As I write this review, after over a week of using the m15, I still can't believe this is a 15-inch laptop. It looks and feels like a 13-inch laptop, yet it has a 15.6-inch 144Hz IPS FHD display. The m15 measures 14.3 x 10.8 and is 0.83-inches at its thickest, in the back, or 0.7-inches near the front of the laptop. To put that into perspective, Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Air is 0.61-inches thick, so it's very thin, especially for a gaming laptop. Overall, the m15 weighs 4.76 pounds, which is about a pound less than a standard 15" gaming notebook. Alienware offers two color options for the lid; nebula red, or epic silver.
Inside the thin chassis is an Intel Core i7-8750H CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 with Max-Q GPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The m15 has a full-sized RGB backlit keyboard that's split into four different lighting zones – three on the main keyboard, and another for the number pad. The Alienware logo power button, just above the display, and the logo on the lid also boast RGB lighting that's customizable.
As for expansion ports, the m15 has quite a few. There's a full-sized Ethernet jack, a USB 3.1 port (with PowerShare for charging your phone when the lid is closed) and a headphone jack on the left side, with two more 3.1 ports (sans PowerShare), on the right side. The back of the m15 is where you'll find the charging port, Alienware's Graphics Amplifier Port, a USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port, a miniDisplayPort, and an HDMI 2.0 port.
I would love to see Alienware take the Graphics Amplifier Port used to connect an external GPU to the laptop and make it a non-proprietary Thunderbolt port. It is a handy feature as-is, of course, as it allows you to still game with the laptop long past the GPU's shelf life by just hooking up a desktop card of your choice, but it's a shame you're forced to buy its proprietary enclosure to do so.
Alienware m15 – Software
Alienware's Command Center software is the star of the software show, and is used to view device stats, control cooling profiles, and customize keyboard lighting and effects. Overall, Alienware's Command Center software would be useful if it wasn't so hard to read. I have a hard time telling the various buttons and accompanying text apart when using the app, regardless if I'm using the dark or light theme. Actually, I think the dark theme is the worse of the two. There's just too much wasted space in the layout of the app for the buttons and text to be as small as they are.
Not only is the interface hard to read, I could never figure out how to activate some features, such as a performance profile to increase fan speed and help the system cool down. Outside of adjusting the keyboard lighting, I can't see myself ever using Command Center unless it becomes easier to read and use.
Aside from the Command Center app, Alienware also includes a handful of Alienware specific programs. The only one that's really useful is Mobile Connect to pair a smartphone with the laptop, which is helpful for reading texts while using the PC. You're on your own for any sort of virus protection, as there isn't any pre-installed, which is a beautiful thing to see.
Alienware m15 – Performance and Gaming
I ran the Alienware m15 through our series of gaming benchmarks, and overall performance fell right in line with what I experienced when testing the Razer Blade 15 and Digital Storm Equinox, both of which use the GTX 1070 Max-Q and i7-8750H processor.
When it comes to gaming on the m15 and not just running benchmarks, I had a blast using this laptop. The slim footprint left me with feeling like I was cheating, because a laptop shouldn't be this small and still have the power to play Fortnite at 115 frames per second on Epic settings. With Black Ops 4, the frame rate stayed between 95 and 105; again, with nearly all settings maxed out.
Backing off a couple of the graphical settings it would have been easy to increase the frame rate to take full advantage of the 144Hz panel, but I didn't feel like the experience was lacking with the settings I used. If anything, the display is a little undersaturated, but I'm nitpicking.
The keyboard has a reassuring feel to it, with adequate spacing between keys. I had no issue switching between typing and gaming, nor was there a learning curve at the beginning of my testing. At this price point, I would like to have per-key lighting instead of zones, but apparently it's the result of the thin chassis, as there's not enough room for the individual light switches for every key, so it's a tradeoff that I don't mind.
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