Alienware m15 R2

The 17 probably should have saved the mem slots - given people a reason to go with the bigger model.

I sure hope they can source a 120hz OLED panel at some point. Having one on the 15 kind of makes the 17 look like a red headed step child.

 

Isn't the normal for Alienware re-use same MB for both 15 and 17 inch Aw models? From what I remember you couldn't use the 2 extra Sata slots in older Aw15 who was in use for Aw 17. The cheapo way. One fits all.

 

I was planning to order m15 R1 on this weekend because currently Dell Japan has good rebates. After m15 R2 was announced, now I don't know what to do..LOL

Of course, m15 R2 is not perfect and has several negative points but I really like the new Area 51m-ish design...hmm

 

better cooling, go with the r2

 

I'd go with the newer R2 if you don't need:

2 upgradable RAM slots (only 1 slot in R2)
Higher capacity battery (60 or 90WHr on R1, Only 76Whr on R2)

 

I forgot to mention another key aspect of my decision to go with m15 R1 - the fact they are sold with just one 8GB. I wanted 32GB of RAM. Most competitors would sell pre-built machines with either 1x16GB or 2x8GB. Neither option really works. If I get a machine with 1x16GB, which will likely be subpar RAM, you have to either try and find a matching 16GB stick or throw it away and get a new 32GB kit. 2x8GB just gets thrown away. Aero was actually advertised as equipped with "great Samsung RAM" and there was a limited time offer to get a second stick for free. Would have to send some application and wait, subject to stock availability etc.

Now, Dell demands extortionate amounts for RAM (approx 250% markup to retail price) and it's mediocre RAM, so the 8GB throwaway RAM option was great.

With R2 people who want 32GB (assuming that's even going to be possible) will effectively be forced to either get 16GB variant and hunt for a compatible stick, or pay up for the inferior RAM from Dell.



OK, and it has 90W 2070 MQ chip as opposed to 80W variants in the Blade and Aero

 

This is correct, they have been reusing the same motherboards in all systems since the AW17R2. In that sense the 17inch versions barely have any benefits over the 15inch versions because the heatsinks arent larger either is most of them, just stretched heatpipes for the larger space between the radiators.

 

As if it so hard to find memory stick with SK Hynix ram which they have been using for ages now. Dont make a fuzz where there is one. Their problem is that part of the ram is soldered. Now hoping they do not solder Transcend ram on their which is notorious for crapping out.

Components are always marked up with manufacturers like these. This is nothing new. That is their whole business in general, less profit on systems, milk the profit on components and cables.

Oh? then my Blade must be a very special one of device. Because it surely boost over 90 watts even in balanced mode.

 

I don't normally feed trolls, but the only 2 places non-ECC variants of SK Hynix DDR4 2666Mhz SODIMMs seem to be available from in the UK according to Google (apart from Dell I guess) are ebay and Amazon, where it's 30% more expensive than HyperX Impact.

www.amazon.co.uk/SK-Hynix-2666MHz-PC4-21300-HMA82GU6CJR8N-VK/dp/B07PGVLPDC/
www.amazon.co.uk/HyperX-HX426S15IB2-16-Impact-SODIMM/dp/B01N7K4DV4/

It won't be so clear and simple for people to figure out which SODIMMs will optimally complement the soldered RAM, they would need to match the timings to modules on the market. I doubt Dell will offer a compatibility list.
Overall, I'm not sure which part of "soldered RAM limits choice and is bad for consumers" is hard to grasp.

How about they make more money by starting to design notebooks with lower failure and return rates?

Good to see Razer has caught up though (hope 8750 / 2070 MQ Blade users are achieving 17550 in FireStrike now), perhaps Gigabyte have too, as per https://www.ultrabookreview.com/24787-laptops-rtx-2070-graphics/. From 11. June or so they will become much more compelling options.

Looks like Dell had an ace up their sleeve in m15 BIOS 1.6.2 though...

 

All Blade 15 comes with 90 watt gpu tdp, from Gtx to Rtx model. Keep in mind m15 came later after Blade 15, 1070maxq that use 90 watt was Blade 15 followed by m15 and Zephyrus S, correct me if I’m wrong.

 

Well, those pro review sites like ultrabookreview aren't infallible then. Then again a friendly Blade user mentioned Razer added the option to increase the power limit to 90W, so it must have been lower to begin with. That would also explain the lower benchmark scores in reviews. Doesn't matter. Next frontier: 100W.

 

Nothing ground breaking. Just a youtuber I like to promote. He has the best laptop reviews I've seen.

June 11 can't come soon enough to see how this thing is gonna be priced once you start adding luxury options.

 

I like his FPS mouse reviews, but I have no idea why he thinks those clearly smaller air vents provide better air flow.

 

I think you misunderstood with cpu power limit. I meant gpu tdp not cpu tdp limitation, yes on current bios Blade laptops cpu tdp is limited to 45 Watt (on max gaming profile, on balanced it’s 25 watt), but apparently they’re working on it since before it was higher like 35 watt and 60 watt. On gpu side it’s always 90 watt on both profiles.

 

The way the M15 is designed it's air vents are very restrictive. Not sure if you seen one in person but alot of the holes are not real and just for looks. Like the top has holes all along the top. Most are not actually holes. Even on the bottom. If they're anything like the Area 51m then it "SHOULD" breath better. You could be right. No one seems to mention the feet. The Area 51m had a very raised back end do to longer feet in the back. I hope that carries over as the M15 and M17 basically lay flat with no room to breath.

 

Have they finally added a larger trackpad ?

 

The RTX versions dont have the 45watt TDP limit on balanced.

Oh dont mention the feet to him, I tried and he went in all condenscend mode etc. While plenty of reviewers including Jarrodtech of whom he links a video on did extensive testing that fans where being choked on the m15

 

I have been talking exclusively about dGPU TDP the whole time. I was lead to believe by ultrabookreviews that the TDP is 80W (link above), and a certain super friendly Razer user corrected me by politely advising that 80W/90W dGPU TDP is user-selectable in the latest Synapse. So, if it was 90W all along, that would mean all the subpar Blade benchmark scores were achieved despite the dGPU TDP being set to 90W...

I don't know what you were on at the time of writing. It should have been clear by now I own the m15 R1, hence I've seen one in person lol. The vents on top are all real, although very elegantly camouflaged. I'm not sure what you are talking about most of them not being holes. Did you get it mixed up and were thinking about the sparse R2 honeycomb design?

Here is a good no-nonsense preview of the m15 R2 from NotebookCheck:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/New-D...ntially-a-miniaturized-Area-51m.421368.0.html

The vent row on top seem perhaps just a bit taller, but because of the honeycomb layout, there is actually less vent space compared with what it would have been like like if it was an R1-style rectangular area of the same outer dimensions.

The rear vents look a bit larger, however, they are constrained by some mesh, unlike the R1 vents.

Side exhaust vents on the R2 are smaller as this picture makes perfectly clear:



Bottom speaker vents around the battery SSD and RAM area are completely missing in the R2:



BTW Speakers are down-firing in the R2, another disadvantage, albeit minor I guess.

They claim there will be no 32 GB option from Dell initially, maybe later when they find a compatible SODIMM lol. Couldn't make this stuff up. That also suggests that people will be stuck with single-channel RAM, I'm not sure what the across the board performance hit on that constraint would be, but would assume a good 5-10%.

Agree with NotebookCheck that "Dell is promising 30 percent improved cooling with all the new changes to the chassis." is the most that can be said about cooling in this new laptop at this point, if we are being gracious.

Please, not with the feet again. Making them taller by a few mm, such that it's still acceptable to the thin crowd, wouldn't move the needle. The core issue is the overly small chassis.

I guess they could make 1-3cm foldable back feet but that would again add some visual bulk or come at an expense of interior space. Such feet would probably break too prompting returns and repairs. They can't afford the bulk / fragility, and are clearly scared to death of falling behind in the race to the very thin bottom, so to speak, thanks to Apple, Razer and the people who enable those companies by buying their notebooks.

 

Well we need to see results, I think everyone agrees. There's a lot we don't know until we see the inside. Skeptics have often been "right" about Dell's new models, but sometimes there are improvements that are good enough to please some folks. For me, they lost me at 16Gb max ram. Since I'm now even more focused on the 17 (keypad), no OLED/4K for the 17 also is a hard stop.

But just some thoughts:

• Soldered ram was a bad move but since every notebook is a series of pro's and con's that each user decides the mix suits them I wouldn't be focused only on that
• Is the cooling actually improved? The move from Cryotech 1.0 -> 2.0 wasn't stunning, so they'd better show something
• Smaller battery only works if there is some positive to outweigh the downgrade
• Noise? Again, we'll have to hear it, but no review has mentioned it that I've seen.
• Is the 17 any better at cooling with the larger chassis but the same size battery?
• Keyboard is better - will purchasers agree?
• Wifi 6 chipsets, how well do they improve the latency?
• Are we so close to a juncture point of 10nm and updates to the RTX GPU's that it makes sense to wait for those rather than purchase now?
• How crowded are the M2 slots now? Will M2 drives get heat throttled in the new design?

I ask most of these things so that discussions expand the merits of various factors not just one. And these are questions mind you, they may all represent downgrades if they weren't done well. And remember for the time being you can still get the m15 r1 and m17 r1 if you find the net sum of the changes is more of a downgrade than an upgrade. Keep that in mind because that won't last forever. You'd still be getting 8xxx CPU's and 20x0 grade GPU's, so it's not a completely night and day difference in basic performance.

$.02

 

It's amazing and shocking they reuse internals between the m15/m17. All that extra space goes to waste basically.

Another point is that for those who are OK with a smaller battery, the current design offers an extra 2.5" SATA slot. That's up to 4TB SSD or 5TB mechanical storage that's gone in R2. Even my favourite reviewer NotebookCheck made the mistake and stated that storage options remain the same. Nope, less choice.

 

Unless you have your rig in you sig I assume you're an Apple Macbook Pro user. Plenty of people who don't own or intend to use a product chime in on a subject. That's called being enthusiast. Hell I for one have fantastic conversations with users that use laptops from companies that I don't trust. So I assume nothing and talk to everyone as if they know nothing. Comes with age. Probably that stupid thing called wisdom.

 

LOL, that's not an amazing guess TBH - I'd expect more of wise people of age such as yourself Good suggestion though, populated the sig.

 

Looks good’ish, but for me the soldered RAM took it out of the recommendation pile.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Soldered Ram is the only Meh point. However I have a 17% off coupon that expires Mid-Month that I want to use so I will be selling my fully loaded M15 if anyone is interested.

 

Not good for me. Soldered Ram is a complete no go for me. I do prefer the aesthetics of the R1 better than the new design too. And considering that the R2 will have the same graphic cards option than the R1, i don't really see the point on to change mine. Also Having managed to tame the 8750h temperatures, i will keep mine untill something that is really worth the change comes out, not really in a hurry and satisfied with what i got. But hey! that's just me.

 

sometimes i wonder how much space did they really save by soldering the RAM onto the motherboard. The laptop dimensions are not exactly small or particularly light to begin with. MSI GE75 managed to pack in a full 150W RTX 2080 within relatively similar package and weight, all without having to resort to soldered RAM. and as an added bonus, it even supports 2.5" SATA. Really sad with the direction alienware has taken.

 

Not sure this is about space. Presumably the same restriction applies to the m17. It's likely about getting people to buy expensive memory from Dell, and perhaps shaving 30 sec off the assembly process. Sad.

 

In the GE75 they skimp on the battery size and chassis itself, it is a very, but really poorly made chassis which is pretty much nothing more than a thin plastic shell. So that adds some extra space all in all. But mostly the battery, which is an older style pack which uses cylindrical lithium ion batteries, easier to rebuilt a failed battery pack though!. Also the heatsink is quite barebones for the size. Lots of nice specs on paper but the execution is just so extremely cheap. But yeah soldering ram is for me the red line. WIll never buy a gaming laptop with soldered on ram.

 

Do they send those to you in the mail? The most I've ever gotten is 15%. I have a 10% waiting for this though.

 

All hopes are gone now (see the above tweets from Joe Olmsted). I don't like the reason he gave for the 16GB limit. Obviously, Apple has been selling Macbook pro 15 with 32GB soldered RAM for a long time now.

 

Well, that's disappointing. Another mark against this new refresh... Maybe I'll revisit the Aero 15 and hope that Gigabyte has improved the back-light bleed issues on their own update.

 

That's a real shame it's only soldered memory and no upgradeable memory. Frank Azor said there was one free slot. Which is sad since he clearly has no idea about his own product. Should probably keep him away from interviews in the future. This is nice find though as I haven't gotten any anwsers when I tweeted to dell, alienware, or frank.

Thanks for sharing.

This is sad news but not enough for me to lose interest. I'll still be getting one.

 

Max 16gb and a smaller 74wh battery = no go for me dog. I'm skipping the m15 R2. Maybe the R3 will have better options.

 

While I'm likely focused on the 17, 16Gb and soldered... ugh
No 4k screen yet for the 17, HDMI 2.1 around the corner, all say "wait and see"

So then the debate turns between the 51m (32 and real memory slots, but all the pains of dual PSU's and a desktop CPU I don't need) or the m17r2. I am making the forward looking guess that whatever 4k screen is due to show for the 51m is likely to be placed on both models.

 

There are some 4K screens showing up on other manufacturers 17" laptops. No OLED yet, but atleast a more suitable screen should be on the way.

I had the 51m for roughly 20 days before returning mine. And it was do to the dual power bricks. So if you're gonna be taking that big boy with you alot then that might be a negative. Performance was awesome and the laptop itself wasn't unreasonable in size.

 

For someone who doesn’t look this, m17 r2 fortnite gameplay from Alienware. It’s kind something keeping cpu temperature on 75 by red alert and max to 80ish till it throttle to under 75, interesting. I’m more curious about i9 on smaller m15, gpu load, and cores frequency.

 

Would just wait for independent reviews. Anyone else noticed that thin DC cable sticking out from under the laptop? Could be powering a thin cooling pad. We also don't know what that round white stand does, or whether the laptop is a stock production unit not enhanced in any way. Ambient temp can be safely assumed to be 18C max lol

 

That is the light/rotating platform cable.......

 

I'll hold final judgement from real world use. But that is much better cpu temps than what I had on the M15 even after a repaste. So that gives me hope. Would have been nice to see that rumored 5.2 ghz on the i9 we saw floating around.


Btw has anyone heard definitively about this 8 phase on the higher end models? Is that for 2070 and up? Or is it for the 2060 model also?

Edit:
Whoops! Nvm! They did one on Rage 2 with the 9880H. And the temps are. . .good. wow.

 

And FPS is also great for the setting i wish he runs not costum setting. I’m just curious as I mentioned above about that OSD red marks, every time it reach 75 or more it down to lower temperature, new tech? Any ideas maybe @Papusan? Or maybe it only my wrong perception, but yeah not bad at all.

 

My M15 would spike like that and drop from anywhere from 5 to 10 degrees. So it might be software? You would think trying to keep it at a more consistent temp would be better.

 

from this photo i can see that the PCH is going to be active cooled now. also seems like they have fixed the 3 screw desing



also the fans looks bigger

 

At what temperature does PCH temp become a concern? Fans look identical, although I recall a claim they are 10% larger or something, whatever that means (probably just area rather than diameter). Ultimately it's all about airflow which is unknown.

 

Nice. So long as the videos we've been seeing from alienware this should all be good news. Heat kills so additional dissipation is always welcome. Hard to tell if they fixed the three screw problem, but I really hope so. Bob of all Trades said it best. We learned in kindergarten that a triangle does not fit into square.

 

I have said it many times before while tinkering with my own Alienware 15R3 but also units of others, it wasnt really the 3 mounting points that where the problem, it was always the too thick thermal pads and the arms itself that arent stiff enough.

Uneven core temperatures also are an issue on 4 screw heatsinks when the pads are too thick, or if the heatsink is warped.

The margins of error and quality control just needs to be better in the majority of laptops.

 

Well then I'll be prepared to get some after market thermal pads. My M15 r1 was plagued with uneven temps on the cpu. Granted I got them under control compared to the factory which it would hit 100. But the difference between my coldest core to my hottest was always about 13-15 degrees. So something was definitely wrong. And that was with a repaste.

 

Check if the inductors arent pushing the heatpipe up. YOu cah see it through tha tlittle gap underneath the heatpipe on the CPU side. Some users reported that the heatpipes are hitting the inductors and that is why the heatsink cant make proper contact.

 

I already returned my R1. I have full intention to get the R2. But if I get a similar result as my R1 one I will double check this.

 

Service manual for new M15 R2 is available now. What do you guys think of the thermal design?
Flipped motherboard reminds me of MSI GS series laptops.
BTW, the wifi card is also confirmed to be soldered...