Alienware 16 Area-51 Review: A Fully Retooled Gaming Mothership

Alienware is astatine its champion erstwhile it makes no-holds-barred gaming machines that are large connected style and performance. By reviving an iconic nameplate and combining it pinch an all-new creation packing immoderate earnestly intergalactic vibes, nan Alienware 16 Area-51 laptop is conscionable that. Sure, it's truthful large and dense that you won't want to move it astir very often. And artillery life beryllium damned, because if you aren't plugged in, you astir apt aren't pushing those pixels difficult enough. But if you're successful nan marketplace for a classical desktop-replacement gaming notebook pinch flagship specs and an unmistakable aesthetic, this rig represents a beastly return to form. 

Design: A revamped spaceship

Alienware's business creation is truthful acold retired location that its systems person almost go a shorthand for gamer civilization successful movies and TV. But for this generation, I deliberation nan institution has done a awesome occupation of creating thing unsocial that's besides a spot much blase than before. To start, there's Alienware's "Liquid Teal" overgarment job. It's nan only disposable colour and successful person, it looks much for illustration nan benignant of heavy emerald greenish you'd spot connected a car owed to nan measurement it shifts and shimmers depending connected nan light. As always, there's Alienware's classical logo successful nan mediate of nan lid, complete pinch customizable lighting. On nan inside, location are bully touches for illustration RGB-lit fans, punchy up-firing speakers and a clicky mechanical keyboard pinch heavy recreation that reminds you that if you aren't utilizing this strategy to frag immoderate enemies each now and then, you're astir apt doing it wrong. 

My favourite creation constituent is nan small model connected nan bottommost of nan laptop. At first, this seems for illustration overkill, because conscionable like men's shoes, really often do you really look astatine nan bottommost of a PC? But if desktop PCs tin person solid panels that show disconnected nan insides of nan machines, why not laptops too? More importantly, Alienware's raised Cryo Chamber (that's its method name) improves thermals acknowledgment to accrued airflow and a hidden exhaust that helps move power distant from captious components for illustration nan GPU. Even so, nan vent's placement intends you're still not going to want to usage this connected your thigh for prolonged periods (especially while gaming). But arsenic a characteristic that would usually beryllium purely functional, Alienware's solution is clever and stylish. 

Of course, nan downside to adding other solid to an already hefty notebook is that it makes this point moreover little travel-friendly. Weighing 7.5 pounds, nan Alienware 16 Area-51 is really person to a emblematic 18-inch notebook for illustration a Dell 18 Pro Max (7.2 pounds) than a similarly-sized non-gaming machine. On apical of that, while nan Area-51 offers a wealthiness of connectivity options (three USB-A, 2 USB-C and HDMI 2.1), astir of its ports are successful nan back. That's awesome for keeping cables tidy and retired of nan way, but they are a spot harder to reach, which reinforces nan conception that you won't beryllium moving this PC astir very much. I conscionable wish Alienware had made room for a azygous USB-C larboard location connected either side. Having a full-size SD paper scholar and 3.5mm audio connected nan near is ace useful for quickly transferring media aliases plugging successful headphones, but it would person been bully to person 1 much spot for accessories for illustration thumb drives truthful you could debar fumbling astir successful nan back. 

Display: Bright and fast, but much prime would beryllium nice

The Alienware 16 Area-51 packs a 2,560 x 1,600 show pinch a 240Hz refresh rate, G-Sync support and 500 nits of brightness. In a vacuum, it's a really coagulated panel. It has a matte coating to trim reflections while still producing vibrant colors that look bully moreover successful sunny rooms. My only gripe is that for a flagship system, I would person liked to spot immoderate different show options. 

For demanding gamers, aliases group readying to usage nan strategy for photograph aliases video editing, a 4K surface upgrade (preferably an OLED one) would beryllium a awesome option. Alternatively, pinch nan Area-51 tin of accommodating up to an RTX 5090 GPU, a sheet pinch a 300Hz aliases higher refresh complaint could person been a bully prime for nan hardcore competitory crowd. And sadly, moreover if you consciousness for illustration upgrading to nan 16-inch model's bigger brother, location aren't immoderate further show options disposable for that type either. 

Performance: More cooling, much speed

Our $2,800 reappraisal portion features an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU pinch 24 cores, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of SSD retention and an NVIDIA RTX 5080 GPU. Unsurprisingly, a loaded strategy for illustration this had nary issues handling games for illustration Cyberpunk 2077. Even erstwhile utilizing Ultra graphics presets astatine 1080p pinch ray tracing turned on, nan Area-51 still deed 90 fps. Meanwhile, successful Control, the Alienware fared moreover amended astatine nan aforesaid solution and Epic settings erstwhile it reached 154 fps.

Thankfully, if you don't person astir $3,000 to burn, nan Area-51 is alternatively configurable. A guidelines exemplary starts astatine a much affordable $2,000 pinch an Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX chip, 16GB of RAM and an RTX 5060. On nan different hand, if you want all-out performance, you tin load this point up pinch an RTX 5090, but doing truthful presently starts astatine $3,550.

Battery life: Don't time off location without your powerfulness cord

Peter Parker's beloved Uncle Ben erstwhile said "With awesome powerfulness comes awesome power draw” (or thing for illustration that), and nan Area-51 is simply a cleanable illustration of that. On PCMark 10's Modern Office artillery rundown test, Alienware's laptop only lasted 4 hours and thirteen minutes. That's much than 3 hours little than what we sewage from its predecessor — the m16 R2 (7:51) — and 5 hours little than past year's ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 (9:17). When I retested nan ASUS only utilizing its GPU (instead of automatically switching to onboard graphics), its clip of 3:08 was worse. So erstwhile it comes to power-hungry portable gaming machines for illustration these, if you scheme connected utilizing them distant from an outlet connected a regular basis, you'd amended make judge you person a portable charging solution connected hand. 

Wrap-up

Even though nan Alienware 16 Area-51 mightiness not beryllium arsenic portable arsenic immoderate of its rivals, it's sewage a batch to offer. There’s a striking design, a bully surface (though much options would beryllium nice), tons of ports and class-leading capacity pinch plentifulness of configurability truthful you tin dial successful its specs precisely really you like. Granted, Alienware's attention-grabbing space-age aesthetics mightiness not beryllium for folks who aren't fresh to beryllium beamed up to nan mothership. But speech from its short artillery life and precocious value for well-equipped models, this strategy delivers beautiful overmuch everything you want from a flagship gaming laptop.