The Dell Alienware m16 R2 has an outstanding port selection. Both USB-A ports support USB 3.2 Gen 1 data transfer speed of up to 5Gbps. The one closest to the back of the laptop supports PowerShare, a feature that lets you set how much of the battery’s charge a connected device can draw when charging. For example, if you set it to 25%, charging will stop when you’ve used 25% of the laptop battery’s total charge. You can also turn off charging completely. As for the USB-Cs, the one on the left (with lightning bolt icon) supports Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gbps data transfer speed and two 4k displays @ 60Hz), USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10Gbps), and Power Delivery (up to 15W), while the one on the right only supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer speed. Although both USB-Cs support DisplayPort 1.4, the left USB-C connects to the integrated GPU, while the right one connects to the discrete GPU. The HDMI port connects directly to the discrete GPU and is a true HDMI 2.1 port that can output a 4k @ 120Hz signal. The Ethernet controller is an Intel Killer E3100 with a maximum speed of 2.5Gbps.

While not factored into the score, it’s worth noting that the ports on the sides are in the middle rather than towards the back of the device. This can be annoying, as the cables might be in the way when using a mouse.