Alienware AW15R2-8469SLV 15.6-Inch UHD Laptop (6th Generation Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD + 256 GB SATA SSD) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M, Microsoft Signature Edition, Windows 10 Home), Silver

Overall, impressive laptop. There were a few minor snags right out of the box which took several hours to resolve (super annoying)- apparently there is a KNOWN problem with the Killer wireless adapter and Windows 10 which = no wifi until fixed. It appears the most recent driver on Dell's site fixes the problem but you have to uninstall, reinstall, etc. the out of the box driver.There are also several other pretty important updates that don't load automatically when connected so you have to go in and do them manually either from Dell's site or the device manager (ie an 11/2015 BIOS update, audio drivers, etc.). I get having to do updates out of the box but this seemed much more intensive and time consuming than the several other laptops I've purchased (and built, and rebuilt) in the past. It seems to be Windows 10 growing pains from what I can tell BUT once all that was taken care of, it's been running flawlessly. I want to give the laptop 4.5 stars, so I opted to give it 5. Windows 10 is the love child of 7 and 8. I'm still getting used to it but it's not too bad other than the SNAFU with the networking/wifi out of the box. The sound is incredible for a laptop- normally I couldn't care less about this but i was immediately impressed.I'm glad I went with the FHD display instead of UHD, based on some research. Basically, the FHD is a nice, non-glare matte screen with more true to print colors whereas the UHD is glossy, ultra saturated for movies/media but images looks completely different if/when printed than they do on screen. The keyboard is solid and non-cramped. And, I freaking love the the customization options with the backlighting and you can easily turn it off with a key stroke. The touch pad is responsive and easy to move or do gestures on (and yes, you can also have this light up too). While I was installing the bazillion updates and rebooting several times, it did seem a little slow for an SSD. However, from a powered off state it takes seconds until you hit the login screen. I believe you can adjust to a quick boot in BIOS but I haven't checked yet to see if that solves the lag on the reboots. Battery life is also impressive for the size and power of the device. I had 5 or so hours on battery and still had about 20-25% remaining while doing all the installs, updates, etc. I'm not a gamer but use some heavy programs simultaneously. Even with the downloading, updating, several processes, browser tabs, etc. open this beast didn't slow down one bit. It's quiet and the cooling seems to be top notch. I may see if a cooling pad I have helps even more but so far I haven't needed it at all. My only minor gripe is that a 15+" laptop really should have it's own CD/DVD drive but that didn't seem to be an option on any of the AWs. I was torn between a 13" and 15" AW but getting the specs I wanted either wasn't possible in the 13" or made it so much more expensive, I may as well go with the 15". Overall, I'm glad I went with the 15- there's a heck of a lot of screen real estate considering the couple inch difference. Initially I had been looking at the Microsoft SurfaceBook but once I stopped laughing at the insane price (~$3k for similar specs to this AW), I started researching the various Alienwares, MSI, HP ZBooks, etc. Yes, you can get similar specs but I found I had to compromise in one area significantly to get another spec I wanted- especially on the processor or RAM, neither of which were something I was willing to compromise on. Compared to several other high end laptops like this one that I had been researching, this one seems to provide more value for the $$$ unless you have no issue paying $2-3k for a laptop. Will definitely update if anything changes but this thing is freaking phenomenally fast. Love it.

Other's may have had a good experience with this laptop, but me . . . not so much. First off, I must say that the design of the laptop is great. I love the tactile surface of the keyboard, the screen is beautiful and the layout is good. Alienware was supposed to the be the best. So, upon opening the box I see a laptop with no seals, no wrapping and the bottom has some white powdery material. Hmm . . . is this an open box item? Ok well I fire it up and use it, everything appears to be working good. Fast forward a few days and I get curious about the 1TB hard drive and thinking about replacing it with an SSD. I remove bottom access panel and one of the screws won't unthread. Looks like the nut in the frame of the computer broke off and the screw isn't attached to anything. The access panel "snaps" in, so a broken fastener is not a big deal. Fast forward a few more days and I notice that the screen bezel is separating from the screen. There is an illuminated "ALIENWARE" logo just below the screen and I can see light leaking between the gap of the screen and bezel. Now I'm done . . . unacceptable. I give the 1-800-ALIENWARE support number a try hoping I can ship free back to them and have them replace this low quality assembled piece of junk. 1:04 hours on the phone and at one point getting a human just to be shuffled to another line and I'm done. Alienware and Dell had their chance to impress me with the greatest laptop on the planet and they failed. Thanks to Amazon for their generous return policy, it went back yesterday.

This is an amazing laptop but it did not come perfect out of the box. If you don't have somewhat of a PC technical background this will be troublesome for you. First, Nvidia's Graphics Driver needs to be uninstalled and the latest version needs to be applied. The one that's included is straight buggy and unresponsive. Also, two days into gaming the laptop completely lost track of the 970m GPU and it was running off of Intel's Integrated Graphics. It simply would not recognize or find the chipset until the BIOS was updated. Also, I received the BAD_POOL_HEADER blue screen after the system resumed from sleep every single time. This was a direct result of Dell Support Assist that's pre-installed on your system. Uninstalling then updating the Dell Foundation Services, Dell Digital Delivery, and grabbing the latest Version of Dell Support Assist will resolve the issue. Just removing Dell Support Assist will fix the issue as well. This can all be found on Dell's website. After all of the drivers and software were updated, this system performs flawlessly! I can run anything in High Settings with a lovely FPS to boot. The fans are also very efficient in keeping this thing cool. The option for using an external Graphics Amplifier is the true selling point. You can purchase the Alienware Graphics Amplifier and run the latest Graphics Card that's on the market! Laptop Gamers are no longer held back from GPU upgrades. The lighting is especially awesome, basically if it lights up you can change the color of it. The software that controls the lighting is also very impressive. With a little work out of the box, this system will game for you no problem. The build quality is exceptional, it's a solid rig that performs well. Update - 12/21/2016 - 4 months later and the system is still performing without any issues. It is used practically every day for gaming purposes.

When the system is working correctly its great. However the unit I got has had a few issues. Lighting controls not responding and a major problem with the screen. After about an hour of use the screen looks like it has a burned in image like and old plasma tv. I recovered back the factory setting and checked windows and video drivers for updates but that didn't do the trick. I called DELL and they had me run diagnostics that showed that there is no problem. The double exposure still shows up even in bios after a reboot. This also causes the screen the flicker very fast. Finally I hooked it up to an external monitor. The external monitor looked just fine while the laptop was still displaying the ghosting image. Oddly this seems to go away after a few hours but keeps coming back. I will be returning this product for a new one since it is a good laptop. Also they really need an option to get a external blu-ray player with this. Modern games take way to long to download. I install gigabit internet for a living but I went out of town just after I got this and it took a whole day to download a game over a cable connection {It was a slow cable connection with bright house}. The point being internet speed around the country is not ready to replace disk media fully just yet. Also the intel hd video driver constantly crash while browsing the internet. The rubber skin on the laptop feels great but it looks dirty as soon as you use it do to the oil in your skin. System boots ultra fast when its working correctly. Its very disappointing to have such a big problem right out of the box on such an expensive unit. I will try to return this to amazon instead of having dell fix it. I want a unit that is flawless from the get go on such an expensive laptop.

Excellent gaming laptop. With Alienware, you're usually paying a little extra for the look, but I think it's worth it as this thing looks pretty awesome. I'm not going to get into the specs much with this review because that information is available elsewhere. Pros: -Very fast laptop with lots of memory (If interested in comparisons of specs, see any tech site on the internet :P) I just finished playing the last installment of the Starcraft II series on Ultra settings. It looked beautiful and ran incredibly well! -Fully customize-able LEDs (colors, patterns, themes, etc.) I think there are about 12 different zones on the inside and outside of the laptop that can all be customized independently. This was something that I was a little worried about because all I saw was the ugly yellow in all the pictures from Dell and wasn't sure if you could actually change them all. Rest assured, you can! -Macro keys are kinda cool (haven't messed around with them too much at this point) -1080p display (this model) is very good. (Not sure if the 4K display is worth the extra $400 cost on a 15" display) -Very slick look on the outside. -Capable of combining with the Alienware Graphics Amplifier (peripheral that is sold separately which allows you to essentially add an extra graphics card) Note: after paying $1500-$2000 for a laptop, you then would need to pay ~$300 for the Amplifier, then $XXX for another video card... Doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Anyway, I haven't seen a need for it yet since the laptop on it's own is quite a beast. Cons: -No number pad (not a big deal, but I got used to it on my other 15" Asus laptop) -If you're utilizing the trackpad for prolonged gaming be warned that there is a rather sharp edge (not like razor sharp :), but uncomfortable to rest your palm against) on the front of the laptop (below the trackpad) that is rather uncomfortable. (I already hear you, "Just get a mouse dummy!" and that is a good solution, but I like to play games on the couch and don't always have a place for the mouse/pad). Just something to keep in mind. :) -The trackpad is a little odd for me (may just need a software update or something) because I'll be scrolling down a page and suddenly it will jump all the way to the bottom... Still haven't figured out why it's so sensitive or if I'm doing something wrong, I did try changing a bunch of the settings, but no luck so far. (If anyone knows, please feel free to let me know! Thanks!) Overall, I really like the laptop and would buy it again. Hope this review helps.

This is actually my second Alienware 15 laptop. The first one had to be returned after the speakers started to hiss, crackle and pop. Then suddenly the sound went out then the whole laptop shut down abruptly. Keep in mind this happened within the first 20 minutes of using this laptop for the first time. I was able to get it restarted, but the sound is completely out. Tried updating drivers etc, but to avail, so I returned it and requested a replacement. It seems like a few other buyers of the Alienware 15 have gotten "bad" laptops due to one issue or another and have either flat out returned them or requested a replacement. The second one seems to be holding up so far, except for a minor light leak at the bottom left of the screen. I've decided that I can live with it. I could ask for a new replacement, but heaven knows what problems the replacement might have. Thus far, this laptop works and runs all of my games flawlessly. One thing that I have noticed is that the screen seems a bit dim and dull as far as color goes. But from what I've researched, a lot of other owners of this laptop have noticed the same thing. In addition, the trackpad has some minor issues such as skipping and lagging, but I use a mouse so it's not a big issue for me. The Alienware 15 is a good gaming laptop as long as you get a good working one. If you do intend on buying an Alienware 15, it's like playing Russian roulette, and you may end up with a bad one. So make sure you go over the laptop carefully and check everything out. EVERYTHING! The good thing is that buying from Amazon, you could return it for a replacement! So good luck! And if anyone from Alienware is reading this, what the hell? QC process a bit flawed maybe? Am I happy with my current Alienware 15 laptop? Yes I am!

I have had it for about a month now and I love it. I have the 970, 256 SSD, Skylake version and it blows through everything I can throw at it. Boots to windows login, in about 5 to 7 seconds, then its ready to go after login right away. Now the one thing I'm a bit "iffy" about is the screen. It's not bad! but it's not the best I've used either. It seems a little dim to me even at full brightness. I'm used to the MSI Dominator series screens so it may be just me. My favorite part about this laptop for me is the keyboard. The keyboard is fantastic! The texture on the keys is not sticky but it doesn't let your fingers slip off the keys. It almost has a rubbery feel to it. The trackpad is ok like all windows trackpads, i accidentally hit it every now and then. Alot of people say that this computer runs really hot, well not mine. It runs warm but it's never really been "hot". I do run some graphically intensive games on it from time to time and when it's in my lap i feel it getting warm but I try to make sure part of the vent on the bottom is clear and it stays at a good temp. I also dont mind that the computer is plastic now, I actually like it alot, mine doesn't show finger prints at all which is awesome. It feels plasticy but not cheap which is important to me. The inside feels the same as the keyboard texture, grippy kind of rubbery like. I also see people complaining about the weight. It's a gaming laptop and an Alienware. They are never light, ever. Overall this is one of the best laptops that I have ever bought, and I would not hesitate to buy any of the other Aienware laptops on the market because if this. If you are a gamer and you have the money for this I'd say go for it, you really wont be disappointed.

I had high hopes for this laptop. Alienware has a loyal following, and a reputation for being great gaming systems. That’s exactly what I was looking for. When I received the laptop everything was great, for a short time. I started getting the Windows 10 blue screen all the time relative to the graphics card. Not Alienwares’ fault. I called tech support, and tried several things. Finally, it looked like all was resolved. The very next day, I started getting the same errors. I called tech support again, and they had me send the laptop in to them for diagnosis and repair. They found an issue with the on-board graphics card competing with the NVIDIA card that was installed. They supposedly fixed the error and sent the laptop back to me. They had to wipe the hard drive and re-install the operating system. I went through the Windows setup process again, put my stuff back on the computer, and went on my way. 3 days later I’m experiencing the same thing. I called tech support, again, and was told I would have to re-install the OS again. They were going to send me a USB stick with the operating system on it and they were going to walk me through installing it. They were supposed to call me to do this, but didn’t. I ended up calling them the day after they were supposed to call me. I got the run-around from them, and was ultimately told that the department I needed to walk me though it was gone for the day. I was told to call back the following day, which was a Saturday. I called on Saturday and was told the department I needed was only available M-F, and to call back on Monday. The main reason for buying this laptop was for doing 3D solid modeling for school, and by this time the semester is half over. I called Amazon to return it, and even though it was outside their 30 day return window, they took it back because of the time it took to get support from Dell. Amazon was great. I immediately purchased an ASUS ROG laptop, and have been extremely pleased with it. After my experience with Dell/Alienware, I cannot support their product or customer service, which is unfortunate. I have never had an issue with Dell customer support prior to this. Maybe I just got a lemon, but, I still won’t buy another Alienware computer.