Alienware 17 R2 (2014)

The new Alienware 17 is a powerful, well-built laptop that should fit the needs of most gamers well. While the Radeon M290X in our review unit provided slightly less capable graphics processing than the GTX 880M, it is also sold for less. You’ll have...

Rugged yet pretty chassis ; Exceptional performance ; Customizable 10-zone lighting system

Relatively short battery life ; Could use a better keyboard and trackpad

The Alienware 17 is undeniably attractive and incredibly powerful, but only hardcore gamers will want to take this 9.5-pound beast on the road.

Sleek design, with distinctive lighting effects and solid construction. Quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and latest Nvidia graphics card.

Pricey. Limited portability. Battery is sealed in chassis.

Conclusion There's no doubt that the Alienware 17 continues the company's reputation for having high-quality, high-performance gaming laptops. A premium price comes with certain expectations, however, and with the less expensive Digital Storm Krypton...

expressive design (a matter of taste), looks like high-quality materials are used, largely resistant to fingerprints, stable, well-crafted case, light effects as only offered by Alienware, future-proof thanks to the optional graphics amplifier,...

no access to fans and battery without disassembly, unusual keyboard layout, suboptimal use of the Turbo technology, GPU throttles slightly under load, very loud in extreme scenarios, during the stress test: throttling and clock rate changes erratically

Alienware significantly shrunk the new device compared to its predecessors and accepted slightly louder fans in return. Unfortunately, the performance suffers from not optimal use of the CPU turbo, minor throttling during the stress test and slight...

Expensive; poor battery life; heavy; TN panel; loud fan

Expensive; poor battery life; heavy; TN panel; loud fan

Dell delivers a great gaming laptop choice with the Alienware 17. Not only does it perform well for gaming, but has plenty of hard drive space for storage and more than enough ports to accommodate multiple USB devices. As well, the HDMI port allows you...

Stupendous gaming performance, Impressive application capabilities, Striking physical design, Excellent build quality, High-quality keyboard

Heavy, thick body, Battery rapidly depletes during games, Small trackpad, Loud, unrefined speakers, Very expensive

Thinner and aggressive new look ; More efficient cooling ; Stealthy Tobii integration

New shape may not fit in your bag

This 17-inch laptop might be our favorite new addition to the Nvidia Pascal-powered gaming notebook family.

The Alienware 17 isn't perfect – a laptop costing this much really ought to include a proper solid-state drive, and maybe 16 GB memory too. And, of course, its sheer size and weight mean that it's rarely going to leave home. However it provides...