Alienware R5 Review: A Mixed Bag of Performance and Design

As I've had the chance to spend some time with the Alienware R5, one thing that's become clear is that this laptop has a few unique features that set it apart from its competition. The biggest concern for me has been the temperature levels, which are warmer than I'd like to see. The GPU wattage has also been a point of interest, as it peaks at 125 watts on the RTX 3070, compared to last year's model, which was launched with a lower wattage.

This is a bit strange for Alienware, an organization that's traditionally focused on performance and pushing the boundaries of what's possible in terms of frame rates and benchmark scores. However, it seems like they've shifted their focus slightly, opting for a more competitive approach instead of going all-out on raw power. The result is a laptop that doesn't quite live up to my expectations, but still delivers some impressive performance.

Inside, I've noticed a few changes that might make or break your experience with the R5. For example, the keyboard has taken on a slightly softer tactility and feel compared to previous models, which I'm not entirely sure about. On the other hand, I've always been a fan of Alienware keyboards, so it's possible that this change will grow on me.

One feature that I am a big fan of is the row of media keys on the right-hand side of the laptop. This is something that I think can make a huge difference in terms of productivity and convenience, allowing you to control your volume and other audio settings with ease. And while the shift key has been shortened slightly, it's still comfortable to use.

That being said, there are a few areas where the R5 falls short. The trackpad, for example, is a bit of a disappointment compared to last year's model. It's got a noticeably worse feel and sound, with a more noticeable "click" when you tap on it that can be annoying at times.

The screen, however, is where the R5 truly shines. It's brighter, faster, and has a better gaming and viewing experience than what was offered in last year's model. And by getting rid of the plastic bezel, Alienware has also made a big improvement in terms of aesthetics.

Overall, my experience with the Alienware R5 has been a mixed bag. On one hand, it delivers some impressive performance and features that I've grown to love about Alienware laptops. On the other hand, it's got some areas where it falls short, particularly when it comes to temperature levels and trackpad quality.

As someone who's always been drawn to Alienware laptops, I have to admit that this one is a bit of a disappointment. I expect a certain level of performance from an organization like Alienware, but what we've seen here is a more competitive approach that doesn't quite live up to my expectations. That being said, the R5 still has its fans - if you're looking for a laptop with a unique design and impressive features, this might be worth considering.

Inside We Have A Keyboard

One of the most significant changes I've noticed in the Alienware R5 is the keyboard. Specifically, the tactility and feel have changed slightly compared to previous models. It's not entirely clear what this means for gamers, but I can tell you that it's definitely a change. The keyboard has also taken on a softer, more supple feel that might appeal to some users.

On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure about this change. As someone who's always been a fan of Alienware keyboards, I've got high expectations for their tactility and feedback. And while it's possible that this new keyboard design will grow on me, I'm still trying to wrap my head around why Alienware would make such a change.

The shift key is another area where I think the R5 falls short. It's been shortened slightly compared to previous models, which could be a problem for people who rely heavily on it. However, I've found that this new shift key design is still comfortable and easy to use, even if it's not as spacious as before.

Mechanical Keyboard Option

For those who are interested in trying out the Alienware R5 with a mechanical keyboard, there is an option available. I've done a video review of the Mechanical Keyboard version, which you can check out below.

Trackpad Sucks

One area where the Alienware R5 really falls short is the trackpad. It's got a noticeable "suck" to it that can be annoying at times, particularly when trying to navigate menus or access settings quickly. I'm not entirely sure what's causing this behavior - possibly there's some sort of audio feedback issue?

For comparison, last year's model had a much smoother and more responsive trackpad experience. While the R5's trackpad is still functional, it just doesn't feel as good to use.

Screen

The screen on the Alienware R5 is where things really start to shine. It's brighter, faster, and has a better gaming and viewing experience than what was offered in last year's model. And by getting rid of the plastic bezel, Alienware has also made a big improvement in terms of aesthetics.

Overall, I'm really impressed with the screen on the R5. It's one of those elements that can make or break your overall laptop experience - and here, it definitely delivers.

Gaming Performance

As for gaming performance, I've been happy to see some impressive results from the Alienware R5. Whether playing at 1080p or 4K resolutions, the RTX 3070 has handled demanding games with ease. And while the temperatures have sometimes gotten a bit high, the laptop still manages to keep its cool under pressure.

The performance is nothing short of impressive - but it's also worth noting that this level of power comes at a cost. The R5's battery life, for example, can be a bit of an issue when playing games or using the laptop for extended periods.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enall right so this is alienware's new laptop design they have the r5 if you configure it with amd components and it's called the r6 if you configure it with intel components but the two products are exactly the same in terms of the aesthetic and the design it is a brand new chassis if you compared to the r4 there's a lot of changes they've revamped the whole thing some of those changes are things that we've been asking for like we've wanted certain features and we've added it but some of those changes were questionable and as i looked at this thing and i was trying to go through the review process of it i was trying to figure out why and i think it kind of made sense let's start off with the aesthetic so it only comes in this dark gray color it's a nice color i think it's better than just a plain black gaming laptop but last year's model the r4 and just the past few years of alienware laptops offered this nice white color which i thought looked really cool even if you didn't like this particular color the fact that they offer it like the fact that they care enough up their user base and try to offer something that just sticks out and stands out in the sea of gaming laptops this was special but they've removed this color option for the r5 and r6 in 2021 and i don't know how i feel about that because it was something that really made the alienware devices unique now in terms of the weight and thickness of the new r5 it's a little bit thicker barely noticeable but the weight is about 100 grams heavier compared to r4 and that is something that i think most people will notice if they're comparing the two it's still a reasonably portable device but in general i feel like the r5 chassis has had a lot of kind of bonus features stripped away from what made alienware devices alienware so it's gotten rid of the graphics amp port it's not something that i ever used but it was available for people that wanted it and they got rid of the mini display port they got rid of the micro sd slot that used to be on the side and even the rgb trim on the back it's ever so slightly smaller than last year's model so this visual trim here is a little bit narrower than what was on the r4 and just visually it's less prominent and less kind of vibrant in the color is it a big deal not at all but it just feels weird for alienware to take away these things that made their m series what they were now at first all these deficiencies or these kind of removals of features made me go why like why are they doing this but then it just snapped my head i realized this is no longer their king flagship product like for years the m products the m15 and m17 have been their best of the best their flagship alienware product but now there's the x series and that's supposed to be their best of the best so this product line the m series it kind of has to be squashed down a little bit not just in terms of price and configuration but also in terms of aesthetics it can't look amazing because the x has to look the best and it just has to fit into the whole product hierarchy which is unfortunate but that's just business right now if you picked up an r4 from last year i think you're good i think it's a very i think it actually looks better in my personal opinion but that's subjective but the r5 does have a couple noticeable advantages on the inside so the first thing this is a feature we've been looking for for years it now finally has once again removable ram for the past few years we've had alienware laptops that have had baked on ram baked on wi-fi cards and now they're both replaceable and or upgradable which is great to see there's two nvme bays the drive they include is a short one but here's a weird thing in order to use the larger size like a 2280 you need to remove the bracket that's underneath the small one and i've never seen anything like this like it's a proprietary bracket it's not the biggest pain in the world to do but if you do want to run a second drive you now have to seemingly order this bracket from dell or get them to send you one because it's not included in the package and there's no bracket thing on the second side which is strange to me it seems really weird especially on a gaming laptop where people are just putting in drives pretty frequently but that's that's alienware so battery down here just real quickly it's 86 watt hours it's the same size as last year's model battery life is slightly better i'm not sure if it's the ryzen version but i got just under five hours last year's model i think i got like four and a half of my regular runtime but yeah speakers this is another downgrade i didn't mention earlier on the r4 last year they had a front firing speaker in addition to their down firing and it was actually not a huge difference but significance enough that if you were playing games without headphones the treble was just audible between those uh in those front firing speakers just to help with positional audio right they removed it and it it seems nonsensical why would you remove a feature that you just added in for one year but the new x series that has front firing speakers so maybe they're trying to do that whole product tier separation thing uh the cooling system so last year's model had a vapor chamber this no longer does the vapor chamber was only on the gpu last year not on both the cpu and gpu they're just running heat pipes this year but you'll see in a second that thermally it's still decent you know what let's just get into it right now so performance wise we are looking at in this system with ryzen a ryzen 5000 cpu as well as an rtx 3060 or an rtx 3070 they do not offer the rtx 3080 in the amd system strange like i don't know if it's a supply chain thing or if it's because there's some kind of brand relationship going on but we'll never know they do not offer the 3080 in the amd ryzen version as of right now but in terms of performance it's good the frame rates are fast and the fan noise is as you'd expect on an alienware device nothing crazy loud but there's two things that are mildly concerning number one the temperatures are warmer than i'd like to see it doesn't throttle it's not even close to it but you can cool it better in other systems the competition has lower temperatures than this the other thing though is the gpu wattage so this has a peak wattage of 125 watts on the rtx 3070. on last year's model is brought up to 140 watts you just get slightly better performance it's nothing crazy right it's not like double the frame rates but it is noticeable in benchmarks and i think for certain games you will notice it but it's strange to me that they launched with a lower wattage now it's alienware in the past they've kind of given an update down the line right they can flash the v bios and now you have unlocked 140 watts on your rtx 3070. they've done it before in the past and i wouldn't be surprised if they do it again but it's strange to me that they launched like this like again is it just to make that x series look better i don't know but it feels weird to me and i think a lot of people feel the same way about that wattage difference uh inside we have a keyboard that's had a slight change in tactility and feel a little softer to type on than the r4 and there is a row of media keys on the right which i personally like that stuff i like to be able to control my volume physically and there's also a change in the shift key i use the right shift often even though it's a little bit shorter it's still a very comfortable shift key to me i think if you've liked alienware keyboards in the past and i think they're really easy to like you'll like this one as well even with the changes there is a mechanical keyboard option i've done a video on it i'll link it down below the trackpad however sucks straight up sucks i do not like it the r4 had a better trackpad to me it had a smoother surface it was like nicer to click on and also the tap mechanic not the click but the actual tap like if you tap on the r5 it's got this i don't know it's audible right when you're tapping on it it has this click when you tap on the r4 like there's no sound for one and also the texture is nicer and also the click is just precise nice and tight versus i don't know maybe the mic can't pick it up but the r5 has a noticeably worse trackpad to me than the r4 okay the screen so this is a better screen than what was offered in the r4 it's brighter it's faster it's got a better gaming and viewing experience and they got rid of the plastic bezel like the shiny trim that they used to have i was never a fan of it and it's now just a simple matte black but the screen is better but the overall product if i had to kind of give this a kind of overall thought the past alienware products like the m series have always been it's a product line that when i get the devices in i have an expectation i expect them to run a little bit warmer than the competition but at the same time i expect them to have better frame rates and higher numbers than the competition because that's what alienware has always done in the past they don't care too much about temperatures they focus on performance they want the best possible frame rate the best possible benchmarks and they deliver that in the past this year because they have a reduced gpu wattage it's strange it's not very on brand for alienware but the bigger thing is like the competition is doing it the competition is tougher now there's brands out there like lenovo's legion products that deliver an experience that is akin to this like this rgb lights they got a lot of stuff going on but they're also delivering high wattage and a what i would say is a better overall experience for the gamer i will say though that the aesthetic of this is still very unique and i like the look of this i like the aesthetics of this more than i like the aesthetics of lenovo products but i mean that's a very subjective thing whether or not you like your product because the aesthetics or the performance is entirely up to you but i would say that this year the r5 and most likely the r6 is a harder device to recommend given the landscape of gaming laptops right now but if you like the way that it looks you like the way that it looks and there's only one guy that makes an alienware that looks like this okay hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs if you liked it subs if you loved it i'll see you guys next timeall right so this is alienware's new laptop design they have the r5 if you configure it with amd components and it's called the r6 if you configure it with intel components but the two products are exactly the same in terms of the aesthetic and the design it is a brand new chassis if you compared to the r4 there's a lot of changes they've revamped the whole thing some of those changes are things that we've been asking for like we've wanted certain features and we've added it but some of those changes were questionable and as i looked at this thing and i was trying to go through the review process of it i was trying to figure out why and i think it kind of made sense let's start off with the aesthetic so it only comes in this dark gray color it's a nice color i think it's better than just a plain black gaming laptop but last year's model the r4 and just the past few years of alienware laptops offered this nice white color which i thought looked really cool even if you didn't like this particular color the fact that they offer it like the fact that they care enough up their user base and try to offer something that just sticks out and stands out in the sea of gaming laptops this was special but they've removed this color option for the r5 and r6 in 2021 and i don't know how i feel about that because it was something that really made the alienware devices unique now in terms of the weight and thickness of the new r5 it's a little bit thicker barely noticeable but the weight is about 100 grams heavier compared to r4 and that is something that i think most people will notice if they're comparing the two it's still a reasonably portable device but in general i feel like the r5 chassis has had a lot of kind of bonus features stripped away from what made alienware devices alienware so it's gotten rid of the graphics amp port it's not something that i ever used but it was available for people that wanted it and they got rid of the mini display port they got rid of the micro sd slot that used to be on the side and even the rgb trim on the back it's ever so slightly smaller than last year's model so this visual trim here is a little bit narrower than what was on the r4 and just visually it's less prominent and less kind of vibrant in the color is it a big deal not at all but it just feels weird for alienware to take away these things that made their m series what they were now at first all these deficiencies or these kind of removals of features made me go why like why are they doing this but then it just snapped my head i realized this is no longer their king flagship product like for years the m products the m15 and m17 have been their best of the best their flagship alienware product but now there's the x series and that's supposed to be their best of the best so this product line the m series it kind of has to be squashed down a little bit not just in terms of price and configuration but also in terms of aesthetics it can't look amazing because the x has to look the best and it just has to fit into the whole product hierarchy which is unfortunate but that's just business right now if you picked up an r4 from last year i think you're good i think it's a very i think it actually looks better in my personal opinion but that's subjective but the r5 does have a couple noticeable advantages on the inside so the first thing this is a feature we've been looking for for years it now finally has once again removable ram for the past few years we've had alienware laptops that have had baked on ram baked on wi-fi cards and now they're both replaceable and or upgradable which is great to see there's two nvme bays the drive they include is a short one but here's a weird thing in order to use the larger size like a 2280 you need to remove the bracket that's underneath the small one and i've never seen anything like this like it's a proprietary bracket it's not the biggest pain in the world to do but if you do want to run a second drive you now have to seemingly order this bracket from dell or get them to send you one because it's not included in the package and there's no bracket thing on the second side which is strange to me it seems really weird especially on a gaming laptop where people are just putting in drives pretty frequently but that's that's alienware so battery down here just real quickly it's 86 watt hours it's the same size as last year's model battery life is slightly better i'm not sure if it's the ryzen version but i got just under five hours last year's model i think i got like four and a half of my regular runtime but yeah speakers this is another downgrade i didn't mention earlier on the r4 last year they had a front firing speaker in addition to their down firing and it was actually not a huge difference but significance enough that if you were playing games without headphones the treble was just audible between those uh in those front firing speakers just to help with positional audio right they removed it and it it seems nonsensical why would you remove a feature that you just added in for one year but the new x series that has front firing speakers so maybe they're trying to do that whole product tier separation thing uh the cooling system so last year's model had a vapor chamber this no longer does the vapor chamber was only on the gpu last year not on both the cpu and gpu they're just running heat pipes this year but you'll see in a second that thermally it's still decent you know what let's just get into it right now so performance wise we are looking at in this system with ryzen a ryzen 5000 cpu as well as an rtx 3060 or an rtx 3070 they do not offer the rtx 3080 in the amd system strange like i don't know if it's a supply chain thing or if it's because there's some kind of brand relationship going on but we'll never know they do not offer the 3080 in the amd ryzen version as of right now but in terms of performance it's good the frame rates are fast and the fan noise is as you'd expect on an alienware device nothing crazy loud but there's two things that are mildly concerning number one the temperatures are warmer than i'd like to see it doesn't throttle it's not even close to it but you can cool it better in other systems the competition has lower temperatures than this the other thing though is the gpu wattage so this has a peak wattage of 125 watts on the rtx 3070. on last year's model is brought up to 140 watts you just get slightly better performance it's nothing crazy right it's not like double the frame rates but it is noticeable in benchmarks and i think for certain games you will notice it but it's strange to me that they launched with a lower wattage now it's alienware in the past they've kind of given an update down the line right they can flash the v bios and now you have unlocked 140 watts on your rtx 3070. they've done it before in the past and i wouldn't be surprised if they do it again but it's strange to me that they launched like this like again is it just to make that x series look better i don't know but it feels weird to me and i think a lot of people feel the same way about that wattage difference uh inside we have a keyboard that's had a slight change in tactility and feel a little softer to type on than the r4 and there is a row of media keys on the right which i personally like that stuff i like to be able to control my volume physically and there's also a change in the shift key i use the right shift often even though it's a little bit shorter it's still a very comfortable shift key to me i think if you've liked alienware keyboards in the past and i think they're really easy to like you'll like this one as well even with the changes there is a mechanical keyboard option i've done a video on it i'll link it down below the trackpad however sucks straight up sucks i do not like it the r4 had a better trackpad to me it had a smoother surface it was like nicer to click on and also the tap mechanic not the click but the actual tap like if you tap on the r5 it's got this i don't know it's audible right when you're tapping on it it has this click when you tap on the r4 like there's no sound for one and also the texture is nicer and also the click is just precise nice and tight versus i don't know maybe the mic can't pick it up but the r5 has a noticeably worse trackpad to me than the r4 okay the screen so this is a better screen than what was offered in the r4 it's brighter it's faster it's got a better gaming and viewing experience and they got rid of the plastic bezel like the shiny trim that they used to have i was never a fan of it and it's now just a simple matte black but the screen is better but the overall product if i had to kind of give this a kind of overall thought the past alienware products like the m series have always been it's a product line that when i get the devices in i have an expectation i expect them to run a little bit warmer than the competition but at the same time i expect them to have better frame rates and higher numbers than the competition because that's what alienware has always done in the past they don't care too much about temperatures they focus on performance they want the best possible frame rate the best possible benchmarks and they deliver that in the past this year because they have a reduced gpu wattage it's strange it's not very on brand for alienware but the bigger thing is like the competition is doing it the competition is tougher now there's brands out there like lenovo's legion products that deliver an experience that is akin to this like this rgb lights they got a lot of stuff going on but they're also delivering high wattage and a what i would say is a better overall experience for the gamer i will say though that the aesthetic of this is still very unique and i like the look of this i like the aesthetics of this more than i like the aesthetics of lenovo products but i mean that's a very subjective thing whether or not you like your product because the aesthetics or the performance is entirely up to you but i would say that this year the r5 and most likely the r6 is a harder device to recommend given the landscape of gaming laptops right now but if you like the way that it looks you like the way that it looks and there's only one guy that makes an alienware that looks like this okay hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs if you liked it subs if you loved it i'll see you guys next time\n"