Alienware m15 R2

Yet another reason why I wouldn't touch this laptop with a barge pole. Struck MSI GS off my shortlist based on this design. In contrast, the R1 is amazingly easy to access and repaste.

Heatsink seems quite similar except for the PCH cooling protrusion. My PCH runs at 40-70C so whatevs.

 

That soldered design looks like an Apple's design.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

 

It's a flipped motherboard? Curse you dell!
I was ok with soldered Ram. . .but this might be an annoyance I can't forgive.

 

Soldered wifi is very bad - those standards do change every couple of years, far less than the life of a notebook.

 

No wonder they didn't show off the inside of this thing a few weeks ago. The thing is basically none repairable. I really don't know why they went so backwards with so many things being soldered to the board.

 

Yep, looks like Frank Razer lost the plot on this.

 

Lol. Frank Razer? Is this a joke I don't know about?

 

If you’re going to solder in the WiFi card at least use a Broadcom card with a 3x3 antenna solution like the MacBook Pros or some of the older Latitudes, at the very least if using a 2x2 card an Intel AX200. But no instead it’s a two generation old Intel 8265. WTF lol.

 

It's a stupid thing, imo. I won't touch the design now, nor will I recommend it to anyone. And yes I agree Intel AX200 but even still, no way. Maybe Dell is telling us to go buy Razer or something.

 

I'm torn because I love the design. Very unique and modern in my eyes. Soldered memory and meh sized battery? I was ok with that and could live with it. Flipped motherboard and soldered wifi? Well now this thing will be a pain to service. I at the very least like to repaste my systems since I know I can knock a few degrees off. I was considering the Triton 500 months ago when it was announced. Passed because it had a flipped motherboard. Will do the same here. Real shame. Now I gotta figure out who to go with as alienware is out of options for me.

 

LOOL. One less screw vs. previous gen AW m15 (and on top shared screws between cpu and GPU heatsink. Same as Dell use for their XPS model (FYI. XPS and AW line share same ceo and engineers). The big questions is... Will next model come with one less aka 5 screws?

 

Is it ok if I officially dub this Aw 15 R2 a Jokebook? I think it's earned it.

 

Same tragedy for the brand new bigger brother Alienware m17 r2

 

Jokebook and Punbook. Man I think seeing this broke me today. I need a drink. I'll be back.

And don't you go putting idea's in Azor's head about soldered storage. Bad Papusan! Bad!

 

Frank Apple and Frank Xpees don't rhyme. Frank Fruit would work too I guess.

 

I thought might have been making a joke he worked for Razer or something. Frank Azhat works in my opinion.

 

Well, he is effectively working for Razer. He managed to dumb the 15 inch line down so hard, the Blade Advanced is actually an overall superior option now.
LOL, you know it's bad when customers start calling the man in charge names out of sheer despair!

 

Yeah Razer overall is better. This is borderline apple level bad. We still have 2 m.2 slots, but the M15 R3 will likely take that away too.

 

Yep both the 17 and the 15 r2's are Apple styled junk. One single part goes bad, toss the thing in the trash (lovely) and start over. But wow they are so thin! Next they'll be gluing the bottoms on because why the heck would you want to go inside the thing anyway? That way they could hide that internal design. Next step will probably be soldering the SSD onto the motherboard, like Apple. It's a really tough bar to clear when you make a "new" design that makes Razer the more serviceable brand. That really takes skill. Awesome job Dell. Now we know why they built the 51m. Because the other half of their engineering group were about to weld everything into one silicon lump. They've made the gaming laptop brand nothing more than an iPad.

 

True. Since they are unlikely to resurrect the AW 15, the only hope is that they make a 15 inch variant of the A51, necessarily with Optimus (BIOS selectable if need be) to ensure decent battery life.

 

hey guys....been mostly considering Razer Blade 15 (9750H / 2070MQ/FullHD 244hz/512gb SSD /16gb) for £2499.
Alienware m15r2 similar specs but with a 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) 60Hz 25ms 300-nits 72% color gamut comes out to £2299.

thoughts on the respective performances of these 2 and which one you would chose? is the 60hz a bad option?
a version with 15.6" OLED UHD (3840 x 2160) 60Hz 1ms HDR-400 DCI-P3 color gamut + Tobii Eyetracking technology costs £2499 and would require an extra 150£ to make it 512gb SSD....

also how do i get these Dell discount vouchers? sign up to some specific news letter? i remember back in the day people here (stevie) had dell contacts which gave good discounts. anyone similar still around?

 

Razer or better yet m15 R1 if still available. The m15 R2 the most dumbed down Alienware laptop in years. Look around these threads for more info.

 

thanks for response. i have to admit i hate how the r1 looks in terms of design. i hated every alienware since the last m15/18x r2 versions...i still have my m18 xr2 kicking just without a graphics card...unfortunately to upgrade it to 3920XM & 980m/1060 mxm will cost around 700-800 and at that point i might as well invest in a new laptop.

i was under impression the r2 would have better cooling and less throtling vs the razer blade 15? also i feel much more comfortable with the QC of alienware vs razer....

its a bit confusing the layout of this alienware sub forum with all these new releases...is this sub the best one for latest views on m15 r2? or is the m15x sub more appropriate?

 

A lot of this looks to be quite limiting, which is unfortunate. For those interested, the Asus GX 502GW might be a decent option now.

 

An adm

Not clear what the impression could be based on apart from Dell's marketing efforts including some sponsored previews. Have to wait for proper reviews and guinea pig feedback. The internal design looks terrible so far.

You'll find info about m15 R2 here and in http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-alienware-m15-owners-lounge.825553/

Sorry, about the bifurcation, it's just where people ended up posting.

 

This’s 3Dmark comparison between i9 m17 r1 vs r2 both rtx2080mq. It’s out of box performance I believe no undervolting whatsoever, still pretty low for laptop i9 and 2080mq, but there’s difference especially on dx11 Firestrike. Unfortunately no Afterburner OSD shown but it should somehow throttle (power/thermal) especially on r1.

 

With how little upgradeable parts there are in the M15 R2 I'd stay clear. Plus the Razer has a high refresh screen. That alone is a selling point. Only thing I'd recommend is be sure to buy through a reseller. Microsoft store, amazon, local store. Razer has some poor customer service and they really aren't that organized with returns in my experience.

If you want to get dell vouchers you need to sign up for there dell preferred account. They'll send you things in the mail with one time use codes.

 

After hearing about all the soldered in parts Dell is officially dead to me, thanks Frank for decimating sales and hopefully being fired for someone with a brain

 

This is pretty scary. Product Specialist Ernie at Alienware can't seems to see grasp there is something very very wrong with the Cpu score from the unlocked i9-8950Hk in previous gen Alienware m17 r1. Slightly above 9200 points in 3DM Firestrike Physics is even below what you can expect from an fully working 4 core i7-4700Hq from 2013.

And the 3DM Physics score from the new and shiny Intel 8 core i9-9980Hk in this refreshed AW m17 r2 with New Legend industrial design is below a working 6 core BGA from last year.

What he have shown us here in his Youtube bragging video is flawed results. And he ain't able to see it. Product Specialist can be so much. But this one failed hard! @Mr. Fox @Ashtrix @Arrrrbol @Ultra Male @Falkentyne @jclausius + all not mentioned here but not forgotten

Spoiler

 

Yeah that’s pretty scary scores for the specs, and yes it’s typical YouTube reviewers who don’t really look at care detailed score. This’s for example from 2 famous youtubers about 9750H 2080maxq Blade Pro and told great thermal.
Dave2d


Unlockr:



User:

This’s a lot better on eyes Even looks to me more 8750H performance lol.
The thing is, for that Alienware marketing staff probably different better score between the two is important

 

Ernie Gonzales ain’t an typical YouTube reviewer posting for clicks. He is the Product Specialist at Alienware. None should know it’s products better than what he does. What he showing in his YouTube videos is what they use for catching new customers.

 

One word comes to mind: sad

 

ROTFL, 9980HK with 2080 MQ TimeSpy score: 6540 That's less than I was getting at stock with 8750H+2070MQ (around 7k)

 

Sorry I know only Azor and Umar first from 51m forum, know only Kaori channel host from Alienware tv jp, like tech girl .
I can understand dudes here laughs on it. But it’s out of box performance comparison i believe, the big difference is 9750H, and take a look on physical test, both runs pretty same time, there’s quite big FPS difference I saw


So on “right” hand from masters here it should performs “better” than r1
Edit:
Umar Khan...i like the name, remember me one of famous actor in India , anyway so played dauntless on 2060 version, look at that cpu temperature what the heck it’s 30 degrees lower than mine!!!, most laptops idle temperature lul!!! He said even they didn’t hide anything about it. FPS unfortunately he didn’t unlock the FPS limit, but pretty similar with 1070mq epic mostly 62fps, only that temperature, is it power limitation or factory LM lol

 

This is nowadays Gamers... How to get moore performance for your games https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/bvdjvg/how_can_i_boost_performance_of_m15_while_on/ See also my next post.

Out of the box for any laptops nowadays usually works better than this mess. And the 6 cores 8950Hk in Aw m17 r1 had performance on level with an 4 cores from earlier gen processors. Of course the new 8 cores i9-9980Hk hadn't problem beating and show up higher FPS than the underperforming 6 cores in AW m17 r1

Here you can see AW's Product marketing manager Umar Khan last year showing the overclocking features in Dell’s new OC tool. Can you see the similarity with the other bench test in the YouTube video from Ernie? As you can see... The one from Umar is another flawed bench test from last year. They both lack the understanding how their products really should have performed.

 

I'm not sure why you picked on the battery performance question. The TimeSpy score is extremely bad, something was wrong with his settings. People buy laptops to use them on battery shocker.

 

As you can see Dell have promoted portable gaming on battery long time. Some only look after laptops who can give the best gaming performance and experience on battery...


The Gamers need...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...gaming-plugged-in.812862/page-5#post-10666918

 

Not sure what your point is. Games are def playable on battery (despite one user's machine experiencing issues), and yes people need the same machines to perform for a reasonable amount of time on while performing other tasks on battery. Dell missed a trick with the 51m by not implementing BIOS-selectable Optimus which would have significantly extended battery life and broadened the appeal of the laptop, but the 17 inch form factor is too cumbersome for many anyway.

 

I don't trust Umar Khan as far as I could throw him. When the Area 51m was coming out stated in a video how MSI laptops suck because they over heat and melt. Ten minutes later he explains how took an msi gs65 and wrapped it in a towel and did the xbox red ring of death test. He ran a stress test while doing it and explained how he thought the msi was junk because the bottom panel warped. He did the same to an Alienware 15r4 and praised it for not melting. So he lies on camera.

While I hope these temps are real as it would be a pain in the ass for anyone to open these up to repaste them. Maybe they wised up and started putting a factory undervolt on the cpu?

 

But then this would also be lying to the customers about thermals in stock. Or factory uv is the new stock :/

 

But, wait, no, AHAAAAAA!

Honestly, some manufactures do this already. While from our perspective ((Enthusiasts)) something like that is pointless. But, to the average joe who are the real customers, because there are alot more dumb dumbs out there than us, this would be a good thing. But, yes I see the point you're trying to make. lol

 

The i9 OLED 2080 Lunar is now avail.

 

Maye it would be more twisted then we could imagine^^ What if the value of factory uv is 0 mv? There would be no lying regarding the temps and we would still be able to undervolt through TS e.g.

 

I've just got a m15 r1 and, well, it seems that new screens and newer options are finally coming to the r2. Maybe I should return mine and get the new one. Then, I checked the service manual: soldered RAM, soldered WIFI (no hackintosh!), no extra 2.5" hard drive ... WTF?!? what's next? proprietary NVME?? If this is what Alienware is going towards I'll need to upgrade the warranty on my m15, because it will have to last for ever

 

Last week, Dell just launched m15 R2 in Japan including the OLED option. I love the new “Legend” design but inverted motherboard with soldered RAM is really made me thinking more than twice. Even the soldered wireless card is just the AC 8265 with Bluetooth 4.2

Right now, I am also considering Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED. Gigabyte also just launched this model in Japan last week. Aero 15 has better cost performance, factory calibrated OLED screen and easy to access the motherboard. But I do not know how good the support is and the longevity of its components.

I am planning to keep my laptop for 3-4 years and currently Alienware has warranty upgrade discount (about 50% off) for 4 years Premium Support.

"Cheaper and user serviceable Aero 15 OLED with 2 years warranty" or "Pricier and non-user serviceable Alienware m15 R2 OLED with 4-years Premium Support"? Hmm, difficult decision

 

If you don't like the direction Dell is taking with this soldering nonsense just vote with your wallet. How does non-upgradeable 16GB sound? It's a bare minimum today, what about in a year or two, never mind four.

Just do what @kahuna0k did and get yourself an R1 with OLED or look elsewhere.

 

Yeah I dont like certain things about this laptop. However there are also a few positives compared to the r1 (for my own preferences).

Cons:

* 76wh battery --> should be 90wh like last generation
* The trackpad on the 15 inch version is a lot smaller than it is on the 17 inch version. They should have made it the same size.
* Max 16gb ram. Needs to be 32gb.
* Wifi is not the newest - it should be!
* Cannot configure 144hz panel on any of the black SKUs.
* Assumed there is no mux switch (yet again).

Pros:

* Keyboard is looks both better quality and also is in the centre and no numpad (which I personally prefer)
* The overall size / portability is better
* The way the heatpipes go over the CPU, looks to be slightly better than it was in the r1.
* Decent gpu VRM - for hardware modding the power limit on the GPU.

The worst of it:

* This is a new chassis revision. So they cannot change certain things very easily. Which affects the first 2-4 'Cons' in my list.

What I think they need to do for this hardware revision:

* Make independantly configurable BTO options. Like in their business SKUs.
* Upgrade the wifi card to latest.
* Upgrade the RAM to include a configurable 32gb option.

If I am paying so much for a laptop (thousands of dollars), then I know exactly what I want in the spec. The order should be fully customizable / configurable! I should be able to choose the panel type, gpu and cpu independantly of each other.

Sorry but this whole "we know what's best for you" approach is a complete marketing and PR fail to me. It just does not cut it with me or any other power users. Mindlessly frustrating.

For future hardware revisions:

* Made the underside shell slightly bigger. Either taller or more depth. Just enough to make the room needed for fixing those other issues...
* Plug in wifi card
* 90wh (or larger) battery
* 2nd SODIMM slot
* Larger trackpad on the 15 inch version (make it the same as the 17 inch.
* This laptop costs THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. Therefore it should also include a mux switch.

Anyhow those are my views. Perhaps if they can eventually end up ahead of the new version of the aero 15 in those lacking areas. Then a modified and revised version of this chassis might be ok. In it's current offered form, far from perfect.

Like the area 51 styling is fine, certain other the things about the redesign are OK. The keyboard looks great to me. But all these new pain points. No sorry. It's way overpriced for these glaring flaws. Size reductions - nice effort / very good try. But you went 'just that little bit' too far. That needs to be regressed back slightly. It can still be smaller than the R1, whilst not sacrificing quite so much.

 

What do you mean by "* 2nd SODIMM slot"?

It doesn't have any.

Also not clear what you mean by size reduction? It's pretty much exactly the same chassis size and weight as the R1.

 

Weight yes but dimensions is different r2 smaller overall, r1 longer and thicker, even r2 around 1cm wider.

 

Just the mere fact that they soldered an 8265 onto the motheboard tells you all you need to know about Dell and their m15 r2. It's shady and it's a disgrace.