Man, They Don’t Make Gaming Laptops Like They Used to

The joys of cleaning out your closets are minimal, save for the opportunity to wax nostalgic about the old gear that falls down first from the pyramid of ancient tech. First to tumble from that peak were old Alienware and Lenovo Legion gaming laptops that we unearthed while moving out of the current Gizmodo offices in New York City (and into new, swankier digs). They’re undoubtedly nostalgic machines for some folks, but not me. Instead, I look at them less with reverence and more with wistfulness. Those laptops don’t look good, but they feel good.

The Lenovo Legion Y920 is a far more recent machine. It’s only seven years old as of writing, but the Alienware you can spot in the pictures is practically prehistoric. The Alienware Area-51 m5550 first hit store shelves in 2006. It sported an Intel Core 2 Duo and a Nvidia GeForce Go 7600. For context, Gizmodo had been around for just four years at that point. I was 12 years old at the time. The first HP laptop of my youth was so poor at gaming that it would run Team Fortress 2 at 10 FPS even when forced to play in DirectX 7 levels.

Those brands’ latest mobile rigs are two of my favorite gaming laptops I reviewed since the start of the year. Specifically, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 and the Alienware m16 R2 boasted a good feel and solid performance at their price. Side-by-side, you can tell how much more subdued modern models appear than their older counterparts. The blaring Legion logo and sloped sides on the Y920 seem extreme to modern standards. Back then, that was considered restrained. Just look at the Alienware 13 from 2017 with its large, beaked frame.

Both companies were known for some truly outlandish laptop designs, especially the “desktop replacement” variety. Alienware’s brand was notorious for screaming “gamer” with every desktop, laptop, and peripheral it put on store shelves, even before its acquisition by Dell. The Area-51 and the similar Aurora m9700 are peak Alienware at its most outlandish. That plastic shell looks like it broke off the set of J.J. Abram’s Star Trek films. Those pointless black ribs don’t actually help you hold it up. And it’s a heavy sucker too. The m5550 is 6.94 pounds. The latest 16-inch Alienware without that thermal shelf weighs 5.62. That’s a lot of pounds to have all those extra, now-defunct ports. 

The goal of any laptop designer is inherently one of compromise. You need to pack as much power as possible in a limited frame and still keep it cool and portable. The 17-inch Y920 weighs 9.76 pounds. There’s no 17- or 18-inch version of the 7i (at least not yet), though just to compare, the Pro 7i weighs 5.46 pounds. Alienware’s big 18-inch m18 r2 clocks in at 9.3 pounds.

The old Area-51 was so broken in parts that it seemed like some chef had mistaken it for a pork cutlet. It wouldn’t turn on, not the least because its power button was missing. Sadly, we’ll likely never see that alien logo glow again. The Legion Y920 was similarly dead. These things happen when you don’t take care of your devices and stuff them in a cabinet near the copy room. But when you use them, you realize just why these laptops were so popular in the first place.

The ancient Alienware had a minuscule touchpad compared to modern machines, but it also had a touchpad disabling button, so you never had to worry about palm rejection. Its keyboard still types like a dream. Its keys are immediately recognizable to anybody familiar with designs of yesteryear, and they depress with a satisfying depth and clickiness (loud enough to annoy your neighbors). 

The Legion Y920 featured a full mechanical keyboard, and the key spacing on such a massive frame feels practically luxurious compared to other moderately-sized laptops. Perhaps we should remind Alienware about the m17 R4 with those cherry switches? The palm rests alone are comfortable and anti-slip in such a way modern machines don’t dare to. What hasn’t changed is the pricing structure of these laptops. The Y920 cost $2,700 when it first launched. That 2006 Alienware laptop was $2,800. Meanwhile, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 starts at $3,220. The m16 R2 starts at $1,550, but you’ll have to spend close to $2,000 for a version with an RTX 4070 and the Intel Core Ultra 9.

Initially, the compromise inherent with gaming laptops was there, but past machines were much more open about expressing their inherent “gamer” ascetic. Is it worse now? No, not necessarily. Tastes change. Some might look at them with nostalgia. Others might think the old look is garish.

Perhaps we should look to the past for a laptop keyboard that doesn’t feel like a sea of sponges.