Review on 👽 Alienware m17 R4 Gaming Laptop (Latest Model) - Intel i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, RTX 3060, Windows 10 - Lunar Light by Adam Nelson

I switched from a very budget gaming laptop to this Alienware M15 R4. I went with a 300MHz screen and an RTX 3070 GPU powered by an Intel Core i7-10870H and 16GB of RAM to be clear which ones I'm considering. share powerful systems in recent years as I am an experienced gamer. So my reaction comes from experience.” Build Quality The look, feel, presentation and build quality are top notch. The notebook makes a solid impression. It is MUCH lighter than my previous laptop. It's not Macbook-grade, but for a gaming laptop, I'm surprised at how slim and thin it is. I work as a graphic designer, so having a big, ugly gaming computer in a client meeting was out of the question for me. Unless your customer is a gamer, they won't think about your laptop other than that glowing alien head looks damn cool! The RGB backlighting is subtle but looks fantastic. Very well designed and fully customizable or even disabled if you wish. However, the backlighting of the keys is not 100% constant. As if there's enough of it to illuminate, but there are some areas that vary in brightness. It's subtle and definitely not a deal breaker. I also noticed that when it's set to white (which I like to set during the day) it's not entirely white, but a little pink. So I manually added some blue to make it look better. Unfortunately, other reviews have received damaged items. But it should be in the seller rating, not the product rating. Please note this. Performance I start with a 300 Hz monitor. I can only say wow. Nice and bright. Clear enough. It's not 2k/4k but clean. Not sure if you need a 4k resolution laptop monitor (yet), but maybe in a few years. The refresh rate for gaming is amazing. Seeing FPS hit 200 in some games is just butter. I like the screen. GPU 3070. For me, this GPU was the best choice. It's not as overpriced as the 3080 or 3090 (or hard to find), so I can save a few hundred bucks, but it won't be obsolete in a year or two, and I have a feeling the 3060 comes close . Regardless of its value, this GPU handles most of the AAA games I've run on it. Everything looks great and smooth as silk. And when I'm doing graphics, editing videos, or even making 3D models, it doesn't miss a beat. And I can also say that the GPU in this machine handles heat very well. I rarely push it to the max. And although the Alienware software allows me to overclock the GPU, I left it in default mode and it works phenomenally. Which brings us to the Intel Core i7-10870H processor. It's a great processor, multithreaded, latest design, works great. It can handle games and moreover, it handles my work with motion graphics and 3D modeling with ease. However, it runs very hot in this chassis. So much so that I often max it out at 100C. Good thing I keep a close eye on it and sometimes I just need to take a break after playing a little AAA game. I find that when I run both the GPU and CPU fans, the cooling works better, but that's unfortunate because the fan noise gets louder. They're not evil fans by any means, but a fan is a fan nonetheless, and it would be nice not to worry all the time. I'm sure it's also a by-product of how thin the laptop is, so I'd go for a thinner design any day if I had to choose. You just have to find a good cooling pad that works. Now for the big disappointment. RAM is fixed and cannot be changed. Although I usually get 2999MHz from the RMA, as someone who enjoys tinkering, it was hard to make a decision. Mainly because gaming laptops that you can tinker around with are often big and clunky, which isn't what I wanted for this round. I understand why companies make this choice, it doesn't mean that I should like it, but something that cannot be changed, at least its high quality and speed of work without problems. Keep that in mind as I think it comes down to personal choice. I'd rather have quality components that I can't replace than give the company a reason to put in crappy, useless components just because you CAN replace them, which is common with other gaming laptops that allow you to replace RAM . Just my 2 cents. So if you decide to buy one, make sure to go for 16GB or more. 8GB just doesn't last long. On the other hand, it has 3 SSD bays. x2 2280 and x1 2242 slots (I believe this is the shorter version). It comes with the first 2280 slot occupied, but they're all NVMe, so that's great. I've seen some reports online of NOT getting a RAID setup as it's very inefficient. So go straight to 1TB and then add whatever extra storage space you need. I've settled on another 1TB that works. If you like downloading LOTS of games, add 2TB just in case. The battery life is short. You get 2 hours at best if you give up everything, but no more. My latest laptop was no different. I haven't read any reviews of powerful gaming laptops with great battery life. So if you want to play games, you still need to be online. Not to mention that the GPU doesn't get the full load from the battery. Most laptops are the same, so this isn't usually a point for me. They all suck, and you still need to be online to run games. So if you're looking for a laptop to carry around campus or on the go, don't even consider a gaming laptop anyway. :D In general I am very satisfied with the purchase. I think if you are an experienced gamer and just want something that looks sleek and performs like any more expensive system then this is your best bet. If you are a handyman and you want what you want, you need to look elsewhere. But if you decide to get this laptop and plan on working during the day and gaming at night, then be sure to buy yourself a good cooling pad (as you probably do with any gaming laptop). Hope that helps! Much luck!