The Core i9-9900K simply vaults the Area-51m into a different league of performance.īoth keyboard and touchpad are lit by a rainbow of per-key RGB LED lighting controlled through Alienware’s custom Alienware Command Center software. Still, competitors like Razer and even MSI offer much larger touchpads on much smaller systems. Gamers rarely use a touchpad to play games, so it’ll often sit unused. The Area-51m doesn’t feel designed with the touchpad as a priority. They’re massive, which makes them easy to find and hit by feel, but slightly smaller buttons might’ve worked better if it meant more room for the touch surface. That space is further reduced by the tactile left and right mouse buttons that sit below the touchpad. There just isn’t a lot of room to work with. It’s similar in size to the touchpad on most modern 13-inch laptops, and while it feels responsive in most situations, it can be clunky when attempting multi-touch gestures. I had no problem typing at high speeds from the moment I booted the system. The laptop’s thickness can make using the keyboard feel a bit awkward at times because your hands are far from whatever surface the laptop is sitting on, but the Area-51m’s large palmrest makes this less of an issue.
It offers long key travel, a firm bottoming action, and a spacious layout that should accommodate any gamer. I can forgive that, however, because the keyboard is outstanding.
It spans the full width of the laptop, includes a numpad, and offers chunky square keycaps that don’t look as modern as the laptop that surrounds it. The Alienware Area-51m has a surprisingly normal keyboard. A great keyboard and a vestigial touchpad Keep that in mind if you plan to lug this beast around. The system will power up with just one, but performance will be reduced, and the battery may discharge if both aren’t plugged in. Our model came with one rated at 330 watts and a second at 180 watts. The Area-51m comes with a pair of power bricks, the size of which depends on your configuration. Oh, and you’ll find not one but two power plugs. That covers the gamut of what a gamer will need. It includes three USB-A 3.0 ports, one USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 port, HDMI 2.0, mini-DisplayPort 1.4, a headphone jack, a “global headset jack,” a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port, and even an Alienware Graphics Amplifier port in case you’d like to add an external graphics card. While the Area-51M leads the pack in looks, it doesn’t do so at the expensive of practicality. While the Area-51m looks futuristic, it has one foot in the past. The sleeker, softer Area-51m contrasts stark white and black panels with truly out-there design elements, like the futuristic font, that make it unique. Its laptops, however, are serious pieces of kit, all hard edges and sculpted lines. Razer is the only competitor t hat cares about design. It’d be a stretch to call the Alienware Area-51m original, but there’s nothing else like it in gaming today. This is the laptop our heroic gamer would use when she plunges into the virtual world and conquers her enemies in a fantastically rendered version of Pac-Man. With a white chassis, sci-fi “A51” text, and a sleek Tron-style light loop on the rear, the Area-51m looks straight from a 1980’s sci-fi movie. The laptop’s hardware, a combination of a Core i9-9900K desktop processor with a full fat Nvidia RTX 2080 video card, is impressive – but that’s not why the Area-51m found itself swimming in positive press.
Lots of display options, and they’re all 1080p.A great keyboard and a vestigial touchpad.