This is one of the best gaming laptop deals I’ve seen this year. Granted, it’s only March, but I’d be surprised if a discount this enticing pops up again outside of Black Friday or Cyber Monday. If you’re on the lookout for a large and in charge portable PC, you really should consider this brilliant discount from Dell.
Right now, the excellent 18-inch Alienware m18 Gaming Laptop with AMD Radeon RX 7900M GPU is on sale for $2,499 at Dell. That’s a seriously sweet saving of $500 over the normal $2,999 list price. But wait! It gets even better. If you take advantage of a Dell newsletter coupon you can save an additional $230 (thanks, NotebookCheck). I may have learned to count from a vampire Muppet, but even I know that takes the price down even further to $2,069, making for a colossal total saving of $730 if you sign up to the company’s newsletter.
This is a special machine, too. In our Alienware m18 review, my expert computing colleague Alex Wawro cited it as “the biggest, most powerful gaming laptop we’ve tested to date." He also added that “when plugged in it runs the latest games as well as some of the best gaming PCs, truly earning the term desktop replacement.” High praise indeed.
Now while this specific config of the Alienware m18 that’s currently going for a song isn’t quite as powerful as the model Alex scored 4.5/5 (his review unit featured the best gaming GPU on the planet in the form of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090), this discounted m18 is still a big-ass laptop with sizable horsepower under the hood. It should absolutely slay the best Steam games, and will look damn good doing so in Dell’s fetching Dark Metallic Moon color scheme.
This configuration goes the Team Red route, meaning it’s powered by some impressive AMD components. And make no mistake, this specific Alienware m18 packs a devastating GPU/CPU tag team. The Radeon RX 7900M is one of the fastest graphics cards AMD makes, and it’s roughly on par with Nvidia’s RTX 4080. Combine this GPU with a 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX processor that boasts a max boost clock of 5.40GHz, and you’re dealing with deadly gaming laptop power; even more so when you throw a whopping 32GB of DDR5 RAM into the mix.
The other headline selling point of this Alienware m18 is its astonishingly speedy display that tops out at a frankly absurd 480Hz while still managing to cover 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.
Naturally with such a blistering refresh rate, screen resolution takes a bit of a hit, with this 18-inch FHD panel delivering 1,920 x 1,200 pixels. That’s still a perfectly respectable res, though. Especially when you factor in that the Radeon RX 7900M packs 16GB of GDDR6 onboard memory, meaning you’ll be able to run excellent PC games like the recent Helldivers 2, the breathless butchery of Doom Eternal and the fully redeemed The Last of Us Part 1 at the highest textures with anti-aliasing cranked to the max. That level of image quality will go a long way to covering any visual cracks of that 16:10 take on 1080p.
Alex also found that giant 18-inch screen to be great for working on, while he was also pleased with the m18’s booming speakers. Just bear in mind Dell only guarantees battery life of a paltry 3 hours and 21 minutes with its discounted Alienware. Though with this m18 measuring in at 16.1 x 12.6 x 1.05 inches and tipping the scales at 8.9 pounds, you’re going to want to game with this bad boy plugged into a wall and plonked on either a desk or coffee table. Otherwise, you’re going to be dealing with one uncomfortably crushed crotch if you let the Alienware m18 sit on your lap for extended periods. Steady.
With the eagerly anticipated Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC out in a few short months and the graphical majesty of Alan Wake 2 begging to take advantage of the amazing Alienware m18, you should give this sweet Dell deal serious consideration if you’re a hardcore PC gamer.
