Imagine saving $720 on an entry-level gaming laptop, and still getting one of the most attractive-looking machines on the market today. Okay, that's just my opinion. People often see it as a bit chunky around the bezels, or they'll down-talk the funny-looking exhausts, but I've always had a thing for the rounded spacecraft look of these machines.
And that snazzy sci-fi look isn't all this portable machine has going for it. It's packing some nifty hardware inside, too.
The idea of bagging the Alienware M15 R6 for just $980 is a pretty tempting option, especially since you don't generally see gaming laptops with 30-series graphics cards in them for under $1,000 until the likes of Prime Day rolls around. Now though, with Nvidia's RTX 40-series graphics cards looming, we're likely to see a lot more beastly gaming laptops coming in at a more palatable price point.
Getting into the innards, this machine comes with a last-gen CPU that's a paragon of Intel's lower-end offerings. It's a 6-core 12-thread CPU, with 2.7GHz base blocks, and 4.5GHz turbo, which means it's no slouch when it comes to gaming.
Pairing with that 11th Gen processor, Dell has opted for Nvidia's RTX 3060 mobile graphics card, which will keep the frames flying at the laptop's native 1080p resolution. And topping it off, you get a 3ms response time on a 165Hz gaming monitor, complete with G-Sync, which will mean the frames it throws out are buttery smooth, and every move you make will matter.
The main drawback to this config is that it only comes with 8GB of DDR4 memory, running at 3,200MHz. Now, that should see you through in a basic gaming sense, but don't expect to be doing much multitasking on this one. RAM is evidently where Alienware has skimped to get the price down, but don't despair. It is entirely possible to get your own laptop-friendly RAM kit to jam in there, if you're feeling handy.
We'd peg this machine as great for low-level competitive gaming at medium resolutions, but definitely consider upping the RAM if you're going to go for it.
