 When you've reviewed as many laptops as I have, getting excited about a new machine can be difficult to say the least. Like take the latest Asus Zephyrus. The engineering that went into making something that powerful, that slim, is seriously impressive. And yet, the Zephyrus just doesn't turn me on. But looking at the new Alienware Area 51M, I have an 85%er. At 8.5 pounds, the Area 51M doesn't care about you, your back, your ears, or even your dog. All it cares about is insane gaming performance. But can a laptop, no matter how big, really tangle with a desktop? Let's find out. After you find out about GlassWire. Instantly see your current and past network activity detect malware and block badly behaving apps on your PC or Android device. Use offer code LINUS to get 25% off GlassWire 2.0 at the link below. With our model coming in at $4,500, the Alienware Area 51M is one serious piece of kit, and it feels like it too. The magnesium chassis has to be one of the most rigid I've ever felt. There's absolutely no flex, and opening the screen just feels so good. It also has a strong assortment of I.O. with the highlights being Thunderbolt 3, multiple display outs, and my personal favourite, a 2.5 gigabit ethernet port. Maybe the most interesting hole though is the power connector. Or should I say connectors. This power brick alone, this one right here, weighs a quarter pound more than the Surface laptop itself. And it's not even the only one, there's two power bricks. And together they pump out over 500 watts. Now why do we need all that power? Well Dell hasn't just put laptop parts in here. That's just garbage. They put in a full fat desktop grade Intel Core i9-9900K. That's paired pleasantly with an Nvidia RTX 2080, 32 gigabytes of RAM, and two terabytes of storage. Now all of this computing power is delivered to your eyeballs through a 144 hertz 1080p IPS display with HDR and G-Sync. There is a 60 hertz version but just don't buy that one because this one right here is awesome to game on. I do kind of wish that they had a 1440p version but they couldn't do it with a smaller bezel so oh well. And it's not like the 1080p panel here is hard to look at. We also have damn near desktop level upgradeability. Removing the bottom gives you access to four sodium slots for the RAM, the M.2 slots, and a 2.5 inch drive bay. Delving deeper ups the difficulty a bit but thankfully Alienware has created videos showing how to properly take this machine apart along with convenient guidelines here on the rib cage showing just how many screws need to come out and hopefully go back in. After removing the battery, the back shroud thing, and a couple of ribbon cables we can see the real meat of the beast. Like look at this cooling. They've got six massive heat pipes spreading the load around four heat sinks all with these two chonky fans. What does chonky mean? James put that in there apparently it's cool. Beneath all of that Dell wasn't lying when they said this is a desktop processor. So if you didn't get the 9900k from the factory you'll have no problem just plopping one in. And assuming the standards don't change too much the GPU should be upgradeable too. Like to be clear this isn't a standard desktop GPU. It's kind of like a spiritual successor to MXM developed in-house by Dell but with any luck this will be upgradeable to an RTX21 series or whatever Nvidia decides to call it next. But with all this desktop grade hardware in such a small package like relatively speaking compared to just a desktop. Was Alienware able to bend the laws of thermodynamics and really deliver that full desktop performance? Well not quite but they did get damn close. Although the Area 51M does lose in basically every test that we threw at it compared to the MSI Trident X. It didn't fall very far behind like it's pretty much within the margin of error and it absolutely destroys every laptop we've ever tested. In CPU tests the i9-9900k absolutely shreds the Asus GX701 and like even with that having a blowing machine strapped to it. And also it comfortably outpaces the AMD 2700 and the Acer Helios 500. As for GPU performance well we just published a video titled the fastest gaming laptop we've ever tested about the Zephyrus. And the Area 51M is just whooping it. Like this thing is a solid 15% faster in 3DMark and even better in games like the processor. Holy crap this thing is fast. Okay, let's see Alex keep it in your pants man. There's so many frames. Yeah I know it's really great okay we know it's powerful. But have you been telling the viewers the whole story? Yes. So when you got those test results how hot exactly was the processor? A hundred degrees. Uh-huh and how fast were the fans spinning? At max. All right, all right get out of here listen I got something to say all right. I'm gonna tell you what the Area 51M is actually like to live with. So first of all going anywhere with it is basically a fool's errand. Like it's got not one but two power bricks and like Alex said this one here alone weighs a quarter pound more than the Surface Laptop. And you need these bricks. It does have a 90 watt hour battery close to the maximum allowed on a plane so they can't exactly make it bigger. But with power hungry components like we have here you'll be lucky to stay away from the wall for more than two and a half hours. Then there's the performance mode which just literally pins the fans all the time. Which is great for performance but it's really loud. Meaning you'll be regularly going to the control center between tasks to pick your poison. Lower performance or super noisiness. And speaking of noise that's pretty much the only thing these speakers make. Like they get loud but above about 50% volume the whole thing just becomes a muddled mess. Which is particularly annoying since Alienware has traditionally had awesome speakers. Another thing the Area 51M boasts is Tobii Eye Tracking. A technology that tracks where your eyes are looking on the screen to occasionally do cool things. But mostly to do literally nothing due to poor support in games. And to be clear I don't want to put down having this as a feature. But it's just unfortunate that despite this laptop having IR and eye tracking. That it also doesn't support Windows Hello facial recognition for faster unlocking. Or even just a simple fingerprint scanner. This is the kind of thing that should just be here on a laptop that's this expensive. And will make everyday use just that much more smooth. Although at least they did manage to fit it with a half decent webcam. Unlike the trackpad which is just a big load of suck. Not using Windows precision drivers gives it that synaptics drunken driver feel. And even despite its small size I've still had some palm rejection issues. I do appreciate the two dedicated buttons and the glass top feels nice. But bad scrolling, mediocre gesture support and subpar tracking. All mean a real mouse will definitely be your friend while using the Area 51M. And the keyboard don't get me started. The lighting on these secondary keys would not pass Razer's QA. But I do have to give Alienware some real credit for this keyboard in general. The strokes are surprisingly long and although tactile also very smooth. Of all the gaming laptops on the market Alienware might have the best keyboards. Easily beating Razer, MSI and even ASUS. Exactly it is awesome not as a laptop maybe. But as a desktop replacement and that's what this actually is. So the real question is should you buy one? Well honestly if it was my $4500 as much as I think the Area 51M is really cool. I'd just get a desktop and a Surface laptop. But I say that having the luxury of a good place to put a desktop and lots of people just don't. Maybe you're a co-op student who can get whisked off way to any city with little notice. Or someone who travels a lot for business or just generally don't have the space or stability for a full desktop setup. So if that's you and you have loads of cash to throw down. Then the Area 51M is going to make you feel like a badass every time you open it up. And speaking of a badass when you open it up I fix it. The new line of Marlin screwdrivers is fixed blade and features an ergonomic knurled rubberized handle with a swivel top. Plus a black oxide coated tip so it hangs onto those tiny screws with a steel grip. The lid of the set is held in place magnetically and can be also used as a sorting tray. And it's all manufactured in Germany and backed by iFixit's lifetime warranty. We've been using iFixit for years and it just makes building PCs, repairing electronics, taking apart this laptop just a breeze. So get the Marlin screwdriver set for $2499 at iFixit.com forward slash Linus today. So thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do. But if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also linked in the description is our merch store which has cool shirts not like this one but Riley also didn't have one on. Whatever and join our community forum which you should join. That was good. I like that one. Which is a joy.