Just got one last week and even had a price drop at Best Buy of 300 bucks. Yay price match! I love it overall performance and everything. Currently 1299.99. at Best Buy
@@NotebookcheckReviews Yep, bought mine for $400 off initially, then it went on sale a week later for $550 off. Best Buy actually retroactively price matched (since I was in the return window), and so I got it for that price. I did just buy some Crucial 16GBx2 RAM to replace though, because I keep bumping up against it.
The fact that this laptop and the Framework Laptop 13 are the only Intel Meteor Lake laptops with upgradable RAM really grinds my gears. With CAMM2 being released and some people, especially in creative and STEM fields, actually needing more than 32 GB of RAM, this is infuriating that we have so few options with upgradable RAM when we literally have a standard Dell developed and yet they don't even use it! 😡
I was told during Computex that this primarily comes down to cost and heat. As of right now CAMM apparently costs almost twice as much as "conventional" RAM options ...
@NotebookcheckReviews Then OEMs like Asus need to stop soldering RAM on their ROG Zephyrus G14 & G16 (like what Razer & MSI do on their 14 inch laptops) and/or restricting the 32 GB configurations to the expensive RTX 4070 or higher SKUs, which don't offer that much more gaming performance than the 4060 and offer the same vRAM capacity but you are essentially forced to go for them because otherwise you're restricting the lifespan of your expensive purchase. You can literally get a Razer Blade 14 with an RTX 4060 that will outperform or perform similarly to the 2024 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with the RTX 4070 for a similar price, and the Blade doesn't have the RAM issue because it can be upgraded. Honestly, I'd hold off on buying a laptop this year unless I couldn't wait any longer, but if I couldn't, I'd look for a sale on a 2023 laptop...
I get this argument from an "enthusiast" point of view, and you are right, all GPU configs should be available with your choice of RAM. I would personally never get a machine with 16 gigs unless it's only for media consumption or office work. For anything work or gaming related I might even struggle settling for 32 especially if its soldered. But in Asus' case you have no choice, which is a very decision on their end. On the other hand, most potential buyers might simply not care.
@@NotebookcheckReviews And that's the problem. You literally are _forced_ to go with a configuration you may not need just to get the extra RAM. And for the prices Asus charges, that's unacceptable.
I feel we are in a temporary period where OEMs have done the right move and are using soldered RAM for the faster speeds, greater efficiency and lower latency whilst waiting for CAMM2 to become established and significantly reduce the price. Though I am hesitant with CAMM2 as it is RAM on its own board which means that if you want to upgrade from 32GB to 64GB, you cannot simply buy a 32GB module; you have to buy a new 64GB CAMM2 board. I suspect that would be very expensive. I have no issue with soldered RAM as failure rate is now nominal. But I agree that OEMs by not offering higher skews are not helpful for that tiny niche market that need 64GB or more. Apple does, but charges accordingly for those extra production runs and costs.
I have the 185H/32GB version and considering that i had many doubts, especially about the display and the limited gpu, i have to say i like it. Solid build, solid stability and it performs very well for that much casual gaming that i do (counterstrike mostly). Pretty much in line with this review. I'll probably add storage and ram further if amazon does huge discounts in the coming months.
Great review as always. I really like the look of the redesign though i must say i miss the rgb ring that was on the previous design lol. I just wish Alienware would offer mini led or oled displays as an option
Thang god, that enormous footprint has always been a huge turn-off for me, and one of the big deciding factors for not getting one back when I was shopping around. Increasing the footprint has always seemed, to me, very bad trade-off, as the increase in perceived "unwieldness" is just much larger than whatever volume reduction they might have netted from decreasing thickness and spreading componentes around.
@@NotebookcheckReviews There seems to be a sad trend for 2024 models in removing the, IMO, real next-gen cards in the 4080 and 4090 from most of their lineups. The 2023 G14 comes to mind as a device that pushed boundaries to the point which later models have failed to even reach, much less exceed. This all smells like artificial market segmentation, which is a big lose-lose scenario for the consumer.
I know they are both owned by the same company, but why does the keyboard look like Dell keyboards? Also when I hear that a gaming laptop has 6+ hours of battery life, I have a hard time believing that.
@@GooberFrGoofy Really? Because I own an ASUS Zephyrus M15 and before buying it, I learned that it gave 8 hours of battery life. After buying it, I found this to be a lie.
I had just got this for 2 days, and this how i felt, the performance of the laptop was good, but overall, u sacrifice the rgb light at the back along with the cooler, which will make thermals not good, and replace the rgb light in the the edge of the touchpad, but m16 r2 using core ultra 7 to reduce the heat was also a great way, im a graphic designer and i felt this laptop was enough for me to use, how should i say... you gonna have a less attractive laptop this time, but the performance was there and even cooler a little bit compares to the m16 r1, i do love the design of alienware m16 r1, but this version was more of convinient and easier for traveling, not saying the design was bad this time, but the lost was not nessesary, like its okay with m18 r2, like they still keep the design and develope the performance at the same time and that was perfect, this version was more like close to what you actually need a gaming laptop to belike depends on your budget, like how its looks as a gaming laptop and how its works as a gaming laptop.
See latest update on bottom. TLDR Advanced Optimus woes sour the whole deal. Black screening. Those of us that need a gaming PC that doubles as a great professional laptop seems to be who this machine is for. Can turn off all rgb and does not have the flashy I’m a gamer crap, and put in a CPU that’s not overpowered for the heat sync as it is finally small enough to fit in a 16” laptop bag, on top of enough battery life to be usable for a work day. If you’re just a kid at home who wants a gaming laptop I get all your complaints. You want none of the things that make this an excellent laptop for those of us that integrate this into our workday. Thank you for the review! Great stuff!
@@Jasmohan Its actually arriving tomorrow. It was $1260 from Dell if it isn't still for the 185h 4070 spec. I'm just hoping the battery life for my IT work isn't worse than expected based on RUclips.
@@NotebookcheckReviews I appreciate your interest! I am a sys admin and need to connect to multiple servers, update tickets, and have a lot of communication through teams and outlook. With my initial testing it’s around 7-10 hours which is really excellent for a full fledged gaming machine. I could do 9-10 hours with an XPS with a GPU but had really mediocre performance even with a 4070 (due to being 60 watts). I do like the laptop but there are a few cons. Need to upgrade ram to 32GB+ as it tops out at 15GB gaming easily. On a flat surface due to the way the rubber is designed it basically starves itself for air increasing temps roughly 10c or less. I get high 85-100c flat and 76-85c lifted. GPU runs much cooler. I have the TCC offset in the bios set to 25. It keeps the flat on the desk temperatures 83-85c. Lunching some games with advance optimus for the first time causes a black screen and the pc basically gets stuck. This is solved by forcing the GPU to be used in the nvidia panel and launching the game once. It appears to launch without optimus crashing after doing this. 240hz is absolutely overkill for the screen. The resolution is crisp and beautiful at 1600p. Nothing gets to the 240fps range and you’re wasting CPU usage at that point that could be used to boost your 1% lows. Alienware command center is still a little slow, if reinstalling windows, you may need to uninstall/reinstall command center as the lighting section just shows blank (stupid). Found out late that intels NPU for AI is 30-35 TOPS not meeting Microsoft’s minimum 45 TOPS requirement for copilot+. New Ultra chips are coming, probably why there’s tons of sales on them as these are insufficient in that respect. Personally it borderlines false advertisement as the NPU is insufficient. Everything else is really good. The laptop is solid. Power brick is small. Keyboard is nice. Once thermal adjustments are made it puts temps in a much more manageable range. Battery life is great, annoying you need to manually set your refresh rate down to 60hz. Stealth mode is useful to quickly jump into a lower power config. Having tried a 17” Razer 3080 Ti with 175 watt tdp, this bests it with half the power. Gaming performance is really great and you get a much smoother experience after the ram upgrade. I installed a 48GB crucial kit 5600 from Amazon for $100 on prime day. My only major concern is not knowing if Meteor lake Ultra CPU’s are affected with increased failure rate like raptor lake. I don’t think they are but have no proof or mention either way. All that said, thank goodness it was $1250 for this 185h 16GB 4070. Id pass at $1400+ unless you need the battery life and dont mind fiddling with this to get it. To update: I am disappointed to say I am sending this back. Advanced Optimus fails to switch without causing a black screen. The computer stays on but you can’t see anything. This has happened several times after a fresh windows install and new drive. It runs fine once it’s on and already in a specific mode but you never know if the next switch is going to leave the screen off. I also found it rebooting itself and then of course when it switches the video mode I’m back to a black screen. This is my third dell pc return. There is always something that seems to be a deal breaker or major frustration.
This will be my next laptop most likely after my 17r3. But I am waiting until next year when the r3 comes out. I like the m18 but it is to big and heavy. And as I only will be having one laptop, the m16 seems like the perfect choice that you actually can bring with you. The x16 is just to expensive and big to justify. And it has soldered ram... I will use it mostly for work with 3D, photo and movie editing. Hope I do the correct pick.
Overall look is meh 🫤 Not sure is it colour issue or its design thing 😢 Why Alienware cant get the same designers as ASUS, I mean without Alienware logo it looks like noname chinese brand laptop. Hardware is decent just the package sucks :(( Nowadays most of brands can offer amazing performance for a good price, how the hell Alienware wants to be competitive with such as poor design
No displayport, so you can't see more colours on good monitors, hdmi just sucks. Also Inverted motherboard design is good over traditional cooling design. Battery Life is good on R2 because of weak CPU, you can also extend R1's battery life by Limiting cpu power as R2. Finally Removing tron light from back is making design as Garbage. I recommend R1 over R2
I'm sorry but the Alienware laptops never really caught my eye, their design looks like something an edgy teen would come up with. I prefer a sleek, elegant and subtle design which can be easily integrated anywhere, like the Asus Zephyrus (2024) and the Razer Blades (to some extent... as I find that huge snake logo cringy as hell...)
I bought the laptop and it’s really good. No issues with thermals whatsoever . I was using a 2019 17 inch predator Helios before this and this is one is on par thermally.
No full size SD reader: instant pass, instant click away, instant never bare a second eye, nothing more annoying, no bigger deal breaker, Legion 7i still reigns supreme as the best 16 inch gaming laptop.
QHD is not high-res enough for you? Have you ever experience the recent Alienware's in person? They are quality machine, nothing "plasticky" about them!
@@NotebookcheckReviews yes I had refunded a m18 R2 recently. Try to remove the back panel to remove RAM, the keyboard panel will it Flex. 150 ppi is it very poor sorry. These are good laptop but I remember X17 with magnesium chassis and 4k monitor and 500 nits...🤷
@@simonefiorini8298 The RTX 4070 can't really go above 2560x1600 because it's heavily GPU limited above that resolution unless you heavily use DLSS and DLSS FG, and even then, the battery life compromises might be another issue.
It's like they fucking made it look like a cheaper bulking fat crust of a left over pizza slice literally like Asus g16 and legion i5 pro ,bro have a look at the competition?
Just got one last week and even had a price drop at Best Buy of 300 bucks. Yay price match! I love it overall performance and everything. Currently 1299.99. at Best Buy
1300$ for the 4060 or 4070 config?
@@NotebookcheckReviews It was the 4070 but it seems after I requested the match it was back to normal price.
@@NotebookcheckReviews Yep, bought mine for $400 off initially, then it went on sale a week later for $550 off. Best Buy actually retroactively price matched (since I was in the return window), and so I got it for that price.
I did just buy some Crucial 16GBx2 RAM to replace though, because I keep bumping up against it.
The fact that this laptop and the Framework Laptop 13 are the only Intel Meteor Lake laptops with upgradable RAM really grinds my gears. With CAMM2 being released and some people, especially in creative and STEM fields, actually needing more than 32 GB of RAM, this is infuriating that we have so few options with upgradable RAM when we literally have a standard Dell developed and yet they don't even use it! 😡
I was told during Computex that this primarily comes down to cost and heat.
As of right now CAMM apparently costs almost twice as much as "conventional" RAM options ...
@NotebookcheckReviews Then OEMs like Asus need to stop soldering RAM on their ROG Zephyrus G14 & G16 (like what Razer & MSI do on their 14 inch laptops) and/or restricting the 32 GB configurations to the expensive RTX 4070 or higher SKUs, which don't offer that much more gaming performance than the 4060 and offer the same vRAM capacity but you are essentially forced to go for them because otherwise you're restricting the lifespan of your expensive purchase. You can literally get a Razer Blade 14 with an RTX 4060 that will outperform or perform similarly to the 2024 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with the RTX 4070 for a similar price, and the Blade doesn't have the RAM issue because it can be upgraded.
Honestly, I'd hold off on buying a laptop this year unless I couldn't wait any longer, but if I couldn't, I'd look for a sale on a 2023 laptop...
I get this argument from an "enthusiast" point of view, and you are right, all GPU configs should be available with your choice of RAM. I would personally never get a machine with 16 gigs unless it's only for media consumption or office work.
For anything work or gaming related I might even struggle settling for 32 especially if its soldered.
But in Asus' case you have no choice, which is a very decision on their end. On the other hand, most potential buyers might simply not care.
@@NotebookcheckReviews And that's the problem. You literally are _forced_ to go with a configuration you may not need just to get the extra RAM. And for the prices Asus charges, that's unacceptable.
I feel we are in a temporary period where OEMs have done the right move and are using soldered RAM for the faster speeds, greater efficiency and lower latency whilst waiting for CAMM2 to become established and significantly reduce the price. Though I am hesitant with CAMM2 as it is RAM on its own board which means that if you want to upgrade from 32GB to 64GB, you cannot simply buy a 32GB module; you have to buy a new 64GB CAMM2 board. I suspect that would be very expensive.
I have no issue with soldered RAM as failure rate is now nominal. But I agree that OEMs by not offering higher skews are not helpful for that tiny niche market that need 64GB or more. Apple does, but charges accordingly for those extra production runs and costs.
Can you review the Strix g 16 2024 next?
I have the 185H/32GB version and considering that i had many doubts, especially about the display and the limited gpu, i have to say i like it. Solid build, solid stability and it performs very well for that much casual gaming that i do (counterstrike mostly). Pretty much in line with this review. I'll probably add storage and ram further if amazon does huge discounts in the coming months.
Great review as always. I really like the look of the redesign though i must say i miss the rgb ring that was on the previous design lol. I just wish Alienware would offer mini led or oled displays as an option
Thang god, that enormous footprint has always been a huge turn-off for me, and one of the big deciding factors for not getting one back when I was shopping around. Increasing the footprint has always seemed, to me, very bad trade-off, as the increase in perceived "unwieldness" is just much larger than whatever volume reduction they might have netted from decreasing thickness and spreading componentes around.
Yeah, it makes the 2024 model so much more portable. However, I wish they had kept the original design for a 4080/4090 config.
@@NotebookcheckReviews There seems to be a sad trend for 2024 models in removing the, IMO, real next-gen cards in the 4080 and 4090 from most of their lineups. The 2023 G14 comes to mind as a device that pushed boundaries to the point which later models have failed to even reach, much less exceed. This all smells like artificial market segmentation, which is a big lose-lose scenario for the consumer.
does it charge via thunderbolt port? heard it might not
Can this unit be charged with a USB-C charger at a lower power level like 100 watts.
I know they are both owned by the same company, but why does the keyboard look like Dell keyboards?
Also when I hear that a gaming laptop has 6+ hours of battery life, I have a hard time believing that.
i have the laptop and it really can last longer than 6 hours and around 8 hours if you are just watching youtube and that sort of activity
@@GooberFrGoofy Really? Because I own an ASUS Zephyrus M15 and before buying it, I learned that it gave 8 hours of battery life. After buying it, I found this to be a lie.
I had just got this for 2 days, and this how i felt, the performance of the laptop was good, but overall, u sacrifice the rgb light at the back along with the cooler, which will make thermals not good, and replace the rgb light in the the edge of the touchpad, but m16 r2 using core ultra 7 to reduce the heat was also a great way, im a graphic designer and i felt this laptop was enough for me to use, how should i say... you gonna have a less attractive laptop this time, but the performance was there and even cooler a little bit compares to the m16 r1, i do love the design of alienware m16 r1, but this version was more of convinient and easier for traveling, not saying the design was bad this time, but the lost was not nessesary, like its okay with m18 r2, like they still keep the design and develope the performance at the same time and that was perfect, this version was more like close to what you actually need a gaming laptop to belike depends on your budget, like how its looks as a gaming laptop and how its works as a gaming laptop.
See latest update on bottom. TLDR Advanced Optimus woes sour the whole deal. Black screening.
Those of us that need a gaming PC that doubles as a great professional laptop seems to be who this machine is for. Can turn off all rgb and does not have the flashy I’m a gamer crap, and put in a CPU that’s not overpowered for the heat sync as it is finally small enough to fit in a 16” laptop bag, on top of enough battery life to be usable for a work day.
If you’re just a kid at home who wants a gaming laptop I get all your complaints. You want none of the things that make this an excellent laptop for those of us that integrate this into our workday.
Thank you for the review! Great stuff!
Did you buy this laptop model? Or is this just a rant?
@@Jasmohan Its actually arriving tomorrow. It was $1260 from Dell if it isn't still for the 185h 4070 spec. I'm just hoping the battery life for my IT work isn't worse than expected based on RUclips.
Hey Matt, would love to hear your thoughts about battery life in your line of work.
@@NotebookcheckReviews I appreciate your interest! I am a sys admin and need to connect to multiple servers, update tickets, and have a lot of communication through teams and outlook. With my initial testing it’s around 7-10 hours which is really excellent for a full fledged gaming machine. I could do 9-10 hours with an XPS with a GPU but had really mediocre performance even with a 4070 (due to being 60 watts).
I do like the laptop but there are a few cons.
Need to upgrade ram to 32GB+ as it tops out at 15GB gaming easily.
On a flat surface due to the way the rubber is designed it basically starves itself for air increasing temps roughly 10c or less. I get high 85-100c flat and 76-85c lifted. GPU runs much cooler. I have the TCC offset in the bios set to 25. It keeps the flat on the desk temperatures 83-85c.
Lunching some games with advance optimus for the first time causes a black screen and the pc basically gets stuck. This is solved by forcing the GPU to be used in the nvidia panel and launching the game once. It appears to launch without optimus crashing after doing this.
240hz is absolutely overkill for the screen. The resolution is crisp and beautiful at 1600p. Nothing gets to the 240fps range and you’re wasting CPU usage at that point that could be used to boost your 1% lows.
Alienware command center is still a little slow, if reinstalling windows, you may need to uninstall/reinstall command center as the lighting section just shows blank (stupid).
Found out late that intels NPU for AI is 30-35 TOPS not meeting Microsoft’s minimum 45 TOPS requirement for copilot+. New Ultra chips are coming, probably why there’s tons of sales on them as these are insufficient in that respect. Personally it borderlines false advertisement as the NPU is insufficient.
Everything else is really good. The laptop is solid. Power brick is small. Keyboard is nice. Once thermal adjustments are made it puts temps in a much more manageable range. Battery life is great, annoying you need to manually set your refresh rate down to 60hz. Stealth mode is useful to quickly jump into a lower power config. Having tried a 17” Razer 3080 Ti with 175 watt tdp, this bests it with half the power. Gaming performance is really great and you get a much smoother experience after the ram upgrade. I installed a 48GB crucial kit 5600 from Amazon for $100 on prime day.
My only major concern is not knowing if Meteor lake Ultra CPU’s are affected with increased failure rate like raptor lake. I don’t think they are but have no proof or mention either way.
All that said, thank goodness it was $1250 for this 185h 16GB 4070. Id pass at $1400+ unless you need the battery life and dont mind fiddling with this to get it.
To update: I am disappointed to say I am sending this back. Advanced Optimus fails to switch without causing a black screen. The computer stays on but you can’t see anything. This has happened several times after a fresh windows install and new drive. It runs fine once it’s on and already in a specific mode but you never know if the next switch is going to leave the screen off. I also found it rebooting itself and then of course when it switches the video mode I’m back to a black screen. This is my third dell pc return. There is always something that seems to be a deal breaker or major frustration.
sorry but it looks ugly compared to the old one that has an extension at the back. made it stand out
When it comes to looks, I have to agree. The original looks much more complete ... then again, the r2 is much more practical!
Not concerned with ugly. More concerned with functionality.
Although, I can't lie, it looks like a 2016 laptop.
@@benjaminngopwaamos6878 but that design also helped with thermal quite a bit, so it had some functionality
I have mine and I love it. Why are there so many haters in the comments lol?
Same bro. It's amazing.
the laptop will fail.. mark my words. Dont game a lot if you dont want the laptop to fail because of thermals
@@dtox316 What makes you say that?
@@jordanbell2244 I had 2 alienwares fail on me in the past year
@@dtox316 u know nothing lol
8gb vram is just not a good option anymore
Where did you personally ran into trouble?
@@NotebookcheckReviews 1440p resolution with ultra textures in most games now is stuttery
This will be my next laptop most likely after my 17r3. But I am waiting until next year when the r3 comes out. I like the m18 but it is to big and heavy. And as I only will be having one laptop, the m16 seems like the perfect choice that you actually can bring with you. The x16 is just to expensive and big to justify. And it has soldered ram... I will use it mostly for work with 3D, photo and movie editing. Hope I do the correct pick.
Sounds like a good plan. What GPU would you be going for?
@@NotebookcheckReviews The highest option available with the r3, so that most likely mean the RTX 4070/5070 :)
Overall look is meh 🫤 Not sure is it colour issue or its design thing 😢 Why Alienware cant get the same designers as ASUS, I mean without Alienware logo it looks like noname chinese brand laptop. Hardware is decent just the package sucks :(( Nowadays most of brands can offer amazing performance for a good price, how the hell Alienware wants to be competitive with such as poor design
What bothers you about it?
@@NotebookcheckReviewsI’ve already explained 😑
display on Alienware continues to be a joke, such a missed opportunity
Is Ultra 7 RTX 4070 version with 32 gigs of ram worth $1350
Sounds like a good deal to me!
@@NotebookcheckReviews ok thanks 😊. I'll look into it
No displayport, so you can't see more colours on good monitors, hdmi just sucks. Also Inverted motherboard design is good over traditional cooling design. Battery Life is good on R2 because of weak CPU, you can also extend R1's battery life by Limiting cpu power as R2. Finally Removing tron light from back is making design as Garbage. I recommend R1 over R2
Make Video On Dell Alienware x16 R2 2024 RTX 4080
Coming soon!
@@NotebookcheckReviews Thanks But In Detail Video ! Please ! Do ASAP
I'm sorry but the Alienware laptops never really caught my eye, their design looks like something an edgy teen would come up with.
I prefer a sleek, elegant and subtle design which can be easily integrated anywhere, like the Asus Zephyrus (2024) and the Razer Blades (to some extent... as I find that huge snake logo cringy as hell...)
Almost, they nailed it? This is far from perfect. Even after you pointed out the flaws, I don't know how you can put such a clickbait title.
Even with its flaws, the M16 is still a solid option for a gaming notebook, in my opinion.
If you disagree, that is totally fine! ;)
thinner means even worse thermals than before. hard pass
I bought the laptop and it’s really good. No issues with thermals whatsoever . I was using a 2019 17 inch predator Helios before this and this is one is on par thermally.
No full size SD reader: instant pass, instant click away, instant never bare a second eye, nothing more annoying, no bigger deal breaker, Legion 7i still reigns supreme as the best 16 inch gaming laptop.
Poor ppi and nits monitor. Plastic chassis with only cover in Al. No thanks. Good video however...👍
QHD is not high-res enough for you?
Have you ever experience the recent Alienware's in person? They are quality machine, nothing "plasticky" about them!
@@NotebookcheckReviews yes I had refunded a m18 R2 recently. Try to remove the back panel to remove RAM, the keyboard panel will it Flex. 150 ppi is it very poor sorry. These are good laptop but I remember X17 with magnesium chassis and 4k monitor and 500 nits...🤷
@@simonefiorini8298 The RTX 4070 can't really go above 2560x1600 because it's heavily GPU limited above that resolution unless you heavily use DLSS and DLSS FG, and even then, the battery life compromises might be another issue.
@@cameronbosch1213m18 R2 have 4090 but same resolution and nits.
@@simonefiorini8298 But that's using a much bigger chassis, a more power hungry HX CPU, and isn't really comparable to this for those reasons.
The worst redesign ever
Why?
It's obviously seen on the momebts where they together- the r1 is iconic, like was area51m, and now m18
@@NotebookcheckReviewsHe likes big ass
@@NotebookcheckReviewsits not running 240 when im playing fort but 144 when plugged in the chsrger?
It's like they fucking made it look like a cheaper bulking fat crust of a left over pizza slice literally like Asus g16 and legion i5 pro ,bro have a look at the competition?
First 👀
woop, woop
Garbage
OK... Why tho?