Best Alienware laptop buyer’s guide

Out of the new Alienware X15 and X17, we’ve gone for the larger X17 with its 17.3-inch display for our premium pick of the best Alienware laptops, and the key reason is the high power limit of its core components. The X17 packs either a RTX 3060 with a 115W TGP + 15W with Dynamic Boost, an RTX 3070 with 125W + 15W, or an 150W + 15W RTX 3080, which are all very respectable for a laptop of this thin, practically unheard of in fact. By contrast the Alienware X15 is hampered by its smaller size, and the performance of the CPU and GPU options can’t match up to the larger version. This is not to say the X15 is a bad laptop, but it suffers compared to the competition in FPS performance in-game, whereas the X17 is a heavy hitter.

The other advantage of the X17 of course is the greater immersion in-game that you get with a 17.3” display, and given the light and thing design, the increased size disadvantage doesn’t hamper the portability of the X17 too much, although the large powerbrick of the RTX 3080 version does somewhat. In terms of color gamut, the 1080p display variant has 100% sRGB coverage, high contrast and peak brightness, making it suitable for any color-based workflows in this space. The 1440p option has superior Adobe RGB color replication, but at the cost of response time and refresh rate.

Of the different resolution options: the 1080p 360Hz version that should be the priority for those interested in squeezing out the maximum frames. The 360Hz refresh rate is more than high enough for any kind of competitive gaming, and the stated 1ms response time (whilst likely significantly higher in practice) is absolutely superb. This is also the only version which comes with G-Sync and most importantly a MUX switch. For the 1440p option, 120Hz is quite sufficient for both single-player titles and online first-person shooters, as long as you’re not playing at the competitive level; the slower stated 4ms response time is also still pretty damn good, but given the lack of MUX Switch we’d only recommend this to people interested in using their laptop for creative workflows.

In terms of other features, the mechanical keyboard of the X17 is a nice inclusion and feels great to use, though it doesn’t come with a numpad which may bother some. The different colored trackpad is also great and responsive. The selection of ports is good and includes a microSD card slot. The motherboard is of the flipped variety, making it more difficult to upgrade the GPU and CPU should you wish to, but at least the RAM can be upgraded.

For the battery life, you can expect around 5 hours of general, non-game usage for the RTX 3070 version at least (with brightness set to mid-settings and battery saver one) which isn’t amazing but its about average for a gaming laptop of this power, and certainly better than most older Alienware laptops.

Everything considered, this is the best slimline 17-inch gaming laptop on the market. Although other, more powerful 17-inch laptops exist (Like the ASUS Zephyrus 17) they don’t have the thin body and portability of this sublime-looking Alienware X17. The only real issue (and it’s not a small issue) is the very high asking price. If you want the pinnacle in mobile gaming tech though, this is it.