While it is not the first 18-inch gaming laptop we’ve reviewed since this XXL-size class of machines burst onto the scene at the start of 2023, the Alienware m18 (starts at $1,899.99; as tested $3,199.99) is no less a head-turner. Our pricey model lives up to that with an Intel Core i9-13980HX CPU and an Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU alongside its roomy 18-inch, 2,560-by-1,600-pixel display, and the gaming performance is as competitive as you’d expect. If you’re a deep-pocketed enthusiast in the market for a desktop-replacement for gaming, you’ll enjoy the blazing frame rates and slick design. The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is certainly an alternative, but the Alienware m18 takes our Editors' Choice award for big-screen gaming laptops. Meanwhile, the smaller Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 remains our top pick for high-end gaming laptops overall.

Unusually Restrained, for an Alienware

We liked the look of the m18 when we first saw it back at CES 2023, and that remains the case during my time with it. Despite the massive 18-inch frame, it peaks at 1.05 inches thick and tapers to 0.95 inch at the front, which isn’t much thicker than smaller laptops. Limiting thickness is admirable, but realistically, it only helps so much when you consider the full size: The m18 measures 1.05 by 16.15 by 12.59 inches (HWD) and weighs 8.9 pounds. The base model starts at 8.5 pounds, and certain component options raise the weight.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Even compared with other 18-inchers, the Alienware m18 is heavy: The Razer Blade 18 is the slimmest around at 0.86 by 15.74 by 10.83 inches, but it still weighs 6.8 pounds (much lighter, but still heavy), while the powerful Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 comes in at 1.21 by 15.71 by 11.57 inches and 6.77 pounds. You’ll see later in the testing section if the extra heft is worth it in performance.

The bottom line is, while it’s not overly thick, the Alienware m18 is still not at all portable. These 18-inch laptops are truly meant as desktop replacements that you can move if you need to, but not frequently. You likely won’t want to take this to class, a café, or pull it out in an airport—though, unlike a desktop, you could. If that’s a major consideration for you, perhaps one of the above (relatively) more mobile alternatives will be more appealing, though a smaller screen size is likely a better choice.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Beyond the size, the m18’s design is minimalist at its core, but with well-chosen spots of style or flair. The dark “metallic moon” color (the only option) won’t stand out too much, but the embossed “18” and alien head logo on the lid, RGB ring on the rear, and RGB keyboard bring some pizazz to the otherwise restrained design. It’s a sharp combo, and if colored animated lighting isn’t your thing, you can always turn it off or tone it down with the customization software.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

The keyboard deck and bottom panel are plastic, but the lid is aluminum, which adds to the high-quality feel. Alienware also sells the m18 with different keyboard options: The base model is still a fairly advanced RGB keyboard with per-key lighting, while our review unit features the upgraded Cherry MX option.

This is a low-profile mechanical keyboard that Alienware debuted a few years back, co-developed with leading key maker Cherry. Of course, it's a joy to type on, with more audible click and physical feedback than virtually any alternative laptop keyboard I've tested. It, too, features customizable per-key RGB lighting.

The 18-Inch Difference

Driving the "18" in the Alienware m18 name, is of course, the 18-inch display. If you’re unfamiliar, 18 inches (or any other screen size) refers to the diagonal measure of the screen from corner to corner, which is how these are “18-inch” laptops with smaller physical chassis dimensions. A screen of this size on a laptop is a rare treat, similar to using a small monitor in practice. You’ll forget you’re looking at a laptop screen at times, with plenty of digital real estate for gaming and running other apps simultaneously.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

You can chose between two display options and, in a rare case, the higher resolution option is the base model. This is what our unit has: a 2,560-by-1,600-pixel “QHD+” (or 1600p) resolution with Nvidia G-Sync and a 165Hz refresh rate. This screen looks sharp, shines plenty bright, and pumps out vibrant colors.

So, why is the HD display $50 more despite a lower resolution? That's because it refreshes at a staggering 480Hz. This is a blazing-fast benefit for competitive multiplayer games, where the game image refreshing more frequently gives you a speed advantage.

Games also look smoother at higher frame rates, to a point that even single-player games will benefit, but these extreme refresh rates are truly for online multiplayer gaming. Plus, it’s easier to push higher frame rates at 1080p versus at 1600p. Otherwise, the 165Hz screen is the type of refresh rate that's more fitting for most PC games, particularly for the higher resolution.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Unsurprisingly, the Alienware m18 has plenty of room for ports on its sizable chassis. However, most of them are located around back, which can be especially inconvenient with a screen this large. It’s difficult to peer over the top and see what you’re doing, and cumbersome to spin the bulky system around, so I often find myself standing up and closing the screen halfway to connect something to the rear ports.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Fortunately, you'll find some connections on the sides of the laptop to limit how often you’ll experience this. You’ll find an Ethernet jack, a headphone jack, and two USB Type-A ports on the left side, and a sole USB Type-C port on the right. The rear holds the rest: the power port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, another USB-A port, an HDMI connection, a mini DisplayPort, and an SD card slot. It’s a robust selection, which goes a long way in making this feel like a desktop replacement alongside the screen size.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Connectivity is further supported by Killer Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth, with a sharp 1080p webcam rounding out the package. The latter produces a detailed and clear picture, which handles different lighting conditions well. While the camera can get blown out by bright direct background lighting, it’s not unique in that sense, and still generally maintains a clear picture in this and other lighting conditions. It’s not quite as crisp as a standalone camera, but is better than most laptop webcams—especially since even some laptops at this price still go with inferior 720p selections.

Component and Configuration Check

Naturally, the components inside make or break a gaming laptop, and they generally contribute most to those substantial prices. We were sent an amped-up, expensive review model, and while I cannot call any of the configurations cheap, the starting models are much less expensive, so let’s start there.

The least expensive configuration from Dell—some temporary sales notwithstanding—is an $1,899.99 AMD-based model. You'll find a couple of incompatible components when configuring. So, with those picks forced to some degree, the lowest entry point for the m18 nets you an AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics, 16GB of memory, a 512GB SSD, and the QHD+ screen. As an example of the incompatible choices, you'll find a Radeon RX 7600 GPU pick instead, but selecting it forces you up to a Ryzen 9 CPU and a 1TB SSD, raising the overall cost.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

On the Intel side, the least expensive pick is $2,099.99, using the same core components as the AMD base model, but swapping the processor for the Core i7-13700HX—an upcharge for switching to Intel. From there, you can run through a range of options for both AMD and Intel versions—add multiple terabytes of storage, doubling or quadrupling RAM, and going as high as the RTX 4090 GPU.

In most aspects, that’s exactly what Dell did with the review unit sent to us. Our test model is priced at an eye-watering $3,199.99, for which you get a Core i9-13980HX CPU, 32GB memory, a 1TB SSD, an RTX 4090, and the QHD+ screen with the Cherry MX keyboard. The GPU is built out with a max TGP of 175 watts, an awfully high ceiling in comparison that makes a major performance difference, and that CPU is a processing beast with 24 total cores and 32 threads.

From there, our unit has even more room for RAM and storage if you’re intent on emptying your bank account, but that aside, this is a super-powerful loadout. Let’s see how it performed on our benchmark tests.

Testing the Alienware m18: A Big-Time Silicon Showdown

To gauge this premium performer, we put it up against a host of similarly expensive and well-equipped gaming laptop alternatives. You can check out their names and specs in the following table…

First, the cutting-edge Alienware x16 R1 is here to show off what Alienware’s slightly more portable alternative can do in comparison with the m18. The other 16-inch laptop in the batch is the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 ($2,749 as tested), which is our top pick among high-end gaming laptops for its high-value combination of power and price. We’ll see how its similar components perform in a smaller chassis.

Finally, we have the two other 18-inch laptops that cost more than most monthly mortgages, with prices far beyond any concerns for value—and beyond even the m18. The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 was tested at $3,699, and the Razer Blade 18 configuration we reviewed cost $3,799.99, so we’ll see how the m18 stacks up to these beasts.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.

Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

Across these tests, the m18, Scar 18, and Legion were more or less in lockstep at the top of the charts, often trading off for first place. That’s notable for a couple of reasons: For one, the Blade 18, as we found in its review, fell behind the other top-end systems, likely a result of its super-slim design limiting thermal headroom. The other reason it’s interesting is that the Legion hangs right with the best performers despite its 16-inch size and smaller GPU.

That translates to truly competitive processing performance for the m18, as you’d hope for given the price and size. This will help with gaming, but also ensures you can use the m18 for any hobbyist or professional content creation and media editing, too. This level of processing power can crunch through these tasks while minimizing wait times. Doing double duty is a smart reason to buy a laptop like this, and the big screen will make your job easier, too.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

For gaming laptops and other mobile gaming hardware, we run both synthetic and real-world gaming benchmarks. The former includes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Also thrown into that gauntlet is the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which we use to gauge OpenGL performance. These GFXBench tests are rendered offscreen to accommodate different native display resolutions; more frames per second (fps) means higher performance.

Moving on, our real-world gaming testing comes from the in-game benchmarks of F1 2021, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These three games—all benchmarked at 1080p resolution—represent simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games, respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (Valhalla at Medium and Ultra quality, Siege at Low and Ultra quality), while F1 2021 is run once at Ultra quality settings and, for Nvidia GeForce RTX-based systems, a second time with Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing turned on.

Which laptop came out on top varied from test to test yet again here, but the bottom line is that the m18 can crush modern 3D rendering and gaming demands. The synthetic tests showed its raw power, while nobody would complain about the frame rates on display here—more than enough to make use of the 165Hz display.

However, you’ll note that these are 1080p numbers, and this laptop has a 1600p screen. They’re not reflected in the chart, but I tested the same games at native resolution. Focusing on the maximum setting presets, at 1600p the m18 averaged 121fps on Assassin's Creed, 169fps on F1 with DLSS, and 273fps on Rainbow Six. Naturally, this is a dropoff, but not a significantly worse outcome—this laptop will still deliver blazing-fast frame rates at its native resolution, too.

Battery and Display Tests

We test laptop battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

Additionally, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the panel can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

Battery life on this system just crosses the minimal threshold for acceptable, but it’s not especially long. You can see it was the shortest-lasting laptop in this group, even if the rest mostly lasted about only an hour more of run time. Five hours will let you use your laptop on the couch or in a pinch without immediately looking for an outlet, but it will drain quickly in particularly taxing tasks.

The m18 posted broad and nearly complete color coverage results on the display tests, backing up the use case for content editors. While some of the other systems here blew it away with especially luminous screens, the m18's maximum brightness rating is high relatively speaking. I, for one, found the maximum brightness to be enough but, if you know you're in need of more, you clearly won't have to look far.

Verdict: Upsized Alienware Packs Lots of Upside

Dell's Alienware m18 delivers on its promises: This is a large, powerful gaming laptop with the premium flair and feel you expect from an expensive purchase. The drawbacks are really the price and battery life, which in context are reasonable. (We'd also like to see more ports on the laptop's sides.) This price tier exists for deep-pocketed enthusiasts, and if you’re considering anything in this range, the m18 isn’t an outlier. For the majority of shoppers, of course, all of these mighty 18-inch systems are likely too expensive.

In that context, this is the best 18-inch gaming laptop we've tested yet. Just going toe-to-toe with the pricier Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 and topping the sleeker Razer Blade 18 in performance weren't enough. Dell topped that off with a restrained but high-end design that is loaded with top-end extras, like a 1080p webcam and just enough RGB lights to play with. You'll also find plenty of configuration options—including two excellent display choices—as well as a reasonable starting price and loadout.

On a value basis, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 continues to be unmatched in gaming laptops overall. Among this new crop of 18-inch behemoths, however, the Alienware m18 is currently the best of the beasts, earning our Editors' Choice award.