a 32GB config available - especially since there's a 32GB option for the petite XPS 13 2-in-1 that Dell announced at the same event.
Last year's m15 had similar potential performance, but the slim design seemed to cause some airflow problems, so it ran pretty hot. Things should be improved this time around though - there are bigger fans for both the CPU and GPU for a 20 percent increase in airflow. Obviously we'll need to test how well that holds up in real usage, but fingers crossed it should keep things a little cooler.
The biggest internal changes are probably in the display though. There are a few options available, but the two standout choices are a full HD panel with a 240Hz refresh rate for silky smoothness, or a 4K OLED at 60Hz if resolution and colour range are your priorities. Either of those top displays also comes with Tobii eye-tracking tech a first for a 15in laptop apparently - giving you another way to control your games if you so desire.
Finally, there's the inevitably mammoth selection of ports. Three USB 3.1, one USB-C Thunderbolt 3, along with ethernet, audio, HDMI, and Alienware's proprietary Graphics Amplifier Port if you want to use the company's eGPU system to amp up the power even more.
Until we spend more time with the m15, we can't really judge how well it holds up - but on paper it has top specs for the form factor (except for that pesky RAM cap) and some seriously tempting display options. The only question mark is really how well the new cooling design manages the power on hand.
From the outside though, there's not much to complain about here. Those big ol' bezels are gone, the keyboard's stepped up, and the Legend design looks lush. This is exactly what an Alienware laptop should look like in 2019 - let's just hope it delivers on the promise.
Price when reviewed
From $1,499
Should I buy the Alienware m15 R2 (2019)?
Until we spend more time with the m15, we can't really judge how well it holds up - but on paper it has top specs for the form factor (except for limited RAM) and some seriously tempting display options.
From the outside though, there's not much to complain about here. Those big ol' bezels are gone, the keyboard's stepped up, and the Legend design looks lush. This is exactly what an Alienware laptop should look like in 2019 - let's just hope it delivers on the promise.
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