As you can tell from the title, both the Alienware m15 and m17 have adopted the Alienware Legend design philosophy. This makes them both look a lot like the Alienware Area-51m, which also made its debut in CES 2019.
This is especially true on the lid, as both models have their name etched on the lower right corner. The same applies to the back portion of the laptops which, unfortunately, means that a number of the I/O ports are at a pretty inconvenient spot.
On the flip side, these are the ports that you wouldn’t access very often once plugged in, which mitigates the the positional drawback. These ports include the likes of the HDMI, mini-DisplayPort, a USB-C port, the charging port and the Graphics Amplifier port. The more often accessible ports are also the ones that are easier to get to. These include two USB ports on the right, and one on the left. Also found on the left is the RJ45 LAN port and the 3.5mm audio jack.
Flipping up the lid, we see slight variations in design compared to the Area-51m. For one, both the m15 and m17 made do without the macro keys on the left of the keyboard. And on top, Dell had placed a honeycomb array of what appears to be the vents.
The entire segment where the keyboard is is slightly dipped as well. This creates a gap on the sides when the lid is down, which also makes it easier to flip the lid up. Not that it’s necessary, since the lid is also designed to protrude in front.
The keyboards themselves have RGB backlighting, and is quite prominent as well, unlike the subdued lighting of the Dell G3 15. The keys are also oddly more satisfying to type on. This is especially true for the Alienware m15. Its keys feel slightly stiffer, and while they look no larger than the keys on the m17’s keyboards, they do feel larger and more familiar when you actually begin typing.
Underneath, the Alienware m15 and m17 are relatively barren, save for the honeycomb motif for the vents. I didn’t mention this earlier, but it’s the same for the vents at the back, flanking the I/O ports as well.
While I unfortunately didn’t get any gaming time with either machines, they were both running Mortal Kombat 11 pretty smoothly while plugged in. Based on its spec sheet, it shouldn’t struggle with modern games of today, but it would still be nice to push it to its limits via our own tests.
