Alienware M15 R5
Close encounters of the Ryzen kind
ONE THING’S FOR SURE: Alienware laptops remain beautiful pieces of hardware, even if there has been the odd bum note in Dell’s handiwork over the years. The M15 R5 (specifically the Ryzen Edition we’re reviewing) is no exception, with a stylish exterior and bright RGB lighting. The new R5 only comes in “Dark Side of the Moon” black, which looks great despite its pretentious titling.
It’s a little thicker than its predecessor, bucking the trend in gaming laptops getting thinner and thinner, but the M15 R5 is still on the slender side when it comes to portable powerhouses. Inside, we’ve got a Ryzen 7 5800H processor and an RTX 3060, for about double what you could expect to pay for that GPU right now. This is Dell’s first Alienware laptop with a Ryzen processor and an RTX GPU, so it’s exciting to see how it could measure up against Intel-powered laptops.
Were we not in the midst of a serious hardware drought, a laptop like this might look less appealing. With only a 256GB SSD and 16GB of RAM in the base model, the specs feel a little under par for the asking price compared to some competitors. The display has a high refresh rate of 165Hz with 3ms latency, but when it comes to visual clarity and color reproduction, it’s a fairly standard 1080p panel. We can’t help but wonder if you couldn’t pick up a laptop with an RTX 3070 or a better screen without leaving the R5’s immediate price range.
Value grumbles aside, though, the M15 R5 does offer good performance for a gaming laptop, squeezing everything it can get out of that RTX 3060. The Ryzen processor is great, kicking ass in CPUbound games, and works wonders for the M15’s battery life (although this is still a gaming laptop, so using it plugged in is the best option to prevent GPU power throttling). The M.2 SSD’s performance was sub-par, but you won’t notice a difference between this and a high-end drive in games.
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We did find that the M15 got particularly warm, both during testing and when idling for any significant length of time. The fans and vapor chamber cooling work well, so there’s not much of an issue with hot air blasting from the sides while you’re working, but the underside gets uncomfortably warm very quickly, meaning that you can’t really put this laptop atop your lap. The keyboard area doesn’t get too hot, so if you place the M15 on a surface to use it, you should be fine.
That lackluster memory and storage we mentioned? Well, the good news is that it’s user-upgradable, with an easyto-unscrew panel on the underside of the chassis. Unfortunately, the physical benefits of the M15 R5 end there; the keyboard is nice to use, but it’s fallen victim to a weird layout rejig that sees the volume control keys squeezed into a vertical row on the right-hand side. The trackpad is the same seen in previous M15 models, which means it has a satisfying click but is altogether too small for a 15-inch laptop.
The ports on offer here are also somewhat limited, with many of them shunted to the laptop’s rear edge, which could prove irritating for anyone working with limited desk space. The dual integrated speakers perform adequately, but we’ve definitely seen laptops with better audio solutions.
The M15 R5 does, at times, feel like a trial run for Dell. The Alienware brand is dipping its toe back into AMD waters, and this laptop serves as proof of concept for that; there are teething issues, many stemming from Dell’s attempts to subtly rework the physical design of the standard M15 chassis, but the 5800H does great. Models range from $1,300 to $2,380, with the top-spec R5 using a Ryzen 9 5900HX and an RTX 3070. It’s surprising not to see a SKU with a more powerful GPU, but again, Dell is still testing the waters. It’ll certainly be interesting to see what comes next.
Alienware M15 R5
ALIEN Good gaming performance; clean aesthetic; upgradable RAM and SSDs.
PROMETHEUS Runs hot; poor value for money; new keyboard layout is weird.
$1,600, www.dell.com