Alienware teases the return of its 18-inch gaming laptop

Something to look forward to: Most laptops today come with screens measuring between 13 and 17 inches. But Alienware is bucking the trend by resurrecting its 18-inch behemoth that was last seen in 2015. The Dell subsidiary posted a video ahead of next month’s CES event teasing the laptop, noting that “When something this big and powerful arrives, it leaves a mark.”

Even the largest-screen modern laptops are lighter and smaller than their predecessors—check out our best picks right here. The Alienware 18 series was quite the opposite. The M18x R2 with its 18.4-inch screen weighed 12.6 pounds—its power brick alone was 2.4 pounds—and came with an incredibly bulky chassis, making it a machine not really designed for portability or laps. For comparison, the Razer Blade 17, our pick as the best desktop replacement laptop, is around 6 pounds.

It appears that Alienware believes there is still a market for 18-inch-screen laptops. The company’s official Twitter account posted a 15-second clip teasing the return of the Alienware 18.

The signs are all around you, something big is coming soon. pic.twitter.com/EyU8BvdYIF

— ALIENWARE (@Alienware) December 5, 2022

The old Alienware 18 series packed dual internal GPUs, up to four hard drives, and powerful components for the time. It might not have been easy to carry around, but the sheer performance and size of the display helped it gain some very positive reviews—for those intending on keeping the laptop in one spot.

A new version of this 18-inch machine will doubtlessly be lighter and slimmer than its predecessor, though we can still expect something big, powerful, and, being Alienware, gamer-focused. It’ll probably have a price tag to match, too.

The teaser doesn’t give anything away or any release date beyond “Coming soon.” CES is only a few weeks off, so don’t be surprised to see the all-new Alienware 18 on show at the Las Vegas event.

There have been laptops since the Alienware 18 that make Dell’s machine look small in comparison. The Acer Predator 21, for example, had a 21-inch curved ultrawide display and cost $8,999. There was also Expanscape’s Aurora 7 Prototype (above), which had seven individual screens, three of which measured 17.3 inches.