A great keyboard on a laptop can be a rare thing and while mechanical boards can be found, the Alienware m15 R4 is the first gaming laptop with Cherry’s infamous MX keys.
The firm’s partnership with Cherry – dubbed Project X – started three years ago and has resulted in shrinking down the MX switch down to a small enough size to fit in a laptop chassis. The m15 R4 means you get that desktop gaming keyboard experience but wherever you go.
The ultra-low profile MX switch is just 3.5mm in height, a huge difference from the 18.5mm original and even the 11.8mm low profile version. It’s gone through over 160 prototypes and features stainless-steel mechanical components.
“Inspired by the upward-opening gull-wing doors of the iconic DeLorean sports car, the goal was to engineer the keyboard to be an extension of the gamer’s senses and allow you to press deeper with more emphasis,” said Alienware.
You get a full 1.8mm of travel and the self-cleaning mechanism has been tested for 15 million keystrokes for durability. It’s also pitched as extremely accurate thanks to a two-piece keycap structure and gold-based cross-point contact system.
There’s more to the Dell’s Alienware m14 R4 than the keyboard, of course. It features a 15.6in Full HD screen with a 144- or 300Hz refresh rate unless you opt for the Ultra HD OLED model. It’s powered by Intel’s 10th-generation processors and the graphics card is either an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, 3070 or 3080.
It’s available now from the Dell store starting at £2,049.
Along with the m15 R4, Alienware has updated the Dell XPS Desktop and Alienware Aurora R12 with Nvidia RTX 3000 series graphics cards. They will be available from 25 March starting at £899 and 30 March starting at £1,201, respectively.
Check out our chart of the best gaming laptops.
