pros and cons
- Excellent build quality.
- Good gaming performance.
- Not much cheaper than other entry-level Alienware products.
- Unimpressive display.
- Connectivity quirks.
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When I first heard about a budget-friendly Alienware laptop, I was beyond excited. What was I expecting? A distinctly Alienware product at an approachable price point, with reasonable trade-offs to get there: a lower-end GPU, less RAM, and an entry-level but high-performing CPU.
Well, it turns out balancing hardware, build, and features is not exactly easy, especially in this market. The Alienware 15 walks the line with its own set of trade-offs — whether or not they’re worth it is up for debate.
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It features a 300-nit WUXGA display, an Intel Core 7 “Raptor Lake” CPU, and either an RTX 4050, 5050, or 5060 GPU with 16GB or 32GB of RAM. It’s hardware you’d expect to see on an entry-level gaming laptop, to be sure, but the $1,300 starting price only goes up from there — $1,649 for the Intel Core 7 and RTX 5060, for example, a price firmly in Alienware’s Aurora series’ territory, which has better displays.
Still, the performance is there, and it delivers a capable gaming experience as long as you’re willing to deal with the aforementioned trade-offs and are a fan of the Alienware brand.
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Build and hardware
The Alienware 15 starts with either an AMD Ryzen 5 220 or Intel Core 5 210H “Raptor Lake” processor on the low end. My review unit housed a 10-core Intel Core 7 240H — a CPU from 2022 — that’s certainly capable but a bit less snappy than Intel’s newer processors I’ve tested this year.
Graphics options start with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, scaling up to a 5050 and 5060: common budget gaming options that are found in Dell’s own Alienware 16. Note, however, that the GPU in the Alienware 15 is only designed for 85W TDP — lower than its 115W potential. For comparison, the Lenovo LOQ 15, a competing budget gaming laptop we tested earlier this year, features this exact same GPU, but supports 115W of power, has a better display, and costs less.
Also, in terms of future upgradeability, the Alienware 15 only features one M.2 slot, so your choices are slightly limited if you intend to add additional RAM at a later date.
The full-size keyboard feels better than I expected, with 1.3mm of key travel and a satisfying snappiness. In fact, the keys themselves look a lot like something you’d see on a business laptop, supporting two levels of backlighting but no RGB effects. The trackpad is small and left-aligned (centered under the main keyboard) and is perfectly functional, if not exceptionally premium.
Physically, the Alienware 15 has a rather minimalist build that is almost identical to the Aurora 16, but it features ports on the sides instead of the back. The chassis has very little flex or bend, but notably, it doesn’t pass the one-finger test.
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That said, it feels about as premium as an all-plastic build can be, so kudos to Alienware’s design team for that. Even the plastic bezels around the display (something that almost always looks cheap) look okay here, with the display’s elevated hinge as its most unique design element.
Unfortunately, the display itself is not particularly impressive. It’s a 15.3-inch panel with a WUXGA (1920 x 1200) resolution that tops out at 300 nits of brightness. It does go up to a 165Hz refresh rate, but it only represents 62.5% of the sRGB color gamut — resulting in a comparatively drab palette.
Viewing angles are not particularly flexible, either. You’ll want to be directly in front of the display to get the most out of it, and the 300 nits combined with the matte finish don’t work well for bright environments. If you’re in a properly lit space, however, it gets the job done. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this device for creators engaged in photo or video editing unless you’re working with external monitors.
Battery and gaming performance
During my testing, I had some hardware issues connecting to docking stations and external monitors, the latter of which caused Windows to descend into a BSoD and later completely brick the system (I was able to start it up again with a hard battery discharge/reset). The Thunderbolt 3 cable I was using is almost certainly the cause of the crash, which I’ll address with motherboard firmware updates.
The left-side USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 does support 10Gbps of data transfer with DisplayPort 1.4 and power delivery of up to 100W, but the right-side USB-C does not, and you’ll need the 180W charging brick to keep the 70Wh battery fully charged. If you’re commuting anywhere with it, it’ll add some weight to the total package, despite the battery life here being a little better than what you’d expect from a budget gaming laptop.
Using the Alienware 15 for everyday tasks in the office resulted in about 5.5 hours of use, with about 6.5 hours in a livestream test in balanced mode over Wi-Fi. Speaking of Wi-Fi, note that this laptop only supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 — one of the many small trade-offs made to keep the price low. While gaming, you’ll get less than two hours unplugged, and performance on battery is noticeably worse.
However, I found gaming performance to be quite good on the Alienware 15, or at least on par with where it should be relative to competitors. More demanding titles like “Battlefield 6” are playable with graphics toned down, whereas older titles like “No Man’s Sky” and “Hogwarts Legacy” felt great in performance mode. Again, the biggest drawback is the display, which lacks vibrance, and the down-firing speakers, which are tinny and shallow.
ZDNET’s buying advice
Look, the issues with the Alienware 15 are put into perspective by looking at the broader market. New entry-level gaming laptops are simply not cheap right now, and that’s true across the board. This particular product demographic of budget gaming PCs is one of the hardest hit because the mantra of “beefy hardware, but make it budget” just isn’t possible the way it was a year or two ago.
The Alienware 15 brings a solid build and respectable performance to the table, but the question becomes one of value and cost relative to features. Dell set out to make an entry-level gaming laptop, but it’s still an Alienware product — it was never going to be situated on the bottom end of the market.
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However, it’s still a competitive price point and there are several other options that might make more sense. For example, Lenovo’s LOQ 15 with an AMD Ryzen 5 220 processor and RTX 5050 starts at $1,749 with a slightly better display. For just a few hundred bucks more, MSI’s Katana 15 HX ups the ante with an RTX 5070, 32GB of RAM, and a QHD resolution display with 165Hz refresh and full four-zone RGB keyboard lighting.
Then, of course, there’s Dell’s own Alienware Aurora 16, which starts at $1,649 and offers better hardware options, including the display. And if there’s one thing about Dell, its products frequently go on sale to significant price drops. If you can grab an Aurora on sale, for example, you could get better hardware for the same price (or less) as the Alienware 15.
