Alienware 17 R5

Purchased the laptop to be able to edit 4K UltraHD videos for YouTube. Extremely fast, no lag, no delays and fast rendering. I7 6 core processor with 16GB memory. Really happy with the purchase. Build Quality is excellent, I had an M17x R1 so I was used with the quality of Alienware products. The downside is that is heavy and it has only 2 USB ports. But for me this is not an issue, as I use it as a desktop replacement. Battery is non removable. Also I was able to pay for it in 5 interest free installments of £350.

Very good Gaming laptop, excellent screen but battery life very limited and oversized according to current gaming laptop standards.

Few days ago I purchased my first ever gaming laptop alienware r5 17 gtx1070, and today after 1 hour of playing the screen started to blink and then went black, I contact amazon and they were nice to put me through with dell, tomorrow my laptop will be back to dell after 2 days and god knows when I will have it back or replaced, I'm very disappointed Update, turned on after few days managed to go in bios and restored defaults settings now working very well

Been meaning to review a while! Just a quick one for now... Really like this, would buy again. Not the R5 though, after a ton of research, fiddling and scouring Ebay I got an R4. Reason being the R5 motherboards all have G-Sync, which halfs the batter life. I bought it For the battery life and build quality mainly. Also other things like storage and track pad etc. The battery life would be a deal breaker. The speakers aren't as good as the MSi GE63 I had before either, although they have bass, they could do with an extra watt each, maybe 1/2 watt. Also the cooling is, well, rubbish. For some reason, Dell insist on using toothpaste! Look up 'iUnlock' on Own or Disown's youtube channel and you'll seen he gets the temps down on an R4 by 30c! He bent the tripod heatsink and used liquid metal. Not something people would wanna do on a £2K laptop from new. It's a right mission to get inside too. The R5 has a much better heatsink though (I'm not sure if the motherboards fit in the chassis. I could try with my 2 machines but ther'es no reason to open the R5). Also only 2 measly USB slots?! 3 minimum please. technically it has 4 but they are very small and things could easily get broken. I'm using an 2 external keyboards with an old style adapter for work in 2 rooms! It's not THAT sturdy either, whne you pick it up (it's like 4.2KG approx) the bottom flexes and so can the chassis bit. No way can you hold it with one hand, but then I knew that. The exhaust sticks out the back, and is plastic, so would be easy to break (the R4 I have looks like it was dropped/fell and that bits cracked). I wouldn't want the newer thinner ones with weedy speakers and 90 deg temps...even with liquid metal paste! Good DJ laptop too (though this never sit well on top of a Technics deck! The 13 R3 might be feasible but I see the top DJ's use MAC's. Overpriced underpowered overheated things you can't upgrade? No thanks. They don't even do 17 inch screens!) OK enough Overall I like this a lot. In the future I may get another mother board (6 core 8750h versions exist for the R4, but only have the GTX 1060, I haven't seen any others). Oh you can get the external graphics amp too for gaming longevity. I never play games but will probably do when I do some online dating and when I visit my cousins. I've done some video editing on the MSi though and horsepowers also useful Will write more soon... UPDATE 27 Jun 2020 Did some video editing on it. It was lush! 17 inch screen and easy to upgrade hard drive. Also thunderbolt could surely be used, maybe not now, but in the future. Rendering hit 99C before the fans kicked in (and I'm certain they never maxed out), so you'd have to fiddle with your power settings when you render, then turn them all the way up when they kick in, if you can be bothered (8750h with Nvidia card active from G-Sync). I'm sending the R4 off to see if the motherboard can be repaired. It's the 7820HK + GTX 1080, so if it can I may get a 180W I tghink it is heatsink from Ebay, but will have to bend the tripod heatsink abit and use the right pads or one of the cores will be toast on that! Rewatched iUnlocks videos with OwnorDisown, apparently at the time Dell fixed the overheating with the R4's by changing the pads slightly (which was the problem) and using actual thermal paste, not a stamp. I don't know if this is the Kabylake, or whether they did it with the skylake processors, but you can look those videos up. Why they use a A tripod heatsink, so you have to use liquid metal instead of Green Goo, doesn't make sense a mere earthling like me... Maybe I'll update again Update 11th Feb 2021 Yeah still really like this. I figured out how to do GPU rendering in Kdenlive to make rendering times twice as fast so it'll last a lot longer. Overall I like everything about it, apart from; - The exhaust sticks out the back and is plastic - The sound just isn't enough, need more volume, like 1 watt each on the speakers maybe? - The battery, is, well, just liability The plastic exhaust isn't easy to break, I bumped into a few doors walls and it's fine, which is one of the reasons I bought this. But when you pick this up (zero chance of doing one handed, unlike their thin and light models or the razer blade pro maybe), and feel the slightly flimsy base cover and exhaust, then carry it around, and have to keep plugging it in, is it worth it? I think it actually contributes to neckache ha. Plus if feels hot underneath. Yeah I'd prefer the Razer Blade Pro I thinbk, but that was much more at the time. This has plenty of storage though. Plus it doesn't look too childish in the board room (well, not much). I'd take this over that though, as long as it has that 99.9 Whr nbattery. You could buy another camera with the money you save. Oh, yeah I'm on the path to becoming a high paid network engineer now...so the thin and light Blade/AW would be my choice. But then I'll use my works laptops, and maybe my fancy new Samsung Phone. Not sure yet. Maybe Blade 13 stealth, just to carry around anywhere with one hand and not have to worry about bashing it. But that's slower processor. Can't win!

looks cool, games good, RGB madhead and its a fluffing SPACESHIP!!!!