It’s a good time to be in the market for a gaming laptop that doesn’t look stupid. Higher-powered laptops have begun to tick crucial checkboxes across the board, with smaller, super-powered GPUs landing in much less garish designs. In some cases, the result is a laptop you’ll love using—and won’t be ashamed to be seen using in public.

One of the latest to catch our eye is Alienware’s “R3” update to its 13-inch model. While some of its SKUs may not win affordability awards, the R3 officially counts as a damned good laptop, gaming or otherwise. If your budget has room for a single portable productivity machine, Alienware might have the right balance of power, weight, design, and functionality for you, not to mention decent battery life in a pinch.

But first, let’s talk about this laptop’s tushie.

Baby got back























The Alienware 13 R3’s most unique design “feature” may weird you out at first. With its lid closed, the hardware doesn’t look odd, but once you lift the panel, you’ll discover a no-doubts-about-it 1.5” jut from its rear. The first time I noticed it, I looked for a “detach” button. I thought the R3 had an optional, removable dock, especially since its longest side is dotted with ports.

Turns out, Alienware needed a little more motherboard and cooling space than the screen panel’s footprint afforded. It’s an interesting bet by Alienware: that users would rather have a laptop jut out like something from 1999 while otherwise keeping its thickness at a reasonable 0.87 inches (22mm).

Specs at a glance: Alienware 13 R3 (as reviewed) Screen 2560×1440 OLED display at 13.3" (280 PPI) with 10-point multitouch OS Windows 10 Home x64 CPU 2.8GHz Core i7-7700HQ (Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz) RAM 16GB 2667MHz DDR4 GPU Intel HD 630 (integrated) paired with Nvidia GTX 1060 with 6GB GDDR5 RAM HDD 512GB PCIe SSD Networking Killer 1435 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1, Gigabit Ethernet Ports 2x USB 3.0, USB Type-C, HDMI 2.0 out, Mini DisplayPort 1.2 out, Thunderbolt 3, Alienware "Graphics Amplifier" port, headphone jack, microphone jack Size 0.87" x 13" x 10.6" (22 x 330 x 269mm) Weight "Average" is 5.8 pounds (2.6kg) Other perks Noble lock, 720p webcam, Windows Hello IR webcam Warranty 1 year "premium support" Price Starts at $999, about $2,099 as configured

This emphasis on thinness—or, at least, as thin as a GTX 1060-fueled laptop currently gets—is emphasized further by its slim screen panel, which measures at only 0.157” (4mm) thick in the review configuration I received. Sadly, this incredibly thin 13.3” screen, which renders at a maximum 2560x1440 resolution (1440p), is offset by staggering bezels. The biggest bezel, at the bottom, has the word “ALIENWARE” lit up with multi-colored LED backlights, as if the manufacturer thought the flashy lights might distract you from its size. Alienware could have removed this text explosion, blown up the screen another 3/4”, and still left plenty of room for the front-facing sensor and camera array.

This Alienware system’s biggest design concession, then, is a laptop body that tricks you into expecting a 14” screen. I would have loved more screen real estate, but in most respects, I quickly forgave the jut. The system’s thin profile and reasonable weight (for a gaming laptop, 5.8lbs/2.6kg is reasonable) has been a more crucial selling point, even though messenger bags designed for more conventional 13.3” Macbook Pro and Air-sized laptops won’t accept the R3.

But the design strikes the right balance between “noticeable” and “subtle” for a laptop that doesn’t look like a Red Bull-chugging games machine. The three-converging-line design on the aluminum front panel looks stylish, and it’s offset not by a bunch of giant bright neon logos but by a lonely Alienware alien head, which you can either light up or leave unlit (more on that later). Meanwhile, mild angles and tasteful separation in venting zones make them almost look like an aesthetic design choice, and the slight point on the top of the screen and the bottom of the laptop look appreciably unique and subtle.

In terms of practical use, either at home or a coffee shop, I barely notice the laptop’s backside jut. Why? Because I angle my laptop screen during default use so that the jut and the top of the screen panel line up when looked at from a bird’s eye view. I also didn’t notice the jut while the R3 was in my lap, except for a brief moment of lap use on a plane's coach seat. That was too cramped for me, which made my “put the tray table up” moment more annoying. Otherwise, more gaming laptop makers may want to take a look at the jut’s practical advantages and copy it shamelessly.

OLED

The other feather in Alienware’s cap is that this smaller screen lets the company sell a few SKUs. The cheapest of these uses a 1366x768 panel for its screen, which brings the price down to as low as $999; that SKU includes a weaker but less power-hungry GTX 1050. We can’t judge that model’s performance in battery life and gaming performance, since we didn’t get one to test, but the lower-resolution display alone would keep us from recommending that model.

The system we tested is from the model’s highest-priced SKU. At $2,099, it’s priced a little lower than the more-storage, more-RAM $2,699 version, but most of its specs are otherwise maxed. Our system comes equipped with a GTX 1060, an i7-7700HQ processor, the 1440p screen, and an unusual upgrade: an OLED touch panel.

I call it unusual because OLED technology is only beginning to propagate to bigger devices than touchscreen phones. At its best, the screen technology (which I wrote about at length in December) offers some of most incredible visual upgrades available in the current consumer-panel market, including “perfect” blacks and incredibly low blurring. At its worst, the technology has a shorter lifecycle than a standard IPS LCD, and it can suffer from image retention problems. Image retention has led some PC makers who use the technology to implement tricks like more aggressive sleep settings and hiding the Start menu and taskbar.