Alienware m16 R2 gaming laptop review: A perfect combo of power and practicality

After using it as my primary laptop for over three weeks, I have answered these questions in my full review of the Alienware m16 R2.

Built like Alienware from the inside out

A solid-looking gaming laptop with a sturdy build. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

It is hard to mistake this machine for anything other than an Alienware, thanks to its signature design. It features the Alienware skull logo on the lid––made out of metal–– just like the bottom half. While most of this machine is constructed using aluminium, the palm rest area has a soft-touch finish, which although easily gets greasy, does offer plenty of grip. The metal build makes the laptop a bit heavy at 2.6 kg, and with the charger weighing over a kilo, a big and sturdy backpack is needed to carry it around.

Compared to its predecessor, the hinge is significantly thinner. Despite this, most of the I/O ports are still located at the back, keeping display cables and power cords out of the way, making your gaming setup look clean and aesthetic. Unlike ultrabooks and some gaming laptops, Dell has retained a fast RJ45 Ethernet jack and a full-sized HDMI port, essential for gamers who enjoy LAN parties and those who dislike USB dongles. Additionally, the laptop includes a microSD card slot for storage expansion, though a full-sized SD card slot would have been preferable.

One of the best displays on a gaming laptop

A high-resolution display with a higher refresh rate. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

The Alienware m16 R2 comes with a 16-inch screen with QHD+ resolution with up to 240Hz refresh rate. The combination of high resolution and high refresh rate makes this a great display for gamers and content creators. Most of the time, I like gaming on an external monitor. However, due to the excellent colour accuracy of 100 per cent sRGB coverage with HDR support, I did not feel like using an external monitor with the Alienware m16 R2, whether it be for playing games or consuming content.

Screen brightness is often an issue on gaming laptops, with displays that aren’t bright enough for outdoor use. However, the 16-inch, 16:10 aspect ratio screen on the Alienware m16 R2 is great. Despite its 16-inch screen, the laptop has the profile of a 15-inch machine, thanks to its thin-bezel design.

Running the laptop at QHD+ resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate can quickly drain the battery, but the laptop smartly switches to a lower resolution as soon as the power cord is unplugged. Overall, the screen on the Alienware m16 R2 is a joy to use, and I hope most gaming laptops will be equipped with screens of this caliber.

I enjoyed playing the Red Dead Redemption 2 on the Alienware m16 R2. The display offered great contrast, especially during the monologue. And during my testing, it was also my go-to device for watching YouTube videos. I enjoyed watching movie trailers and talk shows on it.

Great keyboard and a good web camera

The keyboard on the Alienware m16 R2 is a joy to type on. The web camera with 1080p resolution is great. The web camera, paired with an IR blaster, also offers Windows Hello face unlock, which is quite fast at recognising the face, even in a completely dark environment. The trackpad is good enough, and the RGB lighting surrounding it definitely feels like a nice touch, which we mostly see on Alienware machines.

A gaming laptop with an AI chip and two GPUs

The laptop has a chip with a dedicated NPU. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

The Alienware m16 R2 has an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor 185H, a 16-core CPU, and integrated Arc graphics. The CPU has six P-cores, eight E-cores, and two low-powered E-cores. And this combination of hybrid CPU cores makes it a powerful and energy-efficient laptop. While gaming, the P-cores will kick in to offer the best possible single-core performance and while browsing the web or streaming videos, either E-cores or low-powered E-cores will take charge, consuming less power and providing extended battery life.

32 GB RAM and fast 1 TB PCIe Gen4 storage is very fast and offers blazing-fast read and write speeds. The laptop offers a great user experience even on non-gaming tasks and has plenty of computing overhead, even for future needs.

The processor also has an integrated neural processing unit (NPU), which offers up to 11 trillions of operations (TOPs) of AI performance.

Offers excellent single and multi-core CPU performance. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

On Geekbench 6, the Alienware m16 R2 posted 2429 points on the single-core test and 13575 points on the multi-core test. Similarly, on CPU-Z, the laptop posted 790 points on the single-thread, and 8816 points on the multi-thread test. As per these numbers, the laptop offers great single-core and multi-core CPU tests.

On the Geekbench 6 graphics test, we got a score of 24646 points on the integrated ARC graphics, while the score went up to 114613 points when we switched to the dedicated RTX 4070 Max-Q GPU with 8 GB of video memory.

Renders great gaming performance

A laptop that can easily handle modern AAA titles at 1440p. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

I mainly tested three games on the Alienware m16 R2. The first one was Red Dead Redemption 2, where the laptop offered an average FPS of 62 at 2K resolution, and 85 FPS at 1080p resolution. Similarly, on GTA 5, the laptop offered an average FPS of 124 FPS at 2K resolution, and 158 FPS at 1080p resolution. On Far Cry 6, the laptop offered an average FPS of 97 at 2K resolution, and 110 FPS at 1080p resolution.

When we ran the Superposition benchmark at 4K resolution and optimised graphics settings, it offered an average FPS of 62, and lowering the resolution to 1080p at high-graphics settings ramped up the average frame rate to 108.

I could hear the fans spin on the Alienware m16 R2 only while gaming. But unlike some of the earlier Alienware machines, which got hot too quickly, there were no issues on this device.

As per these numbers, the laptop can easily offer over 60fps even at the higher graphics settings at 2K resolution. On most games, one can easily get over 100 FPS at 1080p resolution. As this laptop has the latest NVIDIA graphics, it also supports DLSS 3.0 technology, which can further improve performance, especially during 4K resolution gaming.

Verdict: A stunning gaming laptop that performs

A great gaming device. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

The Alienware delivers on its promise, and this is easily one of the well-balanced gaming laptops under Rs 2,00,000. Since Dell has toned down the design while maintaining the signature look, it does not scream it’s a gaming laptop either.