The new Alienware 15 and 17 conquer the world of virtual reality with new design and technologies

Shortly after Acer’s announcement of the gaming Predator 21X laptop, which will be sold with two GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs, another gaming company presented its latest products today. Dell’s subsidiary company Alienware was not shy in announcing the new Alienware 15 and 17, calling them VR-Ready. Apart from being more powerful, the new models feature a new technology that shall be discussed in the paragraphs below.


Alienware 15

These products come with a completely revamped design which ensures better portability. The screen hinges have been moved to the front, bringing the display closer to you. Thanks to this new style, Alienware have managed to decrease the notebook’s thickness with 25% and improve the laptop’s cooling system – considering that we were quite happy with the temperature tests in our reviews of Alienware 17 R3 and Alienware 15 R2, and we can’t wait to observe the improvement in both models.

Despite the design change, the quality has been preserved at a very high level, which is characteristic of Alienware. We are again presented with anodized aluminum which brings not only durability and light weight but also extravagance that emphasizes the intriguing design. Additionally, the choice of materials in the chassis also includes a magnesium alloy and steel. The most interesting aspect of the new device’s constructions is the steel plate found beneath the keyboard. It protects the internal components if you decide to give vent to your anger upon the keyboard, although we do not recommend testing this new feature of Alienware.

Speaking of the device’s interior, let us have a look at the keyboard. It is unlikely that it will be a surprise if we told you that there is backlighting (once again). Despite this, it is not attached to each individual key, which we would have really liked. Nonetheless, there has been an improvement of this input device – the keys are using a new switch that ensures 2.2 mm of key travel. Along with it, you also get the N-Key rollover technology, which is identical to Anti-Ghost. Since Alienware is namely about games, the new keyboard allows you to press up to 10 keys simultaneously.


Alienware 15

The models will feature IPS displays with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 p. Still, the 15-inch model will offer a display modification with 120 Hz refresh rate as well as a 4K IGZO display. The battery options in Alienware 15 are two – 68 Wh and 99 Wh The latter option is perhaps better, considering the specs that will be displayed below. Before them we would like to touch upon the new technology that Alienware have implemented in the future Alienware 17 model. Its name is “Tobii eye-tracking” and it’s fully compatible with Windows Hello. This means that you can unlock your device just by looking at it.

What’s most interesting about this technology is the opportunity to control several features with your eyes alone. For example, if you are not looking at Alienware 17’s keyboard, the backlighting will be switched off in order to save valuable energy. The American company shared that in order to wake the device up you only need to look at the alien logo. What made us the greatest impression about the Tobii eye-tracking, however, is the fact that Alienware have developed a specialized software that monitors the movement of your eyes. When you get killed in a game you can go several frames back to see where your focus had been to fully make avail of the information from a given situation. Considering the development of eSports, we are not surprised that Alienware have come up with this type of technology.

aw17-side
Alienware 17

It is not without any intention that the company itself has characterized its devices VR-Ready. This is due to the hardware incorporated in the laptops. Because Intel announced only its low-end chips from the latest Kaby Lake generation, the Alienware laptops will come with very powerful 6th generation CPUs. It will come as no surprise if we share that the devices will feature graphics cards such as GeForce GTX 1080, GTX 1070 and even RX 470, which we shall discuss in another publication. As far as storing data is concerned, you will be presented with configurations featuring SSD or HDD devices. Additionally, the RAM type to be employed is DDR4 and the maximum capacity you could use is 32 GB.

For now the information about the smallest family member – Alienware 13 – is really scarce. We know that it will be released in November and that it will feature an OLED display (it boasts a response time of 1 ms). Once again its contrast ratio is very high – 100,000:1. The device, just like its brothers, is less thick, and for better stability Alienware have added a lid made of anodized aluminum, and carbon fibers in the construction itself. Alienware 13 will feature a GPU from NVIDIA’s 10th series, and what’s even better is that the three devices support the now popular Graphics Amplifier – if one GeForce GTX 1080 is not enough, you can connect to a TITAN X Pascal without any issues.

You can browse through all Alienware products here: http://amzn.to/2ca1sMM

Alienware 17
Alienware 17

Specs sheet of Alienware 17


aw17-side

CPUup to Intel Core i7-6820HK
RAM8GB DDR4 2400 MHz, up to 32 GB
GPU
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5)
  • AMD Radeon RX 470 (8GB GDDR5)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB GDDR5)
HDD/SSDup to 3TB devices featuring 1TB PCIe (boot drive), 1 TB PCIe (storage) and 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (storage)
Display17-inch – 1920×1080 p (Full HD)
ConnectivityKiller e2400 Gigabit Ethernet, wireless and Bluetooth


Specs sheet of Alieware 15


SideProfie15

CPUup to Intel Core i7-6820HK
RAM8GB DDR4 2133 MHz, up to 32 GB
GPU
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5)
  • AMD Radeon RX 470 (8GB GDDR5)
HDD/SSDup to 3TB devices featuring 1TB PCIe (boot drive), 1 TB PCIe (storage) and 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (storage)
Display15-inch – 1920×1080 p  (Full HD), optional 4K display
ConnectivityKiller e2400 Gigabit Ethernet, wireless and Bluetooth
Battery68 Wh/99 Wh

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