Alienware Area-51m Laptop Review: Upgradeable Excellence

Art_8_

Commendable
Nov 28, 2016
5
1
1,510
Actually it is 9.7 lbs with the 90 Whr battery. It is 8.5 lbs with the 60 watt battery which Alienware knows will never be ordered with this machine. so it is actually heavier than the 17 R4 and R5, and almost 3 inches deeper in size and when you consider it requires 2 power bricks for gaming this turd is much heavier than the old one and about .6 inches thicker to boot. Hard pass.
 
Feb 8, 2019
1
0
10
You provided a graphic showing a battery test but didn't say whether it was while doing daily tasks, watching videos, or playing games. How did you get those results?
 

Giroro

Splendid
I'm not sure what the point of an upgradable CPU is when you have basically the highest powered CPU that will ever be compatible with the socket.
Is it cheaper to buy the laptop with a weaker CPU and upgrade it yourself?
 

AndrewFreedman

Editor
Editor
Oct 3, 2014
695
9
18,995


In our case, it doesn't make sense to upgrade (unless a new CPU comes out using the same socket). But you can upgrade from the base Core i7-8700 if you wanted.
 

islandwalker

Managing Editor
Editor
Mar 6, 2018
85
22
10,635
@loganwade, there are relevant words right above that "graphic" that answer your question: "It ran for 2 hours and 36 minutes on our battery test, which continuously browses the web over Wi-Fi, streams video and runs OpenGL graphics benchmarks, all at 150 nits of brightness."
 

mattkiss

Honorable
Sep 22, 2016
48
9
10,535
What laptop is pictured on the left in the third picture above (first set, from the left)? It's the thin one next to the model being reviewed in this article.
 
Apr 10, 2019
1
0
10
You can get the I9 9900k and RTX 2080 for under 4K if you upgrade the ram and hard drive your self from the base model.