Alienware m15 is a thin and light gaming laptop of 'Epic' proportions

Dell and Alienware have successfully revived their ‘m’ line of thin and light gaming laptops with the newly-announced Alienware m15. Available starting October 25 for $1,299 (about £1,000, AU$1,800), this laptop brings Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 and 1070 graphics to a laptop that’s just 0.83 inches thin and weighs merely 4.78 pounds.

Alienware has crafted its thinnest and lightest gaming laptop yet, cramming a 15.6-inch display into a 14.3-inch-wide frame while somehow fitting a full numeric keypad on the keyboard deck. This is Alienware’s self-titled ‘Epic’ industrial design language at work.

Alienware’s goal with the m15 seems to be a gaming laptop that’s suitable for almost anyone.

Sure, you won’t get the utmost performance out of this gaming laptop compared to desktop replacement models, but you’d be hard pressed to find one this friendly to your backpack. It’s a middle ground of sorts for mobile-centric PC gamers.

Bang for your buck

That $1,299 starting price for the Alienware m15 will net you an 8th generation (Coffee Lake) Intel Core i5 processor, factory-overclocked Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics, 8GB of DDR4 memory and a 1TB spinning hard drive with an SSD inside for faster booting. As well as this, you get a FHD (1,920 x 1,080), 15.6-inch display that runs at 60Hz.

Available upgrades include a Coffee Lake Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics, up to 32GB of DDR4 memory and as much as 1TB of SSD storage in several configurations including Intel Optane.

Of course, being a mobile gaming device, battery life is a concern. The standard Alienware m15 lasts for up to 7 hours and 10 minutes with video playback, whereas an optional 90Whr battery can boost that up to 10 hours and 40 minutes. We’ll be keeping a close eye on these claims in a full review.

Other marquee Alienware m15 features include a surprisingly deep 1.4mm of key travel on the keyboard as well as full support for Alienware’s Command Center app to control six unique AlienFX RGB lighting zones. Not to mention both red and gray color options. We'll have first impressions of this slimline gaming laptop, as well as a full review, in the coming weeks.

• These are the best PC games to play on this thing when it launches

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