Dell Alienware Brand is much more likely to grab attention when you roam around with it, rather than other gaming laptops. The Alienware laptops are surely a power horse when it comes to specifications, and same is the case with the Dell Alienware 17 R4.
With a 7th Generation Kaby Lake Processor, and a dedicated Nvidia GTX 1070, the laptop might be a suitable choice for those on a budget, since the laptop is now on sale on Dell’s very own outlet. 1070 is perfect for virtual reality of the future, so you type of future proofing yourself. Also, courtesy the Tobii eye tracking, you can play games easily with your peepers. If you have the money, then we would suggest you buy the premium model, to which there is not beating easily.
Design
The laptop has an aggressive design just to cater towards gamers. There is the usual trademarked angular design on all of the Alienware laptops. It appears as if it is a spaceship coated in gun-metal grey color. Though, this has been the same for over some years. The 17-inch gaming laptop still stands out when compared to others for its aggressive looks, edges, angles and what not. There is a two-tone mix of gray and black too, which makes the laptop look premium and a class apart.
Courtesy solid aluminum which is meant to make the laptop lightweight, there is a smooth finish to the laptop chassis combined with soft plastic. On the contrary, you might be expecting Alienware to do a total makeover, but then whatever floats our boat.
There is the Alienware Logo on the lid as can be seen in the image above. The area surrounding the keyboard is in soft-touch black and keyboard in itself features a numpad too.The good thing is you can customize the laptop’s keyboard, touchpad, the logo itself and the light strips to your own liking since they are LED backlit. So in case, an all Black and grey look was to bore you, you can always play around with your creativity.
Weight and Dimensions
The Alienware 17 R4 like other gaming laptops has to compromise on portability since it has to offer the best specifications. Therefore, the laptop does weigh a lot with a mass of 9.6 pounds, which when compared with other gaming laptops in the same category is a lot more, but then it does make up for that when it comes to specs. To be honest, if you plan on gaming on the laptop, then perhaps you have a gaming environment setup, so you probably won’t be gaming on your lap or something. Therefore, this tradeoff shouldn’t matter to you.
As for the laptop’s dimensions, well the laptop measures 16.7 x 13.1 x 1.2 inches, which makes it a bit thicker when compared to other gaming laptops, but then again it shouldn’t really matter unless you are looking strictly for portability.
Ports
Being thicker and heavier does relate to an opinion that the laptop offers more ports and features, which other’s don’t. Same is the case with the Alienware 17 R4, which has USB 3.0 port on the right side along with vents for airflow. On the left side of the laptop, there is a Noble lock slot, and also the latest USB Type-C port. For backward compatibility purposes, there is another USB 3.0 port too, along with the usual headphone and microphone jacks. This doesn’t just stop here, but it would be true to say that there are literally a plethora of ports on the laptop; on the back too.
On the laptop’s rear, there is an Ethernet Port, a mini DisplayPort, a full-sized HDMI port too. There is also the Thunderbolt 3 port, near the power jack. In case you want to connect the Alienware Graphics Amp, there is a connection for that too. Through this, you can easily attach an external GPU if you want in the future for purposes of 4K gaming or Virtual Reality. Therefore, it can be safe to say, that the laptop won’t getting obsolete for another 4 or 5 years, and you can always upgrade.
Display
The laptop’s display is another strong-point, and you can choose your own display screen resolution starting from 1080p all the way up to 4K. The higher end 2560 x 1440 also boasts the Nvidia G-Sync Display, and it might be worth it to spend the extra money, since it offers better and crisp video quality, thanks to increased brightness and sharpness.
Keyboard and TouchPad
The travel is 2.3 millimeters and the keyboard is rather traditionally designed, which suits most of us. Moreover, the amount of actuation force required is around the industry standard at 75g to press a key. This combined with a large amount of space to rest your hand on, perhaps the writing speed is bound to be increased with ease of typing. Unlike the 70 words per minute speed on most keyboards, you can easily achieve up to a 105 wpm. This makes it suitable not only for gaming purposes but also for those using it for work.
Though the trackpad measuring 3.5 x 2.2 inches might feel a bit small to you, but nevertheless navigation using it is quite smooth and is largely accurate. It supports the multi-touch gestures too without any lag of sorts.
Battery Life
The battery life might be one reason why you should opt for this laptop instead of others under the gaming laptop category. This is because its battery lasts out a whopping 8 hours and 32 minutes, which is seriously a lot when compared with other laptops. This means you won’t have to plug in the laptop continuously, and can enjoy gaming without any worries. Most gaming laptops usually last out 4 minutes or so, but considering this one lasted twice more than that, it is a serious thing to consider.
Price and Configurations
There are a number of configurations for the laptop, and some even have an ongoing sale for the laptop. Just avoid the ones with 128 GB of SSD storage, as this can run out pretty fast, since games these days take easily around 50 GB plus space. The sale is on Dell’s very own outlet, which you can read further about here at http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/04/24/daily-deals-alienware-outlet-3. For instance, you can get the Alienware 17R4 Intel Core i7 GTX 1070 Laptop for $1255, after applying the code. Check it out on Amazon as well if the deal expires.