Pros: Design is awesome.
Looks classy af.
Extra buttons on the left makes your life easier.

Cons: Overheating from the very beginning.
Problem with graphic card and main board connection.
Couldn't work with a secondary monitor with Maya, Nuke or Adobe series.
Finally returned it.

Other Thoughts: If you wanna plat videogames go for it, if you wanna work, never buy it.

Pros: nice design, fast when it wants to be, color customization is really nice

Cons: crashed out 2 times in 1 day, restarted on me 2 times in 2 days for no reason while in the middle of gaming and 1 time this morning when no one was around it, graphics aren't that great compared to my desktop with a lesser graphics card(not the graphics card problem in this case but the screens fault) and 8 year old screen, battery doesn't last long.

Other Thoughts: I have had this laptop for 3 days, and 2 hours after unpacking nothing would load and had to restart, and then a few hours after restart it just shutdown and restarted while in the middle of playing ARK, then the next day first thing in the morning it did it again. While gaming when you are walking the mouse pad is dead and you must use an external mouse, not a big deal but this shouldn't happen. After the laptop was fully charged I unplugged the cord and sat down in my lounge chair to just browse the net and read news and in 2 hours I was down to 9%, Imagine if you were gaming? I would think the battery should last a lot longer than that, and if you need to keep it plugged in all the time, I would think it would wear the battery down and eventually not hold a charge at all. The graphics are not that great and even my 12 year old said the graphics aren't that good. I do not blame the graphics card at all, but I do blame the screen for the bad looks. I have a computer with NVidia GTX 750 graphics card and 8 year old hp screen and the graphics look way clearer. The color customization is really cool. You can change the color on the keyboard in 5 sections, the mouse pad, the front lights, the alienware logo, the alien head and more. The alien head above the keyboard would not change color for me but everything else did change color. Overall I would not recommend this laptop, for the price you pay you could build one with the same specs for less on another site. This laptop will be going back and I will have one built to save a few bucks.

Pros: * high end pc
* good graphics

Cons: * maybe, the webcam is not the latest model ...
* be aware that the default screen size is reduced, so everything is smaller. If you have eye problems, you might want to increase the screen size to normal.

Pros: It was very easy to get going
There is no extra apps on it
Fun customization
Solid build
Fast boot up

Cons: Really thick
Poor heat management
Absolutely awful screen, the color is horrible and I will most likely be returning. I will be doing some more research and maybe hooking up a 2nd monitor but this is my first Alienware product and I will probably never buy from them again. From a company with the rep they have I would expect much better quality. If you like being able to enjoy pictures, youtube, visual appearance of your game then do not get this laptop. I dont care if you can crank the graphics to the highest setting, if the colors are bad and washed out then its pointless.

Pros: Was expecting better build quality for the hefty price tag.

- Aesthetically pleasing to look at.
- Nearly silent operation when performing simple tasks, like browsing the web or taking notes for school. I hadn't thrown any CPU intensive tasks at it since I only had this laptop for a few hours, but I was impressed by how quiet it was while I was in class.
- Boots extremely fast (under 5s)
- Built-in keyboard shortcuts that control lighting and trackpad are genius.
- Keyboard and keymat area feel sturdy yet soft to the touch. Typing is effortless, silent, and the backlit touchpad is just icing to the cake.
- Exactly what I was looking for in terms of specs. Newest gen processor, an abundance of memory, PCle SSD + 1TB for my documents and games, and a 970 graphics card to play Tera with. Future proofed laptop.

Cons: - Does get a little warm after only messing around with settings for a few hours.
- The camera on the specific product I received was hiding within the bezel of the laptop lid. This was the dealbreaker for me (as it should be with anyone...), as half a camera lens can only take half a picture.
- Display scaling for this laptop is set at 125% by default, which causes a lot of issues with blurry text in various applications due to its high resolution in a small form factor. If this was only a problem in third-party programs, fine. But the scaling issue persists throughout system dialogues and the like, so I scaled it down to 100%. I personally was fine with it at 100%, but those who have trouble reading small text might just have to squint to get crisp text, or bear with the scaling issues.
- Cursor jumps while navigating. Quite possibly skews a third of my trackpad movements. When traveling short distances, the cursor tends to move to the new location, then jumps back to its original location. Not a huge problem, but without a mouse, I was clicking on the wrong things a third of the time.

Other Thoughts: When I first received this laptop and powered it on, it took a few minutes to successfully boot up. The same process happened during the second, third, fourth, and fifth reboots. During the sixth reboot, the laptop was operational within 5 seconds. Every boot onwards from then was also very quick. Don't be discouraged if your first few boots take a few minutes.

I requested a replacement due to the misalignment of the camera, and I will update upon receiving my new device.

Pros: - Absolutely amazing build quality. Everything else seems cheap and flimsy in comparison.
- Battery lasts a very long time even with the AlienFX lighting running, and when it does run out, it charges up crazy fast.
- Runs surprisingly cool, even while gaming.
- Can handle any process you throw at it.
- Quiet even under load
- Booming, crisp audio
- Very bright screen
- Lots of options with AlienFX
- No bloatware, unlike other brands.
- PCIe SSD and other future-proofing features

Cons: - The screen seems a little pale to me. Granted I'm use to Samsung phone displays, but I still feel it could use just a dash more color. And thats really the biggest con primarily because I'm use to different monitors. If this is your primary system, you likely won't notice anything.
- Its a bit thicker than other gaming laptops, but that lends itself to better cooling, and a longer lifespan.
- It's heavy, but what do you expect? It's not 100% plastic like others.

Other Thoughts: If you want to pair the latest chipsets with a bunch of future-proofing features like USB Type-C and PCIe SSDs, this is the machine for you. You aren't "buying the name", you're buying one of the best made laptops available on the market today.

I'm using this system primarily for game design school. I've had Maya, Photoshop, Unreal 4, Substance Painter and Designer, and other programs all open and running and the 15 R2 doesn't break a sweat.