This beast is five years old this month. I bought it in December of 2017, and it’s been a rock-solid workhorse ever since. When I configured it online, I picked all the top-shelf options, which is probably the reason for its longevity. (For the tech nerds, it’s an Alienware AW17R4 with a Core i7-7820HK, 32GB RAM, a GTX 1080, and a 120Hz QHD G-Sync panel with Tobii eye-tracking.) It’s built like a tank and weighs over ten pounds, so it’s less a “laptop” and more of a compact all-in-one you can move easily between rooms. But since it lives on a desk most of the time and hardly ever gets used out of my office, the weight and size aren’t a drawback. (If I want to take my work out of the house with me, I have much more portable devices for that.)
Because of the maxed-out hardware, the price was top-shelf as well–I think I shelled out $2,500 at the time. But I think that expense has paid off over the years because it hasn’t flinched at anything I’ve thrown at it, and it still plays everything I want to play. I guess I’ll keep using it until it either breaks or it can’t play the latest hotness in games at decent frame rates anymore, at which point I’ll semi-retire it or give it to one of the kids and replace it with another high-end gaming laptop that will last for half a decade. For now, it’s still trucking right along even after five years of daily use and more logged hours in Flight Simulator than I want to admit in public.
