Alienware 16 Aurora entails a hidden disadvantage when compared to the 16X Aurora

The affordable Alienware 16 Aurora is now shipping as a cutdown version of the midrange 16X Aurora. Aside from the obvious performance cutbacks, the 16 Aurora also carries a lesser display with a lower native refresh rate, dimmer backlight, narrower color space, and no support for G-Sync as explicitly advertised by Dell in the product pages. What the manufacturer doesn't mention, however, is that ghosting is much more noticeable on the 16 Aurora as well.

Our oscilloscope graphs below show the black-white and gray-gray response times for the displays of the 16X Aurora and 16 Aurora. Both the black-white and gray-gray rising response times for the 16X Aurora are significantly faster at 4.6 ms and 1.8 ms, respectively, compared to 14 ms and 23 ms on the 16 Aurora. When considering that gaming monitors typically advertise 5 ms or faster response times, the slower display of the 16 Aurora results in more noticeable smearing or ghosting when gaming.

Subjectively, gaming on the 16 Aurora is still buttery smooth in our experience provided that the graphical settings are low enough thanks to the silky 120 Hz refresh rate. Even so, the extra smearing is noticeable to our eyes especially if playing fast-paced titles with lots of quick turning like Overwatch 2. It's arguably not severe enough to be distracting for the target audience of casual players, but it still impacts the user experience nonetheless.

Check out our review on the 16 Aurora to learn more about the ins and outs of the budget gaming laptop.