Processor Intel Core i9-8950HK | RAM 32GB | Display 17.3 inches | GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 | Hard drive 512GB SSD, 1TB HDD | Dimensions 16.7 x 13.1 x 1.2 inches | Weight 9.7 pounds
Alienware doesn’t do anything halfway, and the Alienware 17 R5 is a massive portable laptop that you could easily use to replace a desktop, with both the specifications and heft to convince you it means business. This particular configuration is powered by an Intel Core i9-8950HK, which you can overclock up to 5GHzif you so choose. It has a massive 32GB of RAM and storage is handled by a 512GB SSD and 1TB hard drive.
The first thing you really see when you open the case, though, is a 17.3-inch QHD (that’s 2560×1440-pixel) display. It’s running at a fast 120Hz with Nvidia G-Sync to keep graphics in your games from tearing and bleeding. I don’t usually talk about screen brightness, because there often isn’t a huge variance in displays, but this one produces 400 nits, noticeably brighter than the 300 or so nits you’ll find in most laptops. The only real disappointment is the video card — an Nvidia GeForce 1080.
Making up for that, though, is a special treat Alienware has been including with certain high-performance models: Tobii eye-tracking. Not only can you use the Tobii camera to log in with facial recognition, Tobii eye-tracking works in around 100 games, letting you interact with the game just by looking. Want to select an object? Stare at it. It adds a whole different dimension to gameplay.
The laptop itself is a beast. The hinge-forward design puts a huge brick-shaped segment of the machine behind the screen, which means the display is closer to the keyboard — a nice ergonomic touch — and there’s room to put a lot of the ports in back, out of the way. You’ll find a single USB on the right side along with audio (for a nice set of noise-cancelling earbuds) and a USB and USB-C connector on the left. In back, though, you’ll find everything else — Ethernet, DisplayPort, HDMI, another USB-C, and more. Alienware includes a connector for its Alienware Graphics Adapter, which is an external enclosure for adding a desktop-class video card. Want to upgrade to an Nvidia GeForce 2080? You can do that with this laptop.
This is by no means an inexpensive laptop, and Alienware isn’t modest about the system’s premium heritage. It has a ton of RGB color accents (13, specifically) and per-key RGB lighting. Even the touchscreen lights up, which is a great touch. All this comes at a cost, though — the system weighs an imposing 9.7 pounds. So you might not want to travel with it very often. If you’re going all-in on a system like this but never leave the house, consider a similarly equipped desktop PC instead, like a Ryzen 9-powered PC, which will actually cost less than a similar laptop.