Dell today introduced its slimmest Alienware laptop to date, the Alienware m15. Compared to the previous generation Alienware 15, the latest iteration is 17 percent slimmer, 30 percent smaller (volumetrically), and 38 percent lighter.
Those percentages translate to a chassis that measures 0.83 x 10.83 x 14.3 inches (21 mm x 275 mm x 363 mm) and weighs 4.76 pounds (2.16 kg). That's not quite ultrabook territory, but it's not far off either, especially for a gaming laptop. It's much more in the territory of slim Max-Q designs like the MSI GS65 and the Razer Blade, some of the best gaming laptops.
Dell is offering three display options on the Alienware m15. The base model ships with a 1920x1080 resolution IPS panel with a 60Hz refresh rate, 300 nits brightness, and 72 percent color gamut. Buyers have the option of upgrading to a faster TN panel with a 144Hz refresh rate at the same resolution, or a 4K panel with a 60Hz refresh rate, 400 nits brightness, and 100 percent coverage of the sRGB color space.
Crammed inside is an 8th generation Intel Core i7-8750H processor, a 6-core/12-thread part clocked at 2.8GHz to 4.1GHz with 9MB of L3 cache, along with a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Max-Q GPU. Chips binned for the Max-Q designation have stricter power and thermal settings to allow for the toastier confines of thinner designs.
The Alienware m15 can be configured with up to 32GB of dual-channel DDR4-2666 RAM. For storage, Dell offers a 1TB hybrid hard drive or 256GB M.2 SATA SSD for single-storage setups, or users can choose from a variety of faster and more capacious dual-storage schemes, including up to two 1TB M.2 PCIe SSDs.
We haven't spent any hands-on time with the Alienware m15, but from how Dell describes it, quite a bit of thought went into the cooling scheme. The Alienware m15 directs airflow through a dual intakes and dual exhausts, aided by load balancing heatpipes, copper fin stacks, and some fancy fan technology.
"The fire resistant, liquid-crystal polymer fan is built with 0.2mm blades, sleeve bearings, and 3-phase fan control to create less friction and circulating air more efficiently. Over 90 fan blades cooling the CPU and GPU!," Dell explains.
Sounds, uh, cool.
The Alienware m15 comes in "Epic Silver" and "Nebula Red" color options. It will be available October 25 starting at $1,299.
