This is also not a laptop to compare to the thin-and-light laptops such as the Razer Blade 16 or Asus ROG Zephyrus G16. It’s fairly chunky, weighing 5.76 pounds and measuring 0.92 inches in the rear. It slopes toward a thinner 0.76 inches in the front, but it’s a thick laptop, no matter how you slice it. It’s even thicker than older Alienware laptops, such as the Alienware X16, although it’s more or less in line with the most recent Alienware M16 R2 from 2024.
One design element Alienware has pioneered (and kept around) is the placement of the ports. Most of them are located in the rear, including the power jack, HDMI 2.1, one Thunderbolt 4 port, one USB-C port with power delivery (10 Gbps), and a USB-A port (5 Gbps). They’re all there, even without the enlarged thermal shelf that Alienware used in laptops like the Alienware m16. You can connect two 4K monitors at a 120-Hz refresh rate by using the HDMI port and Thunderbolt 4 port, though you’ll want to prioritize gaming over HDMI because it supports G-Sync. On the left side of the laptop, you’ll find the headphone jack, an additional USB-A (5 Gbps) port, and the Ethernet jack. The only thing missing is an SD card slot and a Thunderbolt 5 port, which Alienware reserves for its high-end Alienware 18 Area-51 configurations.
Bright, Fast, Colorful
You may be wondering what justifies the extra cost of the Alienware 16X Aurora over some of its competitors. If there’s one major premium aspect of the Alienware 16X Aurora, it’s the display. No, it’s not OLED or Mini-LED, like the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10, which is something that Alienware continues to avoid. That means HDR is off the table.
But the Alienware 16X Aurora has an excellent IPS display with a 2500 x 1600 resolution and a 240-Hz refresh rate. While you can’t expect to achieve frame rates over 200 frames per second (fps) at that native resolution, being able to use it at 1200p can certainly come in handy.