HARDWARE REVIEW

Alienware 17 R4 Review

by Luke Walsh, April 30th, 2017

We recently reviewed the Alienware 15 R3 but have now decided to up our game and take a look at Alienware’s flagship system the Alienware 17 R4 gaming laptop. The outside might look the same with their angled design but the insides have changed quite drastically, gamers who are willing to flash the cash can get the ultimate level of performance. The latest machine packs the 7th generation (Kaby Lake) processors, a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 GPU along with other additions to make it a more than capable VR ready rig.

In terms of design on the outside, it really has not changed at all from our previously reviewed Alienware laptop. With the trademark angular design and gun-metal grey finish, it looks just as much like an alien spacecraft like the others. The biggest difference is this time it is even bigger, with a 17-inch display the latest laptop because a beast that might only be a laptop in the name.

The build is still very well made, with strong aluminium surrounding the top and bottom of the R4 and a tough matte black rubberised plastic for rest of the bezel and frame. It looks really nice and would fit in well for gamers who love the “gamer” look with flashing lights and sharp curves but the design is probably starting to need a reboot to make it feel fresh.

Much like the previous model we looked at the design has an Alienware logo on the lid which lights up based on the colour you choose in the settings, along with the keyboard, trackpad and the sides of the laptop itself. I still like how Alienware have managed to add customisable RGB lighting without going too over the top, by not adding it anywhere they will fit. The lights down the side can add a nice ambience when in the right colour and it’s also smart they allow you to turn off each zone.

The 15-inch R3 model was heavy and that had a smaller screen, the 17-inch R4 is even bigger 16.7 x 13.1 x 1.2 inches and weighs a hefty 4.3kgs which is probably heavier than most competitors on the market (not that I have weighed them all, just a quick Google).

The benefit of the big frame, however, is the ability to add in all the connections you might ever need with mose of them at the backside, where you’d want them when it sits on your desk. On the right, you’ll find a USB 3.0 port and some vents and on the left, there are a USB-C port, a USB 3.0 port, headphone and microphone 2.5mm jacks. On the back is where you’ll find a mini-DP port, ethernet port, HDMI out, Thunderbolt 3, the power input and the proprietary connection for the Alienware Graphics Amp.

Display and Webcam

The Alienware 17 R4 has a couple different options all in the 17.3-inch size with resolutions starting from 1080p up to 4K. The unit we looked at contained the 2560 x 1140 display which is 120Hz and comes with the Nvidia G-Sync technology. G-sync syncs up the screen with the graphics card so that it eliminates screen tearing making your game smooth without the fuss.

We did not get a chance to look at the 1080p version but the 1440p version was very crisp and clear and is essentially by pure mathematics be better than the 1080p as it has more detail via the number of available pixels. The screen is well lit even on half brightness. You won’t need to turn the brightness up to the max like you sometimes have to do on cheaper displays. The 1440p screen is able to display very vivid and detailed imagery even on lower brightness settings which was impressive.

Testing the screens colour performance the 1440p display was pretty perfect in colour accuracy and its sRGB range was also very good. It also had a good brightness score of 330 nits that is above average for some other laptops I have played around with in the past.

The webcam included is 1080p and takes pretty decent photos but the lighting could be much improved. Pictures taken are clear but the subjects in them are not as bright as the actual light in the room where the photo was taken. If you plan to stream I’d suggest you opt for another webcam but it is fine to use as a general day to day camera for Skype or video calls.

Audio

Audio on the Alienware 17 R4 is not too bad, the voices on music are clear and the speakers can get pretty loud but the differences between the high and low sounds can get a little distorted making them sound muffled at the high volumes. When playing a game like Battlefield 1 where there are voices and explosions together, the explosions lacked the deep “boom!” that you can get with a decent headset. You could still hear the voices and lighter notes they just did not mix well with the more bassy sounds.

There are presets within the Alienware Sound Center but I did not really see the benefit or major differences between the various profiles. The default one was fine for games, movies and music being louder than the others and clearer.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The keyboard on the R4 is exactly the same as the R3 model we reviewed, just encased in a bigger frame. It has a traditional style keyboard, not the chiclet keys a lot of non-gaming laptops have and the R4 has a very soft typing experience. The travel distance for the keys is 2.3mm which is pretty high due to the rubber dome keys and the actuation force needed is 75 grams.

With bigger casing, the keyboard is set further back nearer to the screen creating more room at the bottom which does look a little off. When using the keyboard this space acts as a decent wrist rest, it is not perfect but is better than smaller laptops which have keyboards closer to the edge of the chassis.

My biggest problem with the keyboard again is the design, with some much more space to play with they still opted to stick the macro keys as close to the edge of the normal keyboard as possible. This can create some miss match in your brain when you think the edge means the shift key when it doesn’t. I often again, found myself pressing macros 4 and 5 instead of shift or control. I wish they would make more of a tactile difference between the keyboard and the macro keys, so you can decern where you are more easily if you don’t touch type traditionally.

The trackpad seems to be the same size as the R3 and lights up, in the same way, matching the RGB colour you’d select in the Alienware software. It is well built and does not feel “plasticy” meaning it glides smoothly and should last but I think Dell missed a trick with all the space the 17-inch R4 offers. The trackpad is off centre which makes sense as it lines up with the main part of the keyboard instead of the num pad but it is on the smaller side. They had every chance to use the space and make the trackpad bigger like they have in the XPS 13 Infinity Edge model. Not only would this make it more usable it would probably fill up the “blank space” a little better at the base of the keyboard.

Performance and Benchmarks

The base model which costs the least comes with a Nvidia GTX 1070 GPU that has 8GB of VRAM which is a pretty impressive card to have at entry level. So it is pretty safe to say that the model we tested with the GTX 1080 was going to be a monster allowing you to play pretty much anything you wanted, making it also great for VR.

Now to see how well it did without tests we tried our standard array of games and turned them up as high as they could go in the settings.

3DMark

Firestrike – 15,827

Firestrike Ultra (4K) – 3,281

Bioshock Infinite

Ultra 2560 x 1140 – 55

Very High 2560 x 1440 – 74

High 2560 x 1440 – 82

Medium 2560 x 1440 – 106

Dishonored 2

Ultra 2560 x 1140 – 22

Very High 2560 x 1440 – 31

High 2560 x 1440 – 50

Medium 2560 x 1440 – 61

Fallout 4

Ultra 2560 x 1140 – 60+

High 2560 x 1440 – 60+

Medium 2560 x 1440 – 61+

It is very easy to say that the Alienware 17 R4 is the most powerful gaming laptop we have ever looked at to date. With a Firestrike score of 15,000+, it easily beats our old number one the Razer Blade Pro 2016 model which has a 1060 GTX card in it. Even the previous version was nowhere near the numbers this was able to achieve, the R3 had a score of 13,206 so it has a massive 2000 point jump.

In games, it was pretty powerful at full graphical settings such as Dishonored 2 where it managed to stay above 30fps on Very High, High and Medium settings. It did dip occasionally on the higher settings and was below 30fps consistently on Ultra but Dishonored 2 is a graphics hog and it managed to stand up well on 2560 x 1440.

BioShock Infinite did even better with all the different settings being able to stay well above the 30fps minimum with medium settings on 2560 x 1440 hitting above the 100fps mark. Again, there were sudden drops across all the different graphical levels for BioShock Infinite but nothing that dropped too much, roughly a +/- 15 fps difference.

In Fallout 4, on every setting, the frame rate stayed at a solid 60 fps which suggested the game was capping the framerates at 60. On the odd occasion, it did spike above 60 but only by one or two.

It is easy to say that the Alienware 17 R4 will take pretty much every game you throw at it and be able to pull it off better than most currently available. Even at 2560 x 1440 resolution, most games were playable on their max settings and if not, you could either drop down to a lower resolution or knock back the settings a little. It would easily play every game out today at 1080p on Ultra settings no problem at all. This makes it a good setup to have for VR as it would pass the benchmarks with flying colours.

With a machine that has some monstrous insides, you would expect it to have to deal with some serious heat and it does from the get go. Like the previous model, it has been designed to encase some pretty serious cooling and mainly sits underneath the trackpad where there is the most available space. The only problem with it, even when not in game it can get pretty hot and in testing the temperatures got up to about 80ish degrees near the trackpad.

When gaming the laptop got even hotter with some places hitting well over 120 degrees mainly near the vents but luckily the keyboard area did not change too much hovering around 90 degrees. Dell seems to have made a decision to try and move the heat dissipation away from the most used areas, which makes sense as it travels around the areas you are less likely to touch. When gaming you’ll most likely use a gaming mouse and as the keyboard does not get as hot as the lower area it seems like the right decision. The underneth, however, stays pretty hot, over 100 degrees, it is definitely not a laptop for your lap but the weight and size alone should tell you that…

Eye Tracking

The Alienware 17 R4 really is just an upgraded version of the R3 as it also includes the Tobii Eye Tracking technology. These infra-red sensors can be used to navigate Windows 10 and even use it as a controller for some games.

The eye tracking was much better than I thought it would be and is most useful outside of gaming when you are using the laptop for day to day tasks. Similar to Samsung phones, you can set the R4 to dim the screen when you walk or look away or lock the scrolling to where you are looking. You can also use it with Windows Hello to log in with your face, much like other laptops will with two cameras.

Tobii does work with some games and the list will probably grow but there are currently 60 games that it can work with including titles such as Watch_Dogs 2, Ghost Recon Wildlands, SOMA, The Division and Tomb Raider. I tested SOMA with Tobii which allows you to control the flashlight and vision asyou move your line of sight to the edge of the screen. You are also able to trigger the “scary moments” by looking at certain objects which indeed did heighten the fear element a little! Even changing the AI behaviour when you look at them was a nice touch. Tobii is a pretty neat feature for the Alienware but also a little bit gimmicky, it is fun to use but its universal application will be hard to implement into all core features of every game. It is more of an extra enhancement rather than core function but cool none the less.

Battery Life

The battery on the high-end model is not as long lasting as the lower end models, researching other sites suggest that the lower spec can last for a good 8 hours before needing to be recharged. However, the higher end model which we tested from other outlets had a testing time of about 2 hours, 45 minutes.

When doing our benchmarks for each game I had it fully charged and off the mains and timed how long I had before it died. Switching between Windows and various games running at different graphical levels I reach 2 hours 17 minutes. This seems in line with what other sites suggested, the power output is much higher in the GTX 1080 version because it needs to power that massive card.

It should not cause people any problems though, when gaming you will most likely be near a constant power source but if you do decide to go off the grid playing graphically intensive games, I’d imagine you’d get about 1.5 to 2 hours max before the battery dies.

It could be better but realistically, a laptop with so much power lasting 8+ hours in gaming would need a giant battery. It makes sense that Alienware expect you to be connected to the mains to game properly but do give you some time off the lead if you really need it.

Overall Thoughts

When it comes down to it, the Alienware 17 R4 offers a great package of high-powered internals with cool eye-tracking and a solid design. The lower spec machines (starting at £ 1549) will give you a day’s worth of battery life without too much depletion in performance but if you want the best, the high-end model could sit on your desk for years to come.

The keyboard still falls into the same trap as the previous model being packed too closely together even though the laptop has gotten bigger and it does get quite hot when under intense load. The design is started to look a little dated but is sleek and stylish if you like the “gamer look”.

Priced at £2449 the top of the range model that we reviewed, it is one of the best gaming laptops of 2017 and will be hard to beat. There are suggestions to say that it is worth avoiding the 1080p version as the screen is dim and the performance difference if not that wide for the money. As you can build you own Alienware, it is simple for you to set up your own configuration with the components you want and include the 1440p screen.