Alienware x14 R2 review

Spider-Man: Miles Morales runs at 50 FPS with all the settings set to high and Ray Tracing turned off on battery power. You can take this number higher by plugging in the laptop to its power adaptor and get up to 90FPS. Turn on DLSS as per your use and it will go even higher.

Loopmancer might have really bad dialogues but it's strapped with all the Nvidia bells and whistles. Ray Tracing and all, the game runs at 90+ FPS on 2K resolution. The Nvidia RTX 4060 lacks the punch needed to get triple-A titles at triple-digit frames. It performs better than the previous generation only for Ray Traced game titles.

Having said that, the portability factor of the Alienware x14 R2 and the small form factor limit how far you can push this machine. The 16:10 aspect ratio makes it nicer for games like Spider-Man but Diablo IV will look squishy. It's got Dolby Vision support, a hardware MUX switch and G-Sync with a 3ms response time. So this thing is premium!

You just need to look at the laptop to unlock it. IR-enabled Windows Hello security along with a FHD camera are welcome upgrades for premium users. The Alienware starts to woo you as soon as you lay your eyes on it. This 14-inch laptop is dinky enough to sit in most bags, and the sleek chassis makes the x14 R2 a delectable piece of hardware to play and carry. The x14 R2 is good at pushing the heat away from the insides. It's got a top intake grille and four exhausts. Two at the back and one on either side. But this makes the top half of the keyboard more toasty than your breakfast.

Does it run hot? You can say it’s toasty enough to make you move your hands away from the laptop. I guess, that's thanks to its slim design. Alienware's cooling does a great job of keeping the heat away so thermal throttling is minimum but you will eventually feel the sting. If your goal is to hook this up to a monitor and keyboard, the ports behind will keep you very happy!