Alienware is one of the most recognisable names in the gaming laptop scene, and the
brand’s latest product, the Alienware m15 R5 Ryzen Edition, is through and through a fast,
powerful gaming laptop. It also supports Alienware’s unique design language.
However, the m15 R5 is a bulky machine too,
and some folks may not be too fond of the laptop’s quirky looks.
But that doesn’t mean the m15 R5 is not worth considering. Though it has some shortcomings,
this gaming laptop has quite a number of compelling features too,
including a comfortable keyboard and very long battery life.
Alienware now offers the gaming laptop m15 R5 as Ryzen Edition with a modern AMD processor. It is,
however, not only a simple update of the familiar m15 R4, but you get a completely redesigned
chassis and changes in terms of the port situation. Alienware combines the Ryzen CPUs with
current Nvidia GPUs, starting with the GeForce RTX 30 60 and even the RTX 30 70 as an option.
DESIGN The new M15 R5 has seen some small adjustments
to the chassis design, likely to emphasise the fact that this is a new, Ryzen-powered version of
the M15. The overall aesthetic is still familiar; the RGB light ring on the rear is still present,
as is the sunken hinge and hexagonal venting above the keyboard. The overall design sees
a few more rounded edges than previous models, as well as a new keyboard layout.
This R5 only comes in ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, which is a fancy name for ‘matte black’.
It looks good, complementing the bright RGB lighting. In addition to the glowing stadium ring
and Alienware logo on the rear, the keyboard has customisable four-zone LED lighting beneath it.
The matte finish is a magnet for grubby fingerprints, however, so watch out.
KEYBOARD Next we come to the keyboard,
which on our model is merely an above-average laptop keyboard. However, as on Alienware's m17
R4, you can upgrade to a mechanical keyboard co-developed with leading switch maker Cherry.
I was a big fan of it on the larger laptop, and I'm sure it would feel just as good here.
DISPLAY & SPEAKERS
The M15 R5 has a 10 80 p display with a snappy 165 Hz refresh rate, ideal for twitch shooters
like Valorant. Color reproduction here isn’t the best we’ve seen, but it’s certainly above average.
The screen is reasonably bright and has a small bezel for a fifteen-inch gaming laptop,
housing the 7 20 p webcam. Sound is handled by a pair of integrated speakers, which perform
well - but are nothing on a PC headset for gaming or some of the best computer speakers, naturally.
The speakers shoot sound out of the sides of the laptop. It’s serviceable for YouTube videos or
video calls, but it doesn’t deliver enough depth or bass for entertainment purposes.
PORTS
Rounding out the system is a respectable port selection. The left edge holds the
headset jack and an Ethernet port, while the right flank is home to two USB Type-A ports.
Most of the connections are around back, including the power jack, another USB-A
port, the sole USB-C port (with power delivery but no Thunderbolt support), and an HDMI video output.
The M15 R5 also comes with the Alienware Command Centre pre-installed,
but you can save yourself some time and ignore it because it truly sucks.
Wonky proprietary software for system tweaking is nothing new, but it certainly takes guts to do
it this poorly. The ACC offers a lot of features, but is slow, clunky, and unintuitive; a nightmare
for the inexperienced techie trying to create a fan speed profile or adjust the RGB lighting.
BATTERY Battery life is solid, not quite up
to the 9 to 10 hours of modern competing gaming laptops on our streaming video playback test,
but at between 8 and 9 hours it's still far better than most people expect from gaming laptops.
This Ryzen-based gaming laptop can handle any sort of casual browser-based workflow with ease.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that the M15 R5 has great battery life,
since AMD’s processors have proven to bring efficiency to other gaming laptops,
but it still did. This one’s 86 watt hour battery lasted for about seven hours of mixed use,
through sustained use of Microsoft Edge with 10 or so tabs, Spotify,
Slack, and some video calls. That’s great for an Alienware laptop. The M15 R3 that I reviewed last
year clocked in at just one hour. Though, other AMD-based gaming laptops have the M15 R5 beat.
SPECS & PERFORMANCE
You might imagine that the star of the show here is the RTX 30 60 GPU that powers this laptop’s
gaming capabilities, but that’s not really true. The 5800 H processor is the real hero of this
machine, offering processing power inline with its Intel counterparts but at a lower price-per-part
and with superior battery life. You’ll never encounter gaming bottlenecks with this machine,
and it has no problem zipping between dozens of browser tabs and a bevvy of everyday applications.
It’ll tackle mainstream content-creation, too, so it’s ideal for photo- and video-editing.
The rest of the specification is unsurprisingly mid-range.
There’s 16 GB of dual-channel memory and a 512 GB of SSD with read and write speeds of
2,316 megabytes per second and 1,053 megabytes per second. Those mediocre results are good enough to
keep the machine snappy, but a few big game installs will have the drive feeling cramped.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 60 graphics card in this gaming laptop has the usual 3,840 cores, 1,702 MHz
boost speed, and 6GB of memory, and it has a power level of 125 Watt, – as high as this chip can go.
So it's not a lower power version that would have previously been called 'Max-Q'. It’ll play the
vast majority of triple "A", single-player titles at smooth framerates of 60 FPS and high-quality
levels. In Far Cry: New Dawn, for instance, it ran at 76 FPS at Ultra settings. If you’re an eSports
fan, the RTX 30 60 will scythe through every game at the speeds required by the 165 Hz display.
BOTTOM LINE
The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 gets plenty of things right considering its low price.
On the inside, the RTX 3060 delivers solid mainstream gaming ability and the AMD Ryzen 5
5800H is a superb option for mainstream workloads and content-creation (if 74% Adobe RGB is ok), and
the Alienware also serves up a good IPS display, a satisfying keyboard and bold, familiar aesthetics.
In some areas, there are inevitable compromises. The trackpad and speakers both disappoint.
External connectivity is good for gaming, but not for some workloads.
Battery life is fine, if underwhelming, and this machine does get hot under duress.
It’s thicker and heavier than plenty of 15.6in gaming laptops, too.
These are not surprises, though, and they’re not issues that you’ll solve without lots more cash.
The m15 R5 gets the most important things right making it an ideal candidate if you
want a gaming laptop that won’t break the bank.