[CES 2024] Alienware Unveils New Laptops, Monitors & Peripherals

Alienware Unveils New Laptops, Monitors & Peripherals

Dell’s gaming division Alienware is bringing its share of new hardware this CES 2024, consisting of new laptops, monitors, and peripherals. Three laptops, two monitors, and four peripherals are introduced today.

Laptops

Starting with laptops – the newly-redesigned m16 R2 does away with the sizeable overhang on the hinge section used for cooling, and the new cooling system – with 43% more efficient airflow – enables the laptop’s Y-axis length to shorten by 14%. The touchpad is now larger, and Alienware has moved its “stadium loop” lighting from the rear of the laptop to the touchpad itself, acting as an illuminated boundary that can be easily identified in dark environments.

A much-requested new addition to this laptop is Stealth Mode: by tapping the F2 shortcut, all of the RGB lighting and AlienFX lighting zones turn white, and the laptop enables Quiet mode to reduce fan noise. Turn that off and you get the full power provided by Intel’s Core Ultra H-series processors and up to NVIDIA RTX 4070, delivering frames to a 16:10 QHD+ 240Hz panel.

Next up is the x16 R2 laptop, continuing on the ultra-thin gaming laptop segment. The refresh now features at least 240Hz on all variants, and the LPDDR5X RAM is now upgraded to 7467MT/s – as a result of the new CPU upgrade to Intel Core Ultra chips. GPU options continue to offer up to RTX 4090 with full 175W TGP. Meanwhile, the refreshed m18 R2 laptop brings Intel 14th Gen chips, with the storage offerings now available up to a whopping 10TB – hopefully enough to fit your massive Steam library.

For the Malaysian market, Alienware expects the x16 R2 and m18 R2 to arrive in late January, with the respective price of RM11,999 and RM12,599 onwards. The m16 R2 meanwhile will be available in mid-March this year, starting at RM10,999.

Monitors

Moving on to monitors – the company is bringing two new QD-OLED displays, the AW3225QF (32-inch 4K 240Hz, 1700R curved) and AW2725DF (27-inch QHD 360Hz). The 32-inch panel offers Dolby Vision HDR, NVIDIA G-SYNC, HDMI 2.1 FRL for consoles, and eARC compatibility for external audio devices. Meanwhile, the 27-inch model offers AMD FreeSync Premium Pro certification.

Both panels offer 0.03ms response time, over 99% DCI-P3 color gamut and Delta-E of less than 2; and the hardware-based ComfortView Plus limits blue light emissions. To clear any doubts about the burn-in issues that came with OLED panels, Alienware is also offering three years of OLED burn-in warranty for peace of mind. They will be available in Malaysia starting this early February, with the price of RM4,799 for the AW3225QF and RM3,799 for the AW2725DF.

Peripherals

Finally, the peripherals from Alienware come in the form of the new Pro Wireless Mouse and Pro Wireless Keyboard, which is developed in collaboration with over 100 esports athletes, including Alienware-sponsored Team Liquid.

Starting with the wireless Pro Mouse, which comes with an 8000Hz polling rate (4000Hz over wireless) and a total weight of under 60g. On the key switches themselves, Alienware introduces the exclusive Magnetic-Force Keyplates with optical switches – this delivers faster debounce times which improves rapid clicking speeds while preventing button stick. The sensor offers 650 IPS tracking speed, 50G acceleration, 26,000 DPI resolution, and a total switch lifespan of 70 million clicks.

The Pro Keyboard meanwhile is a 75% layout keyboard for a balance between space for mouse movement and easy access to most keys. The switches themselves are completely custom, as a result of feedback provided by esports pros. As a result, the switch offers 40g linear actuation force – coupled with low-friction POM (polyoxyethylene) material on the stem, and two layers of silicone dampening foam reducing the noise.

If the stock switches do not satisfy you, this keyboard allows hot-swappable switches with most 5-pin and 3-pin designs. The keycaps themselves are double-shot PBT, and Alienware touts 100 million keystrokes before fading occurs, thanks to molded-in colors (instead of painting). Connectivity-wise, you get USB-C wired, Bluetooth 5.1, or 2.4GHz wireless available. The battery life is rated for 72 hours (50% RGB brightness) and up to a whopping 798 hours without RGB through 2.4GHz wireless.

Alienware says these peripherals will launch in February 2024 – though no pricing is announced at this writing.

Pokdepinion: Looking forward to the new QD-OLED releases.