Smart Pro
Smart Pro
  • 2 days ago
Transcript
00:00This is the Area 51m from Alienware. It's their latest and greatest flagship, it's their biggest laptop, it's their most expensive, it's very powerful, running the latest hardware, newest design, it's their flagship.
00:18It's smaller than I thought it would be, like when you look at pictures, it's kind of hard to see scale. It's big, don't get me wrong, this isn't like a super portable device, but it's smaller than I thought it would be based on pictures that I saw at CES.
00:29So the design of this thing is very Alienware. I personally really like this design, they've clearly spent time in making their product look and feel very unique.
00:38The unit I have is in this lunar white color, it's this kind of light gray color, almost white but not like stark white. It's also a soft touch finish which is nice to hold.
00:48I am a little concerned about long-term durability of this particular color, like if you have, I don't know, if you're Mr. Cheetos and you're constantly dipping your fingers in like colored items, I could see the surface dirtying up over time, but if you take care of it, I think it's a really nice looking finish.
01:02The build quality feels very good, it's very Alienware-like, like this is a device that just feels very tanky. There's no flex on the chassis, this is what Alienware does.
01:11This is probably their specialty, they have heavier devices, but their stuff is built very well.
01:16The logo up at the front lights up, it's their alien head, but aesthetically, the attraction to this device for me is definitely the light-up trim on the tail end of the device.
01:26The lighting here looks really cool to me, it's kind of like the engine of an alien spaceship or something. I think they did a really good job, and honestly, if this device was just like a plain, generic-looking black box, the truth is people probably wouldn't be giving this thing as much attention as it gets, but because it looks as cool as it does, here we are.
01:43There is glossy plastic on the front of the device and also on the trim, like just around the bezels of the screen, and I really don't like that they used this material.
01:51This is just material that can get scratched very easily, so it's unfortunate that they used it. I feel like over time, if you don't take care of it, this will look aged quite quickly compared to the rest of the device.
02:01So, the ports on the Area 51m are kind of limited. I feel it's got like the same number of ports as a 15-inch device. It's got three USB-As and then one Thunderbolt 3, and even on a device this large, it doesn't have an SD card slot.
02:16For the people that are buying devices like this, they don't need an SD card slot, so I get it, like they don't really need to put it in, but I would have liked to have seen it because there are people that can make use of it.
02:25Now, if you'll notice on the back, there's two AC adapter sockets, and we've seen devices like this before, devices that require two power connections, but this time, there are two different sizes.
02:35There's a 330 watt and a 180 watt, and this is just for this particular configuration, but the fact remains, you do need two AC adapters to run this thing at full power.
02:45I don't like that, I gotta be honest. I understand why they did it, like you can't have AC adapters that are larger than 330 watts in some regions, so to make this thing an international device, they have to do this, but it just makes this device so much less portable.
03:01Despite its size, now you have to carry two large AC adapters. It can run off of just one, like the 330 watt will power this, but it won't be full performance.
03:09It's more for, I don't know, if you need to go somewhere real quick and you need to bring something, at least you can use it with just one adapter.
03:15So there's two speakers on the front, very nice sounding speakers. It's Alienware, their flagship devices usually have great sounding speakers, and these are no exception.
03:22They have very rich sound, and they're well positioned.
03:25The keyboard is a classic Alienware keyboard, it's got plush travel, good keyboard for gaming.
03:30I don't like the positioning of the page up and page down keys, this is something that's bothered me on a lot of Alienware keyboards, but I think most people will enjoy this keyboard for gaming.
03:39Same with the touchpad, it's kind of a standard Alienware touchpad, dedicated hardware buttons, Windows precision drivers.
03:45The inputs are good on this device, and you have full control of lighting and software.
03:49Performance on the Area 51m is excellent.
03:52It's running an 8-core desktop grade CPU, the 9900K, and it's running a desktop grade GPU, the RTX 2080.
04:00Not like a laptop RTX 2080, but a almost full wattage RTX 2080 from a desktop, all packaged into here.
04:09And both of those components, the CPU and the GPU, are upgradable.
04:13That's what makes this thing so unique.
04:16Playing games on this thing is fantastic.
04:18It has awesome performance, ultra-fast frame rates, ray tracing support.
04:21It's basically a very powerful desktop system inside of this thing.
04:25Now I will say, I have used other powerful laptops before, right?
04:28We've seen the Predator 21X, we've seen stuff from MSI that are also very big and very powerful.
04:33But for some reason, this doesn't feel like a big and bulky system when you're playing games on it.
04:38I'm not sure if it's like the thin bezels on the screen, or the ergonomics of the wrist rest,
04:42but it just feels like a regular laptop when you're playing with it.
04:45Now when you're carrying it around, that's a completely different story, especially with the two AC adapters.
04:49It is very large, but playing on it, it's a comfortable gaming experience.
04:53It also benchmarks like a beast, like there's not much else out there that can compare to this in the laptop market right now.
04:59And the GPU scores are very close to the desktop RTX 2080 scores.
05:04It's pretty nutty.
05:05In regards to thermals, I would say I'm content.
05:08This is a very unique device in terms of what Alienware was trying to deliver.
05:11It's running a desktop CPU, desktop GPU, both of those very high wattage, and they just run extremely hot.
05:17If you're expecting excellent thermals on like quiet fans, it's not gonna happen.
05:22Your system will stay quiet, but you're gonna throttle in games.
05:24And same with Boost Clock.
05:26If you want this thing to be running at max turbo on all cores, it's like, this is not that system for it.
05:32So if you crank the fans on this thing, and you crank it up to maximum fan speed, you will get good thermal performance.
05:38They're gonna run loud, but the temperatures are good, even after several hours of heavy gaming.
05:42And on one hand, I'm impressed that they're able to cool that CPU in this particular chassis.
05:47But on the other hand, it is an overclockable CPU.
05:50And there's a part of me that thinks, if you're gonna put that CPU into this chassis and give users overclocking options in the software, it should be able to.
05:58But there was no amount of undervolting and tweaking that I could do in the software to get a substantial overclock on this particular chip.
06:05On a desktop, I've seen that chip go really hard, but not on this chassis.
06:09And it kind of makes me question the whole idea of even using a desktop chip in a laptop in the first place.
06:14Like, if it's not giving you really substantial gains, is it really worth it?
06:18Now, the GPU is overclockable as well, and I'm able to get decent performance increases with that.
06:23Okay, I want to take a look at the insides.
06:25To get access to the standard stuff, you just remove the bottom panel.
06:28You get access to your RAM, your drives, and your Wi-Fi card.
06:31But to get access to the good stuff, you gotta remove a little bit more.
06:34You gotta pop off a bunch of screws, disconnect a few cables.
06:37It's not super hard, it's like a 15-20 minute job.
06:40But inside, you'll see the CPU socket and the GPU.
06:43The CPU is a desktop LGA socket.
06:46You can swap that out whenever you want, if you want.
06:48The graphics card, however, is a custom Dell form factor.
06:52So if you want to upgrade that in the future, you're gonna have to buy that directly from Dell.
06:55There does seem to be some confusion in regards to the upgradability of these devices.
06:59I've seen some discussions saying that the RTX 2060 config, like the base config,
07:04can't be upgraded in the future because it doesn't have, like, the ventilation on the side.
07:08And I reached out to Dell, they say that's not the case.
07:11All the devices will have side ventilation, and all devices can be upgraded in the future.
07:16That being said, I do have some thoughts in regards to the upgradability of this device.
07:21It sounds awesome on paper, right?
07:23The idea of an upgradable laptop has been, like, everybody's dream.
07:27But in this particular scenario, the CPU socket that they're using is, like, it's the LGA 1151.
07:33And by the time a substantial upgrade appears in the CPU segment,
07:38we don't know if that will use the same socket.
07:41Like, it may, it may not, and it's a bit of a gamble if you're gonna purchase this laptop
07:45with the intent of upgrading the CPU in the future.
07:47The GPU upgradability is something that I think is great.
07:50That's something that just makes a lot more sense to me.
07:52But the CPU upgradability is... I'm not sure on that.
07:56The battery life is short. I'm getting an hour and a half of battery life with the screen at 250 nits.
08:01I can't say I'm surprised, like, these are desktop components being run off a battery.
08:05Right? That's, that's never gonna give you long battery life.
08:09Um, oh, Tobii eye tracking. This is a feature that is on a lot of the Alienware flagships.
08:14I don't think it's particularly useful, but there are sensors that track where your eyes are looking at on the screen.
08:19I know that some esports teams use it for training and stuff like that,
08:22but I personally have never found something useful with it.
08:24Uh, the screen, 17 inch, 1080p.
08:27There's supposedly some higher res options that'll come out later this year
08:30once manufacturers start making some thin-bezeled higher res panels,
08:33but right now you only get 1080p.
08:35Personally, I don't mind. Like, I feel like for most gamers out there,
08:381080p is where it's at.
08:39Like, if you look at many of the popular streamers or pro gamers out there,
08:42they're often running 1080p panels.
08:44And this particular panel is pretty bright and color accurate, and it supports G-Sync.
08:48Now, I want to wrap this video up with my own personal thoughts on the Area 51m.
08:53This is a very powerful gaming laptop.
08:55It's the most powerful gaming laptop that I've used.
08:58It's awesome for video editing. It's awesome for gaming.
09:01But, I don't know if the extra performance that you get from this device
09:05really warrants the extra cost, the extra weight, the extra fan noise.
09:11Like, there's a lot of stuff you have to deal with if you're going to use this system.
09:14Now, the upgradability on it is awesome.
09:17Like, it's something I think is going to draw a lot of people to it.
09:20But, you gotta carry these things around.
09:23Two huge AC adapters to power something like this
09:25because it really is a desktop in a laptop form factor.
09:29And this thing is crazy power hungry.
09:31You boot it up, stuff just goes...