Alienware 16X Aurora review: Balancing premium build with a midrange GPU

The Alienware 16X Aurora is notable for its high quality construction and 240 Hz IPS display with P3 colors across all current configurations. Other lower-end or midrange gaming laptops tend to use more plastic or ship with cheaper IPS panels to save on costs and so we appreciate the higher standards Dell is setting with the 16X Aurora. Even the less expensive (non-X) 16 Aurora promises full sRGB colors at the baseline.

Fan behavior is another high point as the fans don't pulse when running undemanding loads. While common on subnotebooks with ULV CPUs, this behavior is something we'd like to see more of on larger gaming laptops.

Many of the drawbacks to the 16X Aurora are similar to the Area-51. The higher quality construction means a heavier unit while power consumption can be quite high leading to average battery life at best even for a gaming laptop. Meanwhile, GPU options top out at the GeForce RTX 5070 instead of the RTX 5070 Ti which would have been a much better fit for 1600p gaming. Dell reserves its RTX 5070 Ti options for the much pricier Area-51 series as an incentive for potential buyers to upgrade.

Dell is now shipping the Alienware Aurora 16X as configured in this review for $1600 USD. A similar SKU with more RAM and storage is also available on Amazon for $2270.

The Alienware Aurora 16X is a midrange gaming laptop from Dell sitting just below the high-end Alienware Area-51 series. It features the same Intel Arrow Lake-HX CPUs as found on the Area-51 albeit with lower-end Nvidia Blackwell options running at lower power ceilings to save on costs. The 16X Aurora can be considered a successor to the older Alienware m16 series.

Our test unit is a higher-end configuration with the Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, 115 W GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, and 1600p240 Hz IPS P3 display for approximately $1600 USD. Lower-end SKUs (called the 16 Aurora) ship with the Core Ultra 7 255HX and/or RTX 5060 with a 1600p120 IPS sRGB display.

Alternatives to the Aurora 16X include other midrange 16-inch gaming laptops like the MSI Vector 16 HX, Asus TUF Gaming A16, or Lenovo Legion 5 Pro.

More Dell reviews:

• Dell Pro 13 Premium
• Dell 14 Plus 2-in-1
• Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1
• Alienware 16 Area-51
• Latitude 7450 2-in-1

The case can be best described as a toned-down version of the Alienware 16 Area-51. Gone are the RGB lights along the rear, Gorilla Glass window on the bottom, per-key RGB lighting, and two-tone color options in favor of a straightforward jet black look. Perhaps most importantly, plastic is thankfully kept to a minimum as much of the chassis still consists of magnesium alloy and anodized aluminum which isn't always the case for budget to midrange gaming laptops. Chassis rigidity feels great for the price as a result. 

Hinge rigidity could nonetheless be stiffer for a better sense of longevity as they can open the full 180 degrees unlike on the Area-51. Be prepared to clean the palm rests and keys often as well as fingerprints readily collect all over the machine.

An RJ-45 port comes standard whereas it is missing on the Alienware Area-51. The model nonetheless features fewer USB-A ports and no SD card reader to save on costs.

Note that Power Delivery or charging with third-party USB-C AC adapters is supported only on the USB-C 3.2 Gen. 2 port and not the Thunderbolt 4 port.

A 2 MP webcam comes standard with IR but no privacy shutter.

Dell utilizes recycled plastics and metals to manufacture its range of laptops with increasing percentages over time. With that said, Dell has not specified the exact percentages of recycled materials used for its 16X Aurora series. The packaging is otherwise fully recyclable with no plastic.

There are no extras in the box other than the AC adapter and paperwork. The usual one-year limited manufacturer warranty applies if purchased in the US.

The keys are quieter than expected while offering decent feedback for an Ultrabook-like typing experience. It feels a little too much like typing on a Dell Inspiron, however, which is one of Dell's cheaper laptop models. The light Enter key in particular could have benefited from deeper and/or firmer feedback.

We set both Windows and Alienware Command Center to Performance mode prior to running the benchmarks below. An Overdrive mode is available on Command Center which raises the fan ceiling even louder ()()(), but any performance benefits are minimal at best as our benchmarks below will show.

CPU performance is excellent but not perfect. When running CineBench R15 xT in a loop, for example, performance would drop by about 8 percent after the first few loops to suggest limited Turbo Boost sustainability. The very high core temperature of almost 100 C when the CPU is at full utilization is another sign as well. Overall multi-thread performance is nonetheless faster than the Core Ultra 7 255HX configuration by up to 25 percent or the older Core Ultra 7 155H in the Alienware m16 R2 by almost 2x.

PCMark 10 would constantly crash with OpenCL errors even after reinstallation and multiple retries. Its results are therefore not provided here. CrossMark and AIDA results are otherwise where we expect them to be and quite close to the Alienware 16 Area-51.