We now know the dates for Amazon’s 2024 Prime Day sales event, but gamers at least won’t have to wait until next month. That’s because we’ve spotted a killer Alienware deal you can avail yourself of right now. No need to wait.
Right now, the Alienware x14 R2 with RTX 4060 Laptop GPU is on sale for $1,399 at Dell. The manufacturer’s official site normally lists this config of the x14 at $1,999, making for a whopping $600 saving. This is one of the better gaming laptop deals I’ve seen of late, and Alienware’s portable PC is certainly one of the easiest on the eye I’ve come across in a good while, too.
Specs-wise, this particular configuration of the Alienware x14 R2 comes with the RTX 4060 GPU, a Gen 13 Core i7-13620H CPU (with 10 cores and 16 threads that can be clocked up to 4.9GHz in Turbo mode). You also get 32GB of DDR5 RAM, which while overkill for gaming, should prove useful if you edit and render large video files regularly.
When it comes to squeezing higher frame rates out of games than either the PS5 Slim or Xbox Series X are capable of, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU is a good choice to power a gaming laptop. Sure it’s no RTX 4090, but Team Green’s mid-range graphics card is still more than capable of holding its own in the best PC games.
1TB of SSD storage is the absolute minimum I’d expect from a gaming laptop in this price bracket, though you might want to consider buying an external SSD, because that drive is going to fill us fast if you have a large library of the best Steam games.
There’s a lot to like when it comes to the x14’s screen. Its 2K (2560 x 1600) resolution will make your favorite games look extra crisp, and they’ll feel lightning-quick to play thanks to the display’s 165Hz refresh rate, further bolstered by a response time of just 3ms.
Though this Alienware isn’t the brightest laptop you’ll come across (peak brightness measures in at a fairly average 300 nits), it does produce accurate colors, with the x14 R2 covering 100% of the DCI-P3 color scale. Color accuracy isn’t super important in games, but it’s crucial if you’re a prosumer video or photo editor.
I also love the fact that the Alienware x14 R2 supports Nvidia G-Sync. I’ll bang this drum all the livelong day, but I’d never buy a gaming laptop — or one of the best gaming monitors, for that matter — unless it has some form of VRR.
Nvidia’s clever display tech synchronizes your screen’s refresh rate to match the fps output of the GPU, which significantly reduces in-game stutter while also eliminating screen-tearing. Spoiler: my obsessive eye cannot stand screen-tearing.
If you’re in the market for a shiny new gaming laptop — and there’s no denying Dell’s “Lunar Silver” system is nothing if not shiny — there’s a whole lot to like about the Alienware x14 R2.
With a pin-sharp screen and decent specs that should allow you to run most modern games at 60 fps and above, $1,399 is a good price for a laptop that’s got so much going for it.