Pros & Cons
-
- Solid design.
- Excellent gaming performance.
- Full HD display is well suited to gaming.
- Customizable lighting and macro commands.
- Good sound quality.
- Sizable storage.
- Graphics are upgradable with Alienware's external Graphics Amplifier.
-
- Heavy.
- No touch capability.
Alienware 15 (Early 2015) Specs
| Graphics Memory | 3072 |
| Graphics Processor | Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M |
| Native Display Resolution | 1920 by 1080 |
| Operating System | Windows 8.1 |
| Optical Drive | external |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-4210H |
| Processor Speed | 2.9 |
| RAM (as Tested) | 16 |
| Screen Size | 15.6 |
| Tested Battery Life (Hours:Minutes) | 5:29 |
| Weight | 7.1 |
| Wireless Networking | 802.11ac (2.4+5.0 GHz Dual-band) |
The Alienware 15 ($1,499.99 at tested) is an imposing system that just sneaks under the wire to meet our pricing qualification as an entry-level gaming laptop. But boy, do you get a lot for your money. It not only delivers top-notch gaming performance, it also comes with all sorts of choice features, like customizable accent lighting, dedicated programmable macro keys, and the option to upgrade desktop-style with an external graphics card. The Alienware 15 delivers great performance and long battery life, and that's enough for it earn our Editors' Choice nod for entry-level gaming laptops.
Design and Features
The Alienware 15 is every inch a gaming rig, with a chunky design measuring 1.34 by 15.2 by 10.65 inches (HWD) and accented with glowing lights on the logo, lid and chassis. (You can set these lights to almost any color you want in the settings.) The 1.34-inch thickness and 7.1-pound weight of the chassis stands in stark contrast to other gaming laptops, which have emphasized portability with slim and light designs, such as the Razer Blade (2015), which is only 0.7-inch thick and 4.47 pounds. Instead, Alienware focused on performance, and like the MSI GE62 Apache, that means building the chassis around powerful hardware and cooling fans.
View All The 15.6-inch display offers full HD (1,920-by-1,080) resolution, which is lower than what you might see on the 2015 Razer Blade (3,200 by 1,800) or the 4K-equipped Acer Aspire V 15 Nitro (VN7-591G-70JY), but full HD still seems to be the best resolution for the form factor. We've seen that several of these higher-than-HD systems can't provide the sort of gaming performance buyers want at the resolutions offered by 3K and 4K screens. There's also no touch capability, and while there are several gaming systems that don't offer touch, it's becoming the exception rather than the rule. The laptop is outfitted with Klipsch speakers, and the sound quality is excellent.
The glowing accents on the chassis and lid are matched by a backlit touchpad and keyboard. The touchpad has the same Tron-like lighting of the chassis and lid, but the entire touchpad surface lights up. The touchpad also supports gesture controls and has separate right and left buttons. The keyboard also has some color, but here you have four distinct lighting zones and a rainbow of colors to choose from. There are also five dedicated macro keys to the left of the regular keyboard that can be programmed with up to 15 functions, and customized for any application or game. Unlike the keyboards on the Acer Aspire V 15 Nitro (VN7-591G-75S2), another top pick, and the MSI GE62 Apache, the Alienware 15 doesn't use chiclet-style keys, instead going with a more traditional keyboard design.
The thickness of the system may lead some to assume that there would be an optical drive, but surprisingly, it doesn't. However, the wide sides of the chassis offer lots of room for ports. On the left is the Power connector, a case-lock slot, two USB 3.0 ports (one with Dell's PowerShare charging), and audio jacks for headphone and microphone. On the right, you'll find two more USB 3.0 ports, along with an SD card slot and a Gigabit Ethernet port.
