Although the Alienware M15 was launched in October 2018, Dell/Alienware is already announcing an updated version with more powerful components, most notably with a faster graphics processor (GPU).
The industrial design remains the same, so the size reduction to “thin and light” (for a gaming laptop) remains true. Because there’s room for ports in the back (in addition to the sides), there are a ton of ports, including for an external GPU and Gb Ethernet.
The fastest GPU available for this new M15 is the NVIDIA 2080 Max-Q. And because you need to feed data to this graphics processor, Dell made sure that the updated command center can be used to easily overclock the CPU. Dell has made very frequent updates to the software, to ensure that users get new functionality and stability at the same time.
Dell claims 17hrs of battery life seen during internal testing at Dell Labs. The test configuration: 90Whr, Core i5 processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050, 256GB SSD, and FHD 60Hz display. We assume that the test consisted in playing video, and the brightness is unknown, but probably ~100 NITs, we’re speculating.
In any case, a 90Wh battery capacity is more than welcome for anyone who cares about battery life on the go. However, it’s an option that you don’t need to pay for if you would rather play plugged to a wall outlet.
The cooling look very impressive and the airflow in and out of the chassis seems massive. That’s a good sign for sustained performance, a must-have for gaming systems. You don’t want the heat to build up inside.