 In a perfect world, I'd have a thin and light notebook for travel, a desktop for gaming, a VR capable laptop for landing with friends, some friends, and while we're at it, maybe a home server. But for most people, having more than one computer is either unrealistic or impractical. So if you can only have one computer, here is why the Alienware M15 R2 is the one you should choose. Instantly see your current and past network activity, detect malware, and block badly behaving apps on your PC or Android device with GlassWire. Use offer code LINUS to get 25% off GlassWire at the link in the video description. At nearly twice the weight of the Surface Laptop 2, the Alienware M15 R2 is not exactly a thin and light, but that doesn't mean that it's unwieldy. At just under 5 pounds and 20.5 millimeters thick, it's portable enough for most people, and its magnesium alloy chassis ensures that its totability doesn't come at the cost of its rigidity. As an aside, by the way, I've got to say that for a gamer-focused machine, the M15 R2 looks damn good, with styling that suggests its performance pedigree without seeming like it's compensating for something. It comes with up to an 8-core Intel Core i9-9980HK, but we chose a model with the still very powerful Core i7-9750H. Our rationale there was that 6 cores is powerful enough for most people and saves us a cool $450. With the i7, and the i9 for that matter, we also get the new 6-phase voltage control that Alienware claims allows for greater efficiency and higher turbo frequencies, as long as the cooling can keep up. Which it sort of does. With all cores loaded, the M15 R2 heats up fast, reaching between 95 and 99 degrees at room temperature. But in spite of that, it doesn't slow down, with Alienware pushing the processor to between 3 and 3.2 GHz, even under sustained loads. What that means is that even in professional tasks like video editing, rendering, and 3D modeling, you're getting CPU performance that is right up there with a gaming desktop from just a few short years ago. Although with some baggage. Like noise. Now, it's not that the M15 R2 is a particularly loud machine, it's certainly quieter than the ROG Strix while it's being stressed, but the M15's fans emit a high-pitched whine whenever doing something strenuous, like rendering, installing programs, or gaming. But oh, oh yes, the gaming experience is one that makes it a lot easier to forgive. Despite its size, this M15 packs an Nvidia RTX 2080 Max-Q, and while the CPU might be sweating its R soft, frantically tossing frames at the display, the GPU stays cool and calm, hitting a maximum temperature of just 66 degrees in our run of 3DMark's Port Royal test. This means that you'll be getting nearly the best gaming experience available in a thin-ish laptop, and it's paired with a 240Hz display that not only means smoother animations in lighter games, but also a competitive advantage, as we showed in our recent video. Make sure you guys are subbed by the way so you don't miss the follow-up to that one that we have planned. And it gets even better. In our testing, this panel managed 98.4% coverage of the sRGB color space, and although its average delta E's of 11.5 won't have you editing photos without calibrating it first, it's pretty impressive given how fast these pixels are refreshing. Also, since this panel is just $50 more than the 144Hz model that only gets 72% sRGB coverage, the 240Hz panel, in our mind, is the ideal choice, pretty much no matter what you plan on doing with your machine. The one thing it doesn't have is a touchscreen option, so if that matters to you, it could be a deal breaker for the M15R II. It's also worth mentioning that there is a 60Hz 4K OLED display option if you're more of the creative type, but if you're planning on doing any gaming, I'd probably buy a week's supply of LTT underwear and then have $100 left over. LTTstore.com. Now, one expense you're stuck with if you choose a high refresh rate gaming panel is Tobii eye tracking. This technology tracks where you're looking at on the screen and, game compatibility willing, occasionally does stuff, like highlight a heads-up display or whatever the case may be. Some people like it, but I've always found myself disabling it shortly after the novelty wears off, and I would have rather they built in Windows Hello facial recognition. On the subject of usability, though, the M15 really stands out here. The trackpad, although a touch small, is now glass-topped with Windows Precision drivers. It's just generally great to use, but the real standout is the keyboard. Featuring 1.7mm of travel, similar to what you'd find on a ThinkPad, this is truly a rare gem. A keyboard that both Alex and I can agree on. Now, it's possible that there's something out there, but neither of us has yet encountered a gaming laptop with a better keyboard than this one. Confusingly, it actually feels a lot better to me than the one on Dell's own XPS 15. Seems like the XPS team could stand to copy some homework off the Alienware guys. I can't overstate the importance of this feature, because it means that without a trace of irony, you can tell your parents that you really need the fancy gaming laptop to improve your essay writing performance. Now, unfortunately, one area where the updated M15 hasn't improved is battery life. The original featured an optional 90-watt-hour battery, which is significantly larger than almost every other gaming laptop out there. Notably, the Gigabyte Aero 15X is pretty close. But this time around, we're stuck with a 76-watt-hour affair that delivers around 5.5 hours of light and mixed usage. Now, while this does put us at the top end of gaming laptops, that extra 16% capacity could have made it the best. Another area that Alienware downgraded the M15R2 is upgradability. They soldered the RAM, which leaves you with only the storage to play around with if you need expansion for the future. Which is kind of funny, you know, actually, it kind of feels like this is the MacBook Pro of gaming machines. It's sexy, it kind of runs too hot, and you can't upgrade it. The thing is, though, and what makes it palatable to recommend it, is that unlike a MacBook, the M15R2 is truly a do-it-all. Whether you need to type an essay on its excellent keyboard, plug in a whack-ton of peripherals, including 2.5G Ethernet, render out a video or a design project, or gain the night away, the M15R2 has got you covered. With just one small fly in the ointment. Our model costs an eye-watering $3330. And although I've been saying this whole time that it's the perfect computer, if you could only have one, for that price, it's pretty easy to buy two computers. So why don't we pick this up and go have a look at what we could get for this much money. Alright, show me what you got. So we've got a Ryzen 7 3700X. 2070 Super. 16GB of RAM, 1TB 970. It's basically... Pretty banging desktop. Yup, 1440p, 140Hz monitor, the 1ms one. Nice. And this Surface Laptop 2 that I'm reading my notes off of. So all of that can be had for... The price of... Yup. This. Including the peripherals. Really? Yup. This is like some pretty D stuff right here. Yeah. No expense spared. Headset too? Yup, headset. So... That's a little uncomfortable. Thing is, gaming laptops, they just end up being kind of hard to justify. Well, we haven't even got to the worst part. So in gaming, this machine is 30% faster. Yup. Guess how much faster it is for rendering tasks. It's almost twice as fast. Almost twice as fast. So that's pretty rough, but it is worth noting that if you're better at specing out the M15, it becomes a lot more compelling. With a 512GB storage and a 2070 instead of the 2080 Mac 2, you save around $870 without taking too much of a hit to performance. And that makes beating it with a desktop and laptop combo a fair bit more challenging. Now, it still obviously can be done, especially if you're willing to dumpster dive. But you're getting to the point where you'll either be sacrificing features or performance in your desktop, which might be a fine plan since it's upgradeable later. But that depends on whether you want to deal with that hassle and settle for the build quality compromises that come with an entry-level laptop. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Check out our recent look at Asus' 300Hz gaming laptop. I mean, if 240 is good, then more must be better. And speaking of more, FreshBooks is the small business accounting software that's custom built for how you want to work. It's a simple way, if you're a freelancer or a small business owner, to be more productive, more organized, and to get paid faster. With FreshBooks, you can create and send professional-looking invoices in less than 30 seconds. You can set up online payments with just a couple of clicks to get paid up to four days faster. And you can see when your client has seen your invoice to put an end to the guessing games. They've got fully featured apps for both Android and iOS, so go check it out today. They've got an unrestricted 30-day free trial at freshbooks.com slash tech tips. Just enter Linus Tech Tips in the How did you hear about us section. So thanks for watching, guys. Good work, Alex. Peace. So long. Shut up. Oh, never mind. I thought that was a Titan.