Alienware M15 R3 Full Review (2020)

If you’re even slightly familiar with the gaming, you must have heard the name Alienware.

The company was established in 1996 and since then, it has become one of the popular brands to manufacture devices solely for the purpose of gaming. 

The design of Alienware M15 R3 is quite similar to its previous model, that was released in 2019, as it has the same kind of look but with more superior features.

Something that I really find cool about this laptop is the Alienware logo that lights-up as you turn on the computer.

Although it may look similar to the previous model, you can definitely say that it is sexier, slimmer and more powerful. There’s also a trim around the panel which decreases the impact when you close the lid.

In the process of making it unique, Alienware’s M15 R3 chassis is added with a black color option.

It is also mounted with a 720p webcam that means you can record yourself and the gameplay and upload it on the internet at high quality.

The RGB lighting on each key along with the honeycomb design for cooling chambers adds extra beauty to the computer.

With all these features of the cooling system, powerful battery and processor, extremely great display and four speakers, I think the weight of the alienware m15 R3 is pretty balanced as it weighs around 2.5 kg.

Now, I know that there are plenty of laptops who’re lighter than m15 r3 but i am sure they aren’t as powerful as this laptop.

There are plenty of ports on the three sides- rear, left and right, of this device. Right flank holds 2x Type-A super speed USB 3.1 ports and a SD card reader (is extremely fast at transfer speed).

On the rear, you’ll find HDMI 2.0b, 1.4 Mini-Display Port, Type-C USB charging or Thunderbolt 3, Graphics Amplifier and DC port.

The left side has a noble lock, Gen 1 Type-A 3.1 USB and an audio jack. But if you’re wondering about the front, it doesn’t have any connectivity.

The M15 R3 has a strong N-Key Rollover (NKRO) keyboard that gives 1.77mm of travel and the RGB lighting on each key helps you to type even in dark.

Moreover, the anti-ghosting technology makes the gaming experience more better as you can type multiple keys at once or share the same keyboard with a friend.

The touchpad looks classy and is made up of glass which gives a smooth feeling.

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There are plenty of panel options for this laptop and the lowest one, which is 15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080), is of 144Hz that comes with the slow 7ms response time, contrast ratio of 800:1, NTSC gamut-72%, average 300-nit brightness and 800:1 contrast ratio. I feel that these features are not so bad but they aren’t good either.

The screen size remains the same even in the middle range display but with a higher refresh rate of 300 Hz which is a fascinating feature for users who love smooth and uninterrupted gaming.

More factors like 300 nits of brightness, response time of 3ms, 1000:1 contrast ratio and screen with 100% sRGB color gamut is enough to blow your mind.

However, if HD quality is insufficient then you can choose to go with 15.6″ OLED UHD (3840 x 2160) which is an ultra HD 4k display but you’ll have to sacrifice the fast refresh rate of 300 Hz and settle with 60 Hz.

This display has the most powerful contrast ratio(100,000:1), DCI-P3 color gamut(100%) and brightness(approx 400-nit) with Tobii eye-tracking technology which will surely give you the feeling of real-life gameplay.

The medium range Alienware M15 R3 model uses Intel Core  i7-10750H (12MB Cache, up to 5.1GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0) which is a 10th gen CPU.

That combined with a graphics card of Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super with 6 core processor and  16 GB of RAM makes it one of the fastest gaming laptops on the earth.

The speed doesn’t matter if you cannot store your favourite games. So in order to provide more storage, it has dual 512GB SSDs which means a total space of more than 1 TB. This laptop is a perfect example of beauty with the brain.

You can also choose to go with lower specs of Intel Core i5-10300H with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 with 4-core processor, 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD storage and 8 Gb ko RAM.

Or with the most highest specs which uses 10th Generation Intel Core i9-10980HK with 32 gb of RAM and 4 terabyte of storage which is provided by 2x 2TB SSDs. It uses the most powerful GPU of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080.

One thing that users have always been complaining about gaming laptops is the excessive heat produced by the device.

The engineers at Dell figured out that mounting a laptop with only a fan is not enough for heat dissipation and the laptop needed to have an airflow.

To achieve that, four different chambers are created inside the device with two fans.

Among which, two vents that’re placed in the top and bottom are used to pull in cool air with the help of a fan whereas the other fan exhales the hot air out of the rear and side vents.

The sleeve bearing fire resistant fans, uses 3 phase fan control, contributes to less friction and manufacturing cost.

So as to achieve real life gaming experience, along with a great display, a gaming laptop should also have great speakers. And according to me, Alienware M15 R3 (all models) has one of the, if not the, best speakers in the market.

The four way stereo speaker design creates an illusion that the sound is being heard from different directions just like in natural hearing which is even better with headsets.

This laptop also comes with Discrete Smart Amp Woofer technology which enhances the audio quality and monitors the life of a speaker.

The audio in R3 is superior to previous devices with an increase in 2.5x bass and 2x treble along with 30% more volume.

Our team at TheBlogByte have reviewed many gaming laptops and frankly speaking, the battery life of Alienware M15 R3 was quite disappointing for us.

When we ran  the 720p video in full brightness along with several tabs on google and multiple apps in the background.

The battery couldn’t even last for 3 hours and survived for only 2 hours and 40 minutes. However, the battery lasted for seven hours when we only watched the movie offline.

The battery comes in two variants-56 Wh and 86 Wh. The one that we examined was of 86 Wh and from empty to full, it recharged in slightly less than 2 hours which is a very short recharging time for a battery which lasts for 7 hours.

Pros:

  • Attractive design.
  • Upgraded sound settings.
  • Vapour chamber technology for heat dissipation.
  • Higher refresh rate.
  • 4k on a 15 inch display.
  • Max storage of 4TB.
  • NKRO keyboard with RGB lighting.
  • Eye tracking feature.
  • Powerful graphics card.
  • Extremely fast processor.
  • Various specs options.

Cons:

  • Slightly heavy.
  • Highest specs laptop is very expensive.
  • Battery drains quickly.

Some words meaning from this article.

1) What is keyboard ghosting?

Keyboard ghosting is a malfunction, where when a user presses multiple keys at once or at a high speed, that causes some keystrokes to get lost.

2) What causes anti ghosting problem?

This is mainly because of the incapability of a keyboard to process simultaneous signals at the same time. Limitation in between hardware and software to report the maximum number of keystrokes can also be another factor for this incapability. But it is mostly caused when you use low quality cheap keyboards.

3) What is anti ghosting technology?

The keyboard ghosting problem is solved by anti-ghosting technology. Fingerboards having this technology sends an uninterrupted signal to the PC in the same order as the user pressed them so every keystroke is recognized by the computer. It becomes helpful mostly in gaming or when you share the same keyboard with your friend. It is because of these reasons that many gaming laptops now a days have keyboards that come with this technology.

About Sharad Raj Aryal

Sharadraj Aryal has been a writer since 2 years. His speciality is to write SEO articles for businesses that want to leap their website's google ranking. He provides content and article writing services. His educational background in Science and Computers has helped him in writing tech articles. His writing skills can be seen on washingappliances.com, cameraleads.com and theblogbyte.com.

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