Alienware M18: A Powerful Gaming Laptop with a Distinct Design Philosophy
The Alienware M18 is a powerful gaming laptop that follows through with the brand's design philosophy, which has been evolving over the last couple of years. The latest version, dubbed "Legend This Is Legend" version 3.0, offers a distinct look and feel that sets it apart from other gaming laptops in its class. One of my favorite features is the perky lighting system, which can be customized to create a unique ambiance. The laptop also boasts a range of customization options, including highlight lights on the Alien head, back panel, and around the back.
The design philosophy of Alienware has shifted towards a more aggressive and bold look in recent years. Gone are the days of the matte white color option that was available in the Alienware X15 last year. Instead, the M18 features a metallic dark gray finish that may not be as cool as its predecessor. However, this is still a great-looking laptop that turns heads on its own. The Alien head is still recognizable and has undergone some subtle changes to fit with the new design language.
The Alienware Command Center is another feature that has seen significant improvements in the latest version of the M18. This custom software allows users to control various features of the laptop, including performance presets, cooling options, and lighting settings. The new version of the Command Center is much more intuitive and user-friendly, making it easier for gamers to fine-tune their experience. One of the standout features is the ability to set the fan speed to automatically switch between performance and balance modes based on the game being played.
One potential drawback of the M18 is its high heat generation during gaming sessions. While the laptop's cooling system is effective, the vents can direct hot air towards the user's hands while playing games with a mouse. This may not be a deal-breaker for everyone, but it's worth noting nonetheless. However, overall, the M18 stays remarkably cool even when running demanding games.
Another advantage of the M18 is its versatility. As a gaming laptop that can handle both gaming and multimedia tasks, it offers a level of flexibility that larger laptops may not be able to match. The ports and connections are also more extensive than what's typically found on smaller laptops, making it easier to connect multiple devices at once.
Speaking of which, the M18 is positioned as a mid-range option in Alienware's lineup, with a price tag that's still higher than many other gaming laptops but lower than the company's high-end offerings. While this may not be the most affordable option, there are indeed more expensive laptops available from Alienware and its competitors, such as the Razer Blade. Nonetheless, for those who want a powerful gaming laptop without breaking the bank, the M18 is definitely worth considering.
As we head into the latter half of 2023, it's worth noting that this is just one of several 18-inch gaming laptops on the horizon. While we can't reveal all details just yet, these upcoming laptops promise to offer a range of innovative features and design solutions that will shake up the market. For now, though, the Alienware M18 stands as a solid example of what gaming laptops can achieve in terms of performance, customization, and aesthetics – and it's clear that this company is committed to pushing the boundaries of laptop design in the years to come.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign it's big it's powerful it might arguably be from another planet that is a good way to think about this guy it's the new Alienware M18 it is a massive gaming laptop from Dell's Alienware brand we first saw it announced right around CES 2023 and it's already here on our testing bench and I got to tell you so far I am pretty Blown Away by the performance by all the top end components here and that is because this is one of the highest and most expensive most specked out configurations of this you can buy besides an Intel 13th gen core I9 CPU it's also got nvidia's GeForce RTX 40 90 gpus this is the first laptop that I've tested with a 40 90. I've only just started getting a couple with 40 80 cards so it's great to be able to jump right into the Super high-end version that's pretty much the fastest laptop graphics card that you can get right now besides that it's got 32 gigs of RAM and a one terabyte SSD in this particular configuration frankly one terabyte seems a little thin for me I would maybe invest in a little more storage space But as is this configuration is 35.49 uh very close to the most expensive most uh high-end config you can build with this particular system now keep in mind that configurable laptops especially gaming laptops the prices and component options May shift a little bit over time and you could spend more you could spend less the least expensive configuration of this I have seen right now is two thousand ninety nine dollars which is a lot less but that's only got an Nvidia 4060 graphics card and frankly if I was just in the market for a 40 60 laptop I would not buy something big inexpensive like this you can get similar components in a regular 15 16 17 inch gaming laptop for a lot less now this is not the first 18-inch gaming laptop of 2023 it's not even the first 18 inch gaming laptop I've tested and reviewed so far in 2023 that was the Razer Blade 18 which is very similar to this the design of razors tend to be a little more muted a little more mainstream although Alienware has really kind of toned down the alien head look and feel over the years even though there's a giant alien head here and one over here and one on the back but it still can pass for a very you know mainstream doesn't have to look super gamery machine now that Razer Blade 18 very similarly configured but more expensive it was actually 37.99 and that was only with a 4080 graphics card so there's a way you could look at this and say the Alienware M18 is actually kind of a bargain I don't know if I'd buy that argument but you could make that argument but keep in mind the prices and configuration options can shift over time so these may not be the exact prices when you go look it up right now one thing the Alienware version has of the Razer doesn't is this Cherry MX keyboard it's a very clacky desktop Style keyboard the Razer just has uh you know very flat regular laptop keys so if you're a classic PC Gamer and you like that big desktop keyboard feel with the real heavy travel and the clacking Keys uh you're gonna like this a lot I found it to be a little loud and distracting but that's because I'm primarily a laptop person I don't need that big you know physical sensation of mashing on a desktop keyboard if you want to hear what it sounds like it's a little bit like this foreign here is obviously the massive screen I love the idea of an 18-inch gaming laptop there were actually one or two maybe about 10 11 12 years ago never really caught on one of them was actually an Alienware uh this obviously Miles and Miles more advanced than that there were two 18-inch screen options right now there's a QHD screen which is this and it's got a 165 Hertz refresh rate seems very uh standard to me there's also an fhd version so a lower resolution version but with a crazy 480 Hertz refresh rate and you'd want that if you were doing you know very competitive twitch based gaming and you needed the fastest frame rates and fastest refresh time possible but if you were doing that then you don't really care about having you know 40 90 graphics card so you can crank up all the graphics options all the way it does seem a little unusual to want that in a big 18 inch screen like this where you're really going for visual Fidelity that's kind of the big selling point at least to me now of course you're asking how does it perform well with that uh 13 gen core I9 and the Nvidia 4090 it performed really well uh it's probably the fastest gaming laptop that we have tested of course you can say that every year whenever the most powerful system of that year comes out in our Benchmark testing it did great in anecdotal testing I fired up for example Hogwarts Legacy I had full resolution I cranked everything up to ultra I turned on the ray tracing effects which a lot of people say really kills performance in that game and even with all that going I was able to you know keep it above 120 frames per second almost all of the time now this is not the oldest craziest looking gaming laptop I've ever seen it does follow through with alienware's design philosophy of the last couple of years they call this overall look and feel Legend This Is Legend version 3.0 uh and you'll see there are a couple subtle changes if you're familiar with the brand over the last couple of years one of my favorite gaming laptops of last year was the Alienware X15 which was a 15-inch version it was kind of similar to this but they had a matte white color option that I thought looked really sharp very mod looking very kind of non-gamery still kind of bold now they've gone back to just having this sort of you know metallic dark gray I don't think it's as cool as the matte white maybe they'll bring that back but that's the only color option I'm seeing for this M18 right now it's still fine obviously you have that perky lighting and you can design your keyboard to light up any way you want and there are highlight lights that you can light up on the alien head here and on the back and around the back panel so there's a lot of customization you can do but you are still stuck at least for right now with that one color option speaking of which something that got a nice upgrade here is the Alienware Command Center that's uh the custom software that controls a lot of the features of the laptop they've always had this I've always found it to be a little clunky a little non-intuitive a little hard to use the latest version uh which I'm using here for the first time is actually much more intuitive it gives you a very clear picture of what performance preset you're using you can do like quiet battery performance Max and that controls some of the cooling and fan options because the fan can get really loud while you're gaming and you can set it to click into one of those performance modes whenever you start a game automatically and just go back to balance mode when you leave a game and that's a great way to minimize fan noise when you're not you know in the middle of a game I also found controlling the uh lighting color options to be a little bit easier in the new version and just the layout was cleaner so if you have an Alienware and you have an older version of The Command Center Software make sure you update and get the latest version I think it's a nice Improvement now of course when you're gaming the fans are going to be cranking because this thing generates a good amount of heat inside though you've got heat pipes got Vapor Chambers you've got really big fans so it actually does a pretty good job of dissipating that heat unlike that 15 inch Alienware X15 that I really liked last year uh this actually stays pretty cool even when you're playing a game on that 15 inch it got incredibly hot you know you couldn't even touch it in some places when it was cranking on a game uh here the only heat related issue I had is that the vents uh send out the hot air from the sides like this and if you are gaming with a mouse and I have my mouse right here I had a lot of warm air blowing on my hand pretty consistently while I was in a game one thing I do like about getting something that's kind of I guess a desktop replacement like this is your gaming machine or even your work machine or your Photoshop and video editing machine because it can do all that stuff really well is that you get a closer to desktop level of ports and connections this is not one of those laptops that just has you know one or two USBC ports and that's it uh you've got a bunch on the sides you've got a big bunch in the back and you've got everything from usba and USBC and obviously an ethernet port and a regular audio jack so things that smaller laptops are starting to get rid of you can still find on big systems like this so listen this is a crazy expensive laptop with a crazy expensive configuration that said it is less expensive uh component for component than the Razer version we previously tested but if neither one of these are your cup of tea there are at least two or three other 18-inch gaming laptops coming later this year I gotta say so far as somebody who likes really small laptops but you know they're not free for gaming I like a bigger screen for gaming but I don't always want to play on a big screen TV in the living room off a console or off a computer plugged into uh the living room TV I love the option of having a bigger gaming screen like this I hope we see a lot more 18-inch gaming laptops and frankly I hope we see a lot more 18-inch and really big screen laptops that are great for video editing and photo editing and just multimedia use uh I think it's a great way to get the best of a desktop and a laptop all in oneforeign it's big it's powerful it might arguably be from another planet that is a good way to think about this guy it's the new Alienware M18 it is a massive gaming laptop from Dell's Alienware brand we first saw it announced right around CES 2023 and it's already here on our testing bench and I got to tell you so far I am pretty Blown Away by the performance by all the top end components here and that is because this is one of the highest and most expensive most specked out configurations of this you can buy besides an Intel 13th gen core I9 CPU it's also got nvidia's GeForce RTX 40 90 gpus this is the first laptop that I've tested with a 40 90. I've only just started getting a couple with 40 80 cards so it's great to be able to jump right into the Super high-end version that's pretty much the fastest laptop graphics card that you can get right now besides that it's got 32 gigs of RAM and a one terabyte SSD in this particular configuration frankly one terabyte seems a little thin for me I would maybe invest in a little more storage space But as is this configuration is 35.49 uh very close to the most expensive most uh high-end config you can build with this particular system now keep in mind that configurable laptops especially gaming laptops the prices and component options May shift a little bit over time and you could spend more you could spend less the least expensive configuration of this I have seen right now is two thousand ninety nine dollars which is a lot less but that's only got an Nvidia 4060 graphics card and frankly if I was just in the market for a 40 60 laptop I would not buy something big inexpensive like this you can get similar components in a regular 15 16 17 inch gaming laptop for a lot less now this is not the first 18-inch gaming laptop of 2023 it's not even the first 18 inch gaming laptop I've tested and reviewed so far in 2023 that was the Razer Blade 18 which is very similar to this the design of razors tend to be a little more muted a little more mainstream although Alienware has really kind of toned down the alien head look and feel over the years even though there's a giant alien head here and one over here and one on the back but it still can pass for a very you know mainstream doesn't have to look super gamery machine now that Razer Blade 18 very similarly configured but more expensive it was actually 37.99 and that was only with a 4080 graphics card so there's a way you could look at this and say the Alienware M18 is actually kind of a bargain I don't know if I'd buy that argument but you could make that argument but keep in mind the prices and configuration options can shift over time so these may not be the exact prices when you go look it up right now one thing the Alienware version has of the Razer doesn't is this Cherry MX keyboard it's a very clacky desktop Style keyboard the Razer just has uh you know very flat regular laptop keys so if you're a classic PC Gamer and you like that big desktop keyboard feel with the real heavy travel and the clacking Keys uh you're gonna like this a lot I found it to be a little loud and distracting but that's because I'm primarily a laptop person I don't need that big you know physical sensation of mashing on a desktop keyboard if you want to hear what it sounds like it's a little bit like this foreign here is obviously the massive screen I love the idea of an 18-inch gaming laptop there were actually one or two maybe about 10 11 12 years ago never really caught on one of them was actually an Alienware uh this obviously Miles and Miles more advanced than that there were two 18-inch screen options right now there's a QHD screen which is this and it's got a 165 Hertz refresh rate seems very uh standard to me there's also an fhd version so a lower resolution version but with a crazy 480 Hertz refresh rate and you'd want that if you were doing you know very competitive twitch based gaming and you needed the fastest frame rates and fastest refresh time possible but if you were doing that then you don't really care about having you know 40 90 graphics card so you can crank up all the graphics options all the way it does seem a little unusual to want that in a big 18 inch screen like this where you're really going for visual Fidelity that's kind of the big selling point at least to me now of course you're asking how does it perform well with that uh 13 gen core I9 and the Nvidia 4090 it performed really well uh it's probably the fastest gaming laptop that we have tested of course you can say that every year whenever the most powerful system of that year comes out in our Benchmark testing it did great in anecdotal testing I fired up for example Hogwarts Legacy I had full resolution I cranked everything up to ultra I turned on the ray tracing effects which a lot of people say really kills performance in that game and even with all that going I was able to you know keep it above 120 frames per second almost all of the time now this is not the oldest craziest looking gaming laptop I've ever seen it does follow through with alienware's design philosophy of the last couple of years they call this overall look and feel Legend This Is Legend version 3.0 uh and you'll see there are a couple subtle changes if you're familiar with the brand over the last couple of years one of my favorite gaming laptops of last year was the Alienware X15 which was a 15-inch version it was kind of similar to this but they had a matte white color option that I thought looked really sharp very mod looking very kind of non-gamery still kind of bold now they've gone back to just having this sort of you know metallic dark gray I don't think it's as cool as the matte white maybe they'll bring that back but that's the only color option I'm seeing for this M18 right now it's still fine obviously you have that perky lighting and you can design your keyboard to light up any way you want and there are highlight lights that you can light up on the alien head here and on the back and around the back panel so there's a lot of customization you can do but you are still stuck at least for right now with that one color option speaking of which something that got a nice upgrade here is the Alienware Command Center that's uh the custom software that controls a lot of the features of the laptop they've always had this I've always found it to be a little clunky a little non-intuitive a little hard to use the latest version uh which I'm using here for the first time is actually much more intuitive it gives you a very clear picture of what performance preset you're using you can do like quiet battery performance Max and that controls some of the cooling and fan options because the fan can get really loud while you're gaming and you can set it to click into one of those performance modes whenever you start a game automatically and just go back to balance mode when you leave a game and that's a great way to minimize fan noise when you're not you know in the middle of a game I also found controlling the uh lighting color options to be a little bit easier in the new version and just the layout was cleaner so if you have an Alienware and you have an older version of The Command Center Software make sure you update and get the latest version I think it's a nice Improvement now of course when you're gaming the fans are going to be cranking because this thing generates a good amount of heat inside though you've got heat pipes got Vapor Chambers you've got really big fans so it actually does a pretty good job of dissipating that heat unlike that 15 inch Alienware X15 that I really liked last year uh this actually stays pretty cool even when you're playing a game on that 15 inch it got incredibly hot you know you couldn't even touch it in some places when it was cranking on a game uh here the only heat related issue I had is that the vents uh send out the hot air from the sides like this and if you are gaming with a mouse and I have my mouse right here I had a lot of warm air blowing on my hand pretty consistently while I was in a game one thing I do like about getting something that's kind of I guess a desktop replacement like this is your gaming machine or even your work machine or your Photoshop and video editing machine because it can do all that stuff really well is that you get a closer to desktop level of ports and connections this is not one of those laptops that just has you know one or two USBC ports and that's it uh you've got a bunch on the sides you've got a big bunch in the back and you've got everything from usba and USBC and obviously an ethernet port and a regular audio jack so things that smaller laptops are starting to get rid of you can still find on big systems like this so listen this is a crazy expensive laptop with a crazy expensive configuration that said it is less expensive uh component for component than the Razer version we previously tested but if neither one of these are your cup of tea there are at least two or three other 18-inch gaming laptops coming later this year I gotta say so far as somebody who likes really small laptops but you know they're not free for gaming I like a bigger screen for gaming but I don't always want to play on a big screen TV in the living room off a console or off a computer plugged into uh the living room TV I love the option of having a bigger gaming screen like this I hope we see a lot more 18-inch gaming laptops and frankly I hope we see a lot more 18-inch and really big screen laptops that are great for video editing and photo editing and just multimedia use uh I think it's a great way to get the best of a desktop and a laptop all in oneforeign it's big it's powerful it might arguably be from another planet that is a good way to think about this guy it's the new Alienware M18 it is a massive gaming laptop from Dell's Alienware brand we first saw it announced right around CES 2023 and it's already here on our testing bench and I got to tell you so far I am pretty Blown Away by the performance by all the top end components here and that is because this is one of the highest and most expensive most specked out configurations of this you can buy besides an Intel 13th gen core I9 CPU it's also got nvidia's GeForce RTX 40 90 gpus this is the first laptop that I've tested with a 40 90. I've only just started getting a couple with 40 80 cards so it's great to be able to jump right into the Super high-end version that's pretty much the fastest laptop graphics card that you can get right now besides that it's got 32 gigs of RAM and a one terabyte SSD in this particular configuration frankly one terabyte seems a little thin for me I would maybe invest in a little more storage space But as is this configuration is 35.49 uh very close to the most expensive most uh high-end config you can build with this particular system now keep in mind that configurable laptops especially gaming laptops the prices and component options May shift a little bit over time and you could spend more you could spend less the least expensive configuration of this I have seen right now is two thousand ninety nine dollars which is a lot less but that's only got an Nvidia 4060 graphics card and frankly if I was just in the market for a 40 60 laptop I would not buy something big inexpensive like this you can get similar components in a regular 15 16 17 inch gaming laptop for a lot less now this is not the first 18-inch gaming laptop of 2023 it's not even the first 18 inch gaming laptop I've tested and reviewed so far in 2023 that was the Razer Blade 18 which is very similar to this the design of razors tend to be a little more muted a little more mainstream although Alienware has really kind of toned down the alien head look and feel over the years even though there's a giant alien head here and one over here and one on the back but it still can pass for a very you know mainstream doesn't have to look super gamery machine now that Razer Blade 18 very similarly configured but more expensive it was actually 37.99 and that was only with a 4080 graphics card so there's a way you could look at this and say the Alienware M18 is actually kind of a bargain I don't know if I'd buy that argument but you could make that argument but keep in mind the prices and configuration options can shift over time so these may not be the exact prices when you go look it up right now one thing the Alienware version has of the Razer doesn't is this Cherry MX keyboard it's a very clacky desktop Style keyboard the Razer just has uh you know very flat regular laptop keys so if you're a classic PC Gamer and you like that big desktop keyboard feel with the real heavy travel and the clacking Keys uh you're gonna like this a lot I found it to be a little loud and distracting but that's because I'm primarily a laptop person I don't need that big you know physical sensation of mashing on a desktop keyboard if you want to hear what it sounds like it's a little bit like this foreign here is obviously the massive screen I love the idea of an 18-inch gaming laptop there were actually one or two maybe about 10 11 12 years ago never really caught on one of them was actually an Alienware uh this obviously Miles and Miles more advanced than that there were two 18-inch screen options right now there's a QHD screen which is this and it's got a 165 Hertz refresh rate seems very uh standard to me there's also an fhd version so a lower resolution version but with a crazy 480 Hertz refresh rate and you'd want that if you were doing you know very competitive twitch based gaming and you needed the fastest frame rates and fastest refresh time possible but if you were doing that then you don't really care about having you know 40 90 graphics card so you can crank up all the graphics options all the way it does seem a little unusual to want that in a big 18 inch screen like this where you're really going for visual Fidelity that's kind of the big selling point at least to me now of course you're asking how does it perform well with that uh 13 gen core I9 and the Nvidia 4090 it performed really well uh it's probably the fastest gaming laptop that we have tested of course you can say that every year whenever the most powerful system of that year comes out in our Benchmark testing it did great in anecdotal testing I fired up for example Hogwarts Legacy I had full resolution I cranked everything up to ultra I turned on the ray tracing effects which a lot of people say really kills performance in that game and even with all that going I was able to you know keep it above 120 frames per second almost all of the time now this is not the oldest craziest looking gaming laptop I've ever seen it does follow through with alienware's design philosophy of the last couple of years they call this overall look and feel Legend This Is Legend version 3.0 uh and you'll see there are a couple subtle changes if you're familiar with the brand over the last couple of years one of my favorite gaming laptops of last year was the Alienware X15 which was a 15-inch version it was kind of similar to this but they had a matte white color option that I thought looked really sharp very mod looking very kind of non-gamery still kind of bold now they've gone back to just having this sort of you know metallic dark gray I don't think it's as cool as the matte white maybe they'll bring that back but that's the only color option I'm seeing for this M18 right now it's still fine obviously you have that perky lighting and you can design your keyboard to light up any way you want and there are highlight lights that you can light up on the alien head here and on the back and around the back panel so there's a lot of customization you can do but you are still stuck at least for right now with that one color option speaking of which something that got a nice upgrade here is the Alienware Command Center that's uh the custom software that controls a lot of the features of the laptop they've always had this I've always found it to be a little clunky a little non-intuitive a little hard to use the latest version uh which I'm using here for the first time is actually much more intuitive it gives you a very clear picture of what performance preset you're using you can do like quiet battery performance Max and that controls some of the cooling and fan options because the fan can get really loud while you're gaming and you can set it to click into one of those performance modes whenever you start a game automatically and just go back to balance mode when you leave a game and that's a great way to minimize fan noise when you're not you know in the middle of a game I also found controlling the uh lighting color options to be a little bit easier in the new version and just the layout was cleaner so if you have an Alienware and you have an older version of The Command Center Software make sure you update and get the latest version I think it's a nice Improvement now of course when you're gaming the fans are going to be cranking because this thing generates a good amount of heat inside though you've got heat pipes got Vapor Chambers you've got really big fans so it actually does a pretty good job of dissipating that heat unlike that 15 inch Alienware X15 that I really liked last year uh this actually stays pretty cool even when you're playing a game on that 15 inch it got incredibly hot you know you couldn't even touch it in some places when it was cranking on a game uh here the only heat related issue I had is that the vents uh send out the hot air from the sides like this and if you are gaming with a mouse and I have my mouse right here I had a lot of warm air blowing on my hand pretty consistently while I was in a game one thing I do like about getting something that's kind of I guess a desktop replacement like this is your gaming machine or even your work machine or your Photoshop and video editing machine because it can do all that stuff really well is that you get a closer to desktop level of ports and connections this is not one of those laptops that just has you know one or two USBC ports and that's it uh you've got a bunch on the sides you've got a big bunch in the back and you've got everything from usba and USBC and obviously an ethernet port and a regular audio jack so things that smaller laptops are starting to get rid of you can still find on big systems like this so listen this is a crazy expensive laptop with a crazy expensive configuration that said it is less expensive uh component for component than the Razer version we previously tested but if neither one of these are your cup of tea there are at least two or three other 18-inch gaming laptops coming later this year I gotta say so far as somebody who likes really small laptops but you know they're not free for gaming I like a bigger screen for gaming but I don't always want to play on a big screen TV in the living room off a console or off a computer plugged into uh the living room TV I love the option of having a bigger gaming screen like this I hope we see a lot more 18-inch gaming laptops and frankly I hope we see a lot more 18-inch and really big screen laptops that are great for video editing and photo editing and just multimedia use uh I think it's a great way to get the best of a desktop and a laptop all in one\n"