You lose big time on size and portability with this machine, but gain almost everywhere else:

Display: For graphic design and production art, which is what I use it for, the 18.4″ panel is gorgeous. It easily beats my previous MacBook Pro 17″ on all fronts – brightness, contrast ratio, RGB gamut, color accuracy and viewing angle. Theoretically, a higher resolution than 1920×1080 would be desireable for an 18.4″ panel like this – the MacBook Pro Retina is already way higher, as are a couple of Dell’s XPS models. However, if you’re a user of Windows and Adobe Creative Suite like me, there’s a problem with going any higher than 1920×1080. Currently, the likes of Photoshop and InDesign cannot upscale their UIs for these ultra-high DPI panels – you either have to suffer working with miniscule UI elements, or reduce resolution to make them big enough to read (and thus negating the advantage of a high-DPI panel). When choosing this machine, I decided on practicality over bragging rights.

Chassis/Build quality: It’s good, very good, but ultimately still a Dell at heart. The metal chassis elements make it very rigid and solid, but there’s still a lot of plastic there – too much for it to truly equal a MacBook Pro or a high-end Sony VAIO, at least in terms of that “premium” look and feel. The rubber coating on the plastic chassis elements is also flawed – due to the weight of the machine, the corners tend to rub hard on all they meet, especially inside a backpack, and the coating wears off in these spots (in my case it took a day). I have a $30 case for my Nokia phone with a similar rubberized coating which still hasn’t worn off in 4 months of hard use, and years ago I had an IBM ThinkPad T-series with the same exterior finish that took probably a year of hard abuse to wear off to this extent. OK, this is strictly cosmetic, but really, Dell?

In terms of weight, forget this if you want something you can easily carry around. The computer itself weighs twice as much as your average 17″ desktop replacement laptop, and the power supply brick alone weighs more than a MacBook Air we have lying around the house. Enough said.

Ergonomics/Design: The first thing I did was turn off all the external LED lighting except the keyboard, which transforms the machine from a 70s discotheque into an understated black monolith. The keyboard itself is full-size, the action and tactility is better than just about any other laptop I’ve used, and the programmable macro keys at the far-left and above the numeric keypad make good use of the huge available space. And that space really is enormous – the palmrest resembles the deck of an aircraft carrier, but this causes one small gripe – why isn’t the trackpad WAY bigger? It’s not like there’s no room for it!

The height of the machine is also considerable – think two or even three regular laptops stacked on top of each other. I can see why some people would complain about the lower edge of the machine being too high and no, it’s not ideal, but I got used to it in less than a day. It’s not bad, just different, especially if like me you’re used to super-slimline laptops.

Performance: Insane. I went for the dual NVIDIA GTX 770m model, and immediately upgraded it with a 256MB mSATA flash drive and a second 750GB 7200rpm SATA disk. This beats the high-end the Xeon-powered, Quadro graphics-equipped desktop workstation I recently used in the office hands-down. It just doesn’t feel most of the tasks you throw at it. The only thing that makes it break sweat is Crysis 3, and I installed this essentially out of curiosity to see how much it could take – it’s only a game. For general productivity and destop publishing work, the Alienware 18 rivals all but the most expensive workstations.

One small negative point is that due to the NVIDIA cards being SLI you can’t switch from them to the integrated Intel HD 4600 graphics without a reboot, but it’s hardly a deal-breaker.

Noise/heat: As quiet as any laptop I’ve used. Even with both of those 770m cards working at full tilt, it’s surprisingly quiet, and the fans kick in quickly when needed and then just as rapidly spin down when the load is reduced. People have reported problems here with the latest A06 BIOS update, but I’ve yet to experience any. In terms of heat, it gets warm, but just that – never hot or anything close. When you’re using the Intel graphics and just messing about on the Internet or using Office, it’s almost completely silent.

Overall: If you’re willing to sacrifice weight, size, and most importantly price, to get the ultimate in performance, look no further. If The Alienware 18’s attributes in these areas are just too much for your taste or needs, then look elsewhere. For me, however, it’s pretty much ideal.

Pros:
Superb image;
Amazing performance;
Clean and crisp sound;
The “Ohh’s” from people who’d never seen one.

Cons:
Well, the size, mainly, it is a gargantuan beast.

Two things worth upgrade when getting this laptop:

1) 16GB Memory- Make sure you get the 1.35V volts.If you get the 1.5V, the laptop will not boot up.One thing to note:It’s kind of difficult to upgrade the memory on this laptop.You’ll have to take out many parts in order to swap out the old memory.I would recommend just get another 8GB (2 x 4GB) of the original Alienware 18 Memory.It’ll be a lot easier to just put another 8GB of memory into system to make it 16GB.

2) SSD Hard Drive- Very Easy Installation.I bought the Samsung Evo which came with the DATA Migration software and easily transfer all data from old drive to new drive.