If you're shopping for a new gaming laptop I think you're in luck, because it looks like retailers are running some pretty good laptop deals now that a new wave of 2025 gaming laptops packing the latest hardware (like Nvidia's RTX 50-series GPUs) are about to hit the market.
Here's what I mean: The Alienware m16 R2 with RTX 4070 is $1,374 at Best Buy right now, which is $525 off the usual $1,899 asking price. That's one of the best discounts I've ever seen on an Alienware gaming laptop with an RTX 4070 onboard, and it has to be because 50-series models are right around the corner.
But please, don't let the threat of the Next Big Thing keep you from appreciating this deal for what it is: a good opportunity to get a mid-range 16-inch gaming laptop at a great price.
The model on sale at Best Buy here is almost identical to the model we reviewed for our Alienware m16 R2 review, so you can read that for more detailed impressions of what it's like to own one as well as our results from lab testing the laptop's performance, display quality, battery life and more.
The short version is that the m16 R2 is a solid gaming notebook that can run many of the best PC games at good to great framerates on its 16-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600) 240Hz display. While our testing revealed that the IPS panel is a little dull and washed out compared to the best gaming laptops, it's still more than good enough for gaming on the go.
And since the m16 R2 has a bevy of ports, including HDMI 2.1 and Ethernet, you can plug this beast into one a fancy TV or one of the best gaming monitors when you're home for a more lush gaming experience.
This gaming laptop runs titles like Assassin's Creed: Mirage pretty well, managing to hit a stead 70+ FPS (frames per second) in our tests when run at the laptop's native 1600p resolution. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 run less well at native resolution (~20 FPS), but if you knock the game resolution down to 1080p and play with the DLSS and detail settings you can reliably get 60+ FPS out of this thing.
You should actually have a slightly better time with this laptop than we did reviewing it last year, since the model on sale right now has an SSD with double the storage space of our review unit (1TB vs. 512GB). And while we didn't love the chunky, plasticky-feeling chassis, somehow the fact that it feels a little cheap is counteracted by the comfortable keyboard and the understated design, which makes it easy to pull this laptop out in a coffee shop without feeling like you're about to hack the planet.
