Whilst the new 20xx laptops are supposedly around the corner in January 2019, Dell has discounted their high spec configuration for the Alienware m15 thin and light (for Alienware) gaming laptop by $900 down to $3,099 (original price $3,999 delivered) as part of their 2018 Boxing Day sales.
Key specs:
8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8750H (6-Core, 9MB Cache, up to 4.1GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
Windows 10 Home 64bit English
32GB 2x16GB DDR4-2666MHz
512GB PCIe M.2 SSD + 1TB (+8GB SSHD) Hybrid Drive
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 Max-Q design with 8GB GDDR5
15.6" UHD (3840 x 2160) 60Hz IPS, 400-nits, sRGB 100% color gamut, Narrow-Border - Epic Silver
Killer Wireless 1550 2x2 AC and Bluetooth 5.0
There's also a $155 'reward' (ie. a voucher which you can use on Dell in the future).
I was tempted by the m15 to replace my Alienware 13R3 OLED which I ordered around this time last year for a similar price but with the potential for new laptop GPUs being announced on 7 January 2019, and this not feeling like a significant step up besides going from 1060 to 1070 Max Q and cheap 2.5" HDD storage, I'm not keen on giving up on Windows Hello or my beautiful OLED with touch. On a related note, I am bought into the Alienware ecosystem as I have a graphics amplifier with a 1080Ti which outperforms TB3 eGPUs and cost significantly less.
Most of the reviews are relatively positive but issues around the cheap plastic bezels (potentially on the non 4K models as Dell usually has a nice glass around the bezels in my experience on others) and the heat being worrying.
[UPDATE 24/12/2018] Further 5% off thanks to lostn's coupon of ENGINEERS5OFF which brings it down from $3,099 to $2,944 (a further $155 off). Note that this may NOT be eligible for the 3% Cashrewards as a result.
[UPDATE 27/12/2018] Cashrewards is 7% for Boxing Day which potentially brings this down to $2,901 (calculated using GST-exclusive price).
[UPDATE 31/12/2018] Just noted that the Dell Boxing Day sale is now extended until 3 January 2019.
What else is that code useable on? And how much does it discount by?
The specs are good, but I want to see if there's something cheaper if we can reduce the UHD into FHD, drop the HDD, and maybe downgrade to 1060 Max-Q, possibly 16GB RAM.
Then again, I'm not a huge fan of Alienware's non-rectangular shaped designs. It adds to the footprint. It's hard to beat Razer Blade 15's design.