Alienware Announces New Flagship Products at CES 2025

Anshel Sag: Hey, everybody, I’m Anshel Sag. We’re here at Dell’s CES event and I’m joined by Alienware’s GM, Matt McGowan. Thanks a lot for joining me today.

Matt McGowan: Hey, thanks for having me.

Anshel Sag: Every year, CES proves to be a playground for Alienware and all of the latest things that you have in the gaming space, and this year is no different, but can you give us maybe a rundown of everything that the team is announcing this week?

Matt McGowan: Yeah, you’re absolutely right, this year is no different. We are relaunching Area-51, which is a storied sub-brand for us, but we have a brand new desktop, Area-51 full form tower. We have two new notebooks, Area-51 16 inch and 18 inch notebooks. We have a brand new Alienware 27-inch display, which we’ll talk about. And then we have Alienware Elite Care, which is a new service offering that we’re going to wrap around all of our product offerings.

Anshel Sag: Area-51 is a storied product, and for those of the people who are not familiar with it, could you possibly give us a little bit of background on the Area-51 brand and how it came to fruition?

Matt McGowan: Yeah. Area-51 has been part of the Alienware family of products for decades now. We’ve had multiple Area-51 towers over the years. That name really embodies the best of the best that we can provide from a gaming experience and a piece of hardware. There’s really a couple of things that every year that we’ve launched that product we’ve tried to do. One is around performance. We wanted to make sure it had a huge performance. And then the other one was around scalability. So all of the Area-51 products that we’ve had are larger products before that upgrade ability, more storage devices, bigger graphics, and as you know, the graphics aren’t going down in power, they’re actually going up in power, and those cards are getting bigger and heavier and more power-hungry, and you need the space to accommodate that. So we’ve taken that Area-51 name and we’ve extended it across desktops and notebooks. So whether you’re talking about our new 80-liter tower or whether you’re talking about the new 16 or 18 Area-51 notebooks, they are the best of the best from a gaming perspective and deliver that best experience.

Anshel Sag: And that’s part of the simplification around your gaming product line, right?

Matt McGowan: Yeah, correct. We want to make it really simple for customers to self-select in those products. If you’re an enthusiast gamer, if you’re somebody that loves technology and wants to tinker with the product and geeks out on things like we do and is really into gaming, Area-51 is the product for you and people that are willing to invest in that technology and those features and design, they’re going to be fantastic products for those users.

Anshel Sag: Great. And is there another place where gamers can go if they’re not going for Area-51?

Matt McGowan: Yeah, so over the course of next year, we’re going to be offering other products. We’re going to have other products. We do plan to adapt the Aurora name to introduce new products later in the year. TBD on what those look like and what’s in them, but suffice to say it will be a different tier of product that we have where we’ll be leveraging the Aurora name that we use on desktops over to the notebooks.

Anshel Sag: Great. Area-51 has been around since 1998, so could you maybe tell me why is now the time to bring it back?

Matt McGowan: For several years we’ve been talking about reintroducing a full-sized tower. So Area-51 is an 80-liter tower, it’s more than enough space to fit every component and then some into the future. There’s a lot of intersection points that happen for this launch. So we have next generation NVIDIA graphics. As you know, over the years, the graphics have become bigger and bigger and more powerful and comes with a lot of capability, which equates to better gaming experience. So this was the right point to reintroduce this product and come into the category in really a big way.

Anshel Sag: The new design language for the Area-51 laptops is unique and is inspired by aurora borealis and extraterrestrials. I’m curious if you could tell me how this reflects the future of Alienware’s gaming products.

Matt McGowan: Yeah, that’s a great question. Over the years, you can see that our products don’t look the same. We try to reinvent ourselves, and this one is no different. You mentioned some of the inspiration behind the notebooks. We call the design language AW30. It’s really an ode to our 30th anniversary upcoming. And we looked at a bunch of different sci-fi thematics, and what was really interesting to us was around aurora borealis and this idea of morphing colors and shapes and how we could apply that to a notebook. So you’ll notice on the Area-51 notebooks, we used anodized aluminum.

We have this metallic finish that we call liquid teal. We have gorilla glass on the bottom where you can see the inside of the product. We use translucent materials and we pipe light through it, and then we’ve created a new animated lighting effect that makes it look like aurora borealis. So we’ve made a concerted effort to apply that to the product. The other thing that happens when we embrace the fluid nature of those shapes is the product becomes very ergonomic. So using the product is really nice. We have a pillowed palm rest so as marathon gaming sessions, you don’t feel that in your palm.

Anshel Sag: I’ve had that line on my wrist before.

Matt McGowan: Yeah. So we’ve picked apart the notebook and paid attention to every single detail. We talked about the gorilla glass window on the bottom. We pay as much attention to the inside of the product as we do the outside of the product. Well, now customers can see that. And we actually illuminate the fan similar to how we do on a desktop computer, and they can be seen from the bottom, the top, and at a certain angle from the side. So it’s a really immersive design, so it’s really, really cool. We’re excited about it.

Anshel Sag: You know what’s funny? I was just thinking about this. It kind of reminds me if a stealth bomber had RGB lights.

Matt McGowan: Yes.

Anshel Sag: It’s really sleek. It has really nice aerodynamics, but it’s also really pretty. And I really love that window, and I think it’s great for thermals because it kind of creates that gap so you have a little bit more air and yeah, I think it looks great.

Matt McGowan: Yeah. You mentioned the innovative thermal design. We actually have a quad fan thermal design that’s embedded inside of that cryo chamber, and what that allows us to do is we can actually move more air through there, which allows for us to have quieter operation as well. So you’ll notice that these notebooks are actually quieter than other ones that we’ve done in the past.

Anshel Sag: Even though they’re a lot faster?

Matt McGowan: Even though they’re a lot more powerful, yes.

Anshel Sag: That’s great. So I’m super excited about the launch of Alienware Elite Care, specifically for gamers. So I’d love to hear about how Alienware Elite Care came to fruition and what you’re trying to achieve with it.

Matt McGowan: We wanted to develop a service offering that really catered to the gamer needs, which gamer needs are a bit unique.

Anshel Sag: Totally.

Matt McGowan: The devices are different, the use cases are different, so we built a tier of service offering that delivers the best of the best when it comes to service. So when you buy into Alienware Elite Care, you’re going to get people that understand gaming. They understand our products, they understand gaming, they’re able to optimize the product for certain games, and they’re able to set up parental controls that are specific to game settings. You get accidental damage included in that. Something new that we’re doing is you’re getting a battery replacement when you buy notebooks, that’s offered between year two and year four. Then we offer support assist on the product itself, which automatically tunes the product for best performance. So you’re getting quite a bit more that’s specifically targeted to gaming use cases to where we didn’t have that in the past. So we’re really excited about Alienware Elite Care.

Anshel Sag: I’m super excited about it as well because I think one of your strengths is your support structure, and I feel gamers generally are not getting the best support that they should be, but they’re also the most demanding customers. So by having a differentiated and extremely unique support offering, I think you guys are doing something special.

Matt McGowan: Yeah, we’re really excited about it. I couldn’t agree more. I think the needs of the gamers who are gaming on PCs is very different than your typical PC buyer.

Anshel Sag: Definitely.

Matt McGowan: So we had to develop that offering specifically for them that caters to them.

Anshel Sag: As a final question, alongside the Area-51 lineup, you guys also have the 27-inch 4K QD-OLED monitor. I’d love to hear what you think about that and what the ethos is behind that product.

Matt McGowan: Yeah, so QD-OLED, as a technology, we were actually the first to introduce that in gaming displays. And to this day, we’re heralded as the best gaming display out there with the QD-OLED technology. And we’ve had several versions of it. This year, we’re launching the 27-inch 4K QD-OLED at 240 hertz. So when it comes to high-speed gaming, high fidelity, high color and contrast ratio, this is going to become the new high standard. So we’re excited. Now, it does adopt the new AW30 design language that we talked about.

Anshel Sag: I saw that.

Matt McGowan: Yeah.

Anshel Sag: It’s got that nice little base.

Matt McGowan: Yeah, it’s very fluid and organic and really otherworldly. We’re excited about how that pairs with the Area-51 notebooks, for example.

Anshel Sag: Right. And the desktop too.

Matt McGowan: Yes, absolutely.

Anshel Sag: I think a lot of people don’t really know that you guys are the worldwide leader in displays, so there’s a reason why you have the QD-OLED before everybody else, but I think it’s unfortunately one of those things where you have to see it to really appreciate QD-OLED. I’ve been gaming on QD-OLED since the 34-inch came out and I’ve been gaming on the 32-inch after that. So I’m excited to play with the 27-inch and see how that experience improves specifically with FPS games where that visual acuity is super important.

Matt McGowan: Yeah, we hear that all the time from customers that once they go QD-OLED, they can’t go back. It’s very difficult because of that performance and for the various needs based off the game that you play.

Anshel Sag: Thank you very much.

Matt McGowan: Yeah, thanks.