Alienware is bringing back the gaming brand that made it a household name among gamers in the 1990s and early 2000s with the relaunch of the Area 51 gaming PC and Area 51 gaming laptops at CES 2025.
The resurrected line was last seen with the Alienware Area 51m gaming laptop, last refreshed in 2020, while the Area 51 desktop got its last refresh in 2017.
In addition to its Area 51 line, on the laptop side, Alienware has released several generations of X-series, M-series, and unbranded Alienware laptops, coming in sizes from 11.6 to 18 inches. Meanwhile, the Alienware Aurora line has been holding down the desktop side of things for several years after the Area 51 desktop was discontinued.
Now, both laptops and desktops will simply be Area 51, and whatever R number will follow once the devices are refreshed with new hardware and designs in the years ahead.
An iconic desktop line returns (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)The Area 51 desktop was last seen in 2017 when the Area 51 R4 was announced at E3, and the new Area 51 tower is going back to its roots as a PC component heads workspace, with a massive 80L capacity and upgradability incorporated into the chassis and component design.
The case will also feature a positive pressure airflow design that vents hot air out through the back of the case without using an exhaust fan, helping to reduce noise while under load.
The PC will also use AIO liquid cooling for the CPU, sold with either 360mm or 240mm radiators, with enough space to allow for a 420mm radiator should you choose to upgrade.
The available configurations will vary as they currently do with the Alienware Aurora line, but you'll be able to configure it with up to 64GB DDR5-6400 RAM, up to 8TB storage, and up to an Nvidia RTX 5080 graphics cards when the PC launches in Q1 2025. A starting price hasn't been disclosed yet, but the launch configuration is expected to run about $4,500 (about £3,600/AU$6,750).
Alienware Area 51 laptops (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)On the mobile gaming front, the Alienware Area 51 gaming laptops will come in two sizes, 16-inch and 18-inch, and will be configurable with up to an Intel Core Ultra 285HX processor and Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU, with a total power profile of 280W.
All that power is going to generate some ferocious heat, so the chassis has been redesigned to improve airflow over the components by up to 37% while being about 15% quieter (at least according to Alienware).
There are also some design and aesthetic highlights, such as the underglow beneath the keyboard cast by the bottom RGB fan (this is in addition to the RGB lighting for the keys themselves).
The Area 51 laptops are also the first from Alienware to support PCIe 5.0 SSDs, configurable up to 12TB.
The Area 51 laptops will go on sale later in Q1 2025 with some higher-end configurations starting around $3,200 (about £2,560/AU$4,800), but will eventually settle into a starting price of roughly $1,999 (about £1,600/AU$3,000) once more entry-level laptop configurations become available.
You might also like...At CES 2025, the huge tech show currently going on in Las Vegas, Razer has just announced what it claims is the thinnest gaming laptop the company has ever made: the new Razer Blade 16.
I’ve always loved Razer’s Blade laptops, as they helped challenge the idea that powerful gaming laptops have to be big and bulky. Instead, they are thin, light and stylish, and the new Blade 16 looks to take that even further with a new design that’s just 0.59-inches at its thinnest point.
The biggest issue with ultra-thin gaming laptops is that the powerful components inside need to be kept cool, and that means they need lots of airflow and fans, which can’t be fitted into svelte bodies.
However, the Razer Blade 16 now comes with a new vapor chamber cooling system which covers a larger amount of the motherboard. This comes with a dual-fan design and 0.05mm exhausts, so components are cooled, and hot air produced by the components is expelled while allowing Razer to make the overall size of the laptop as thin as possible.
(Image credit: Razer) Big power, small sizeThe fact that the new Razer Blade 16 is so thin is especially impressive considering it comes packed with incredibly powerful hardware. This includes a QHD+ 240Hz OLED display, plus a whole new keyboard (which includes the Copilot key, if anyone is desperate to open up Windows 11’s AI app).
Most importantly (for a gaming laptop), it comes with Nvidia’s just-announced RTX 50 series of laptop GPUs, with up to an RTX 5090 with 24GB of GDDR7 VRAM and can use up to 155W in power. This means you’ll get an incredibly capable gaming laptop that will be able to run the very latest games for years to come – and it can also make use of new developments such as DLSS 4.
The new Razer Blade 16 also brings a major shakeup to the product line, as for the first time it’s not powered by an Intel processor, but will feature the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. This is a huge coup for AMD, and a big blow to Intel, which has been suffering from a series of such blows for a while now.
(Image credit: Razer)Does this mean Razer’s love affair with Intel is coming to an end? If that was the case, it would be a big deal for Team Blue, which has had a difficult 12 months. That’s likely not to be the case, as I am sure there will be future Razer products with Intel CPUs, but when attempting to make the thinnest gaming laptop possible, it’s understandable that Razer might feel the need to go with a chip that offers plenty of power without producing too much heat, hence the switch to AMD, as Intel has been struggling with keeping its chips cool while performing at maximum capacity.
It’s certainly not what the company needs right now, but the new Razer Blade 16 is shaping up to be an incredible device. Will it get into our best gaming laptops list when it launches in the next few months (we’ve only been told it’ll be available in Q1 of 2025)? You’ll have to wait for our full review to find out, but there’s one thing you can be sure of: this is going to be one heck of a pricey laptop. Better get saving now.
TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2025 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.
And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok and WhatsApp for the latest from the CES show floor!
You might also like...CES 2025 is underway here in Las Vegas and I'm on the ground covering all the latest computing developments, including the highly anticipated announcement of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5000 series graphics cards, including the GeForce RTX 5090.
It's been a little over two years since Nvidia released its last flagship desktop GPU, so anticipation has been building for quite some time now.
Fortunately, we won't have long to wait before we get out first look at what Nvidia has in store for 2025, and I'll be here bringing you all the announcements as they happen from Mandalay Bay's Michelob Arena in Las Vegas.
How to watch the Nvidia CES 2025 keynoteWhile I encourage you to follow along with my live report, you can also watch Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote presentation along with me at the YouTube link embedded below.
OK folks, we're coming up on the 15 minutes from the start of Nvidia's CES 2025 keynote, where CEO Jensen Huang will take the state at Madalay Bay's Michelob arena. We're expecting some major news tonight, so for those who've been waiting to hear about Nvidia's next-gen consumer graphics cards, you don't much longer to wait.
And if you really want to hear all about data center AI and Omniverse stuff, I'm sure Jensen will get around to those as well.
The biggest thing I'm expecting tonight is Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and possibly the RTX 5070 Ti.
Following up Nvidia's Lovelace GPUs, the Blackwell-based RTX 5000 series is expected to be substantially more powerful, with the rumor mill putting the RTX 5080 around 10% faster than the RTX 4090, currently the best graphics card on the consumer market.
That, of course, would put the RTX 5090 in a class entirely on its own, and there's no telling where its performance will ultimately end up. That said, if speculation is on the mark, it should feature 32GB GDDR7 VRAM with a memory bandwidth of 1.52TB/s on a 512-bit memory bus, making it truly the world's first 8K gaming graphics card.
OK, here we go.
OK, I DO want an exoskeleton. Those things look cool as hell.
(Image credit: Nvidia)CTA President Gary Shapiro is introducing Jensen Huang.
OK, I unironically love 'Never gonna give you up.' I used to rollerskate to that song as a kid.
OK, the Nvidia segment of the keynote is about to begin, but it sure is taking a while. Nvidia is normally quicker to launch than this.
OK, NOW we're kicking things off.
Tokens, tokens, tokens. It's no surprise that we're just jumping right into AI, but yeah, it's remarkable how much Nvidia has transformed almost overnight.
(Image credit: Nvidia)LOL, Jensen's jacket is bedazzled.
That was a very short Virtua Fighter demo.
OK, the first mention of GeForce, so here we go.
That was a pretty impressive demo.
(Image credit: Nvidia)Nvidia RTX Blackwell is official, and that is a very pretty looking graphics card.
OK, so Jensen is holding the RTX 5090.
OK, RTX 5070 at $549, RTX 4090 performance. Whoa.
(Image credit: Nvidia)OK, RTX 5090 starting at $1,999. RTX 5080 for $999. RTX 5070 Ti for $749. Yes, absolutely. This is what I want to see.
Don't get me wrong, these are still expensive graphics cards, but given the fears of a $1600 RTX 5080, this is a very pleasant surprise.
OK, so very little on specs, but I want to know about this AI management processor.
If the shader cores can also carry the weight of AI workloads, as Jensen stated, then we're getting way better DLSS on these cards.
Also, the RTX 5000 series will be available starting in January, though we don't know which will be coming first.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 series mobile GPUs are also coming, with the RTX 5070 mobile featuring RTX 4090 performance, though I'm guessing Jensen means RTX 4090 mobile performance.
So we have fully entered into the data center segment of the keynote. While GeForce graphics cards got at least a bit more time and attention than Lovelace got, it's clear that these cards aren't as important to Nvidia as the data center business.
And yeah, that shield bit was a bit...well, it was something.
I want to say, I find all of this AI discussion interesting from an academic perspective, but I think there's a lot of expectations for these data centers, and no one is mentioning that the power requirements for these are pretty much going to put a cap on what they can do, since we only have so much electrical power available on a grid at any one time.
Oh man, I just had a dark thought. Can you imagine training the AI agent that's taking your job? That's grim.
Coding assistants are the death knell for the junior software developer. So much for 'learn to code'.
OK, the virtual human thing is still giving major uncanny valley, but it's less severe than it used to be.
OK, sorry about that folks, we were dealing with some technical difficulties, but we're back to the action, and that action is all about tokens. It's tokens all the way down.
OK, so the end of data for training models is another major bottleneck for AI, and what Jensen is talking about here with Cosmos is generating new data that subsequent models can be trained on (synthetic data), since these models have already consumed all the existing data it could be trained on.
However.
I wonder how Cosmos will avoid model collapse.
The worry with synthetic data is that you'll end up with a Habsburg AI, one that's effectively inbred on its own data to the point where it becomes a useless abomination. Google the Habsburg monarchs of Europe if you want to see why this is such an apt description of the problem.
(Image credit: Nvidia)OK, we just got word on the Blackwell GPU availability.
The RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 will go on sale on January 30, 2025, for $1,999 and $999, respectively.
The RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 will be available in February for $749 and $549 respectively. UK and Australia pricing wasn't given, but we've reached out to Nvidia for clarification.
Nvidia RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070 Ti laptops will be available starting in March, while the RTX 5070 laptops will be available starting in April.
Nvidia's autonomous vehicle chip would get annihilated in NYC traffic, I can guarantee that, though it might work in a lot of other cities.
Hmmm. Sythetic input data has been shown to quickly degrade the quality of the model you're training (model collapse) which i haven't heard mentioned once. I wonder how nvidia plans on tackling that problem.
I do have to say, if I have to deal with AI model collapse in the product I'm using, I'd really rather not have to deal with that at highway speeds.
CES is usually the hub of new technology, but Sony took the opportunity to make CES 2025 the place for some major entertainment announcements that are sure to excite PlayStation gamers.
The most immediate being that The Last of Us season 2 is landing in April on HBO and Max. No precise release date has been given yet, but we're nevertheless excited that there's just four months to wait until we can catch up with the next stage of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) adventure in the fungal apocalypse.
We also got an update on the Until Dawn film – which is based on Sony's choose your own horror adventure game of the same name. Peter Stormare – who’s reprising his role of Dr. Alan J. Hill – appeared on stage via a prerecorded clip to confirm that the film (which is scheduled to land on April 25 this year) will focus on a new plot and cast – or “victims” as he described them. There was some uncertainty on if the film would be a direct remake of the games, but that now doesn’t seem to be the case.
(Image credit: Future)Then we got a trio of new announcements, starting with Sony’s confirmation we’re getting a film based on Horizon Zero Dawn (one of my favorite games of the past few years). This reimagining will show us Aloy's story of survival in post-apocalyptic world (Sony loves its dystopias, huh) as she attempts to understand what caused the world’s high-tech society to collapse and be reborn as hunters armed with bows and spears fighting against high-tech animalistic robots.
Much like The Last of Us, we expect this will be a fairly faithful retelling of the Horizon Zero Dawn story based on what Sony has said so far – with a few changes made to suit the new medium – though details are light.
Next up is a Helldivers 2 film. Helldivers 2 took the world by storm in 2024, being the fastest selling PlayStation Studios game of all time that had millions of players spreading “Managed Democracy” by whatever means necessary. The tongue-in-cheek political satire which underpins the shooter’s gameplay takes heavy inspiration from Starship Troopers and we expect fans of that film and the game alike will enjoy the Helldivers film when it releases.
(Image credit: Future)Finally, Sony revealed that Ghost Of Tsushima: Legends – the multiplayer spin-off based on the base game – is getting an anime adaption which will air exclusively on Sony-owned Crunchyroll.
Beyond an announcement that they're in development Sony has been light on details for this trio of projects, but we expect plot and release info will be revealed in due course.
You might also likeThe Anker SOLIX Solar umbrella is a beach parasol that can keep you protected from the sun and charge your devices at the same time. It's one of a few portable charging solutions being debuted by Anker at CES 2025, and it's already on my summer wishlist.
This satisfying two-in-one gadget seems like the perfect solution for, say, keeping your speaker juiced up while you spend a lazy day at the beach, or charging your phone on a summer camping excursion. In fact, it's also compatible with one of Anker's electric coolers (the EverFrost 2), meaning it could sort you with chilled beverages and shade at the same time.
It's 215cm tall and 190cm in diameter. It has an output of 100W, through USB-C and XT-60 ports, enabling you to plug in your gadgets to charge while you relax. We're a little light on specifics at the moment, but the press images suggest there's just one of each port, which means you might need to fight over whose need is greatest if you're on a group holiday.
(Image credit: Anker)The sunshade's fabric is equipped with 'Perovskite' solar cells, which Anker says enhances the solar power generation by 30 per cent in bright sunshine, and makes it twice as efficient in low-light conditions too. If you're thinking of using it in a location where the sun cannot always be relied upon, be reassured that it's also IP67 waterproof rated, and 'durable'.
SOLIX Solar umbrella is compatible with a number of the brand's portable power stations (the C300 DC, C800 Plus and C1000), meaning you can use it to charge those up, for longer off-grid trips. Compared to traditional solar panels, this looks like a convenient, lightweight and packable option.
We don't yet have pricing or availability details, but the brand says the Anker SOLIX will be available to buy in Summer 2025 – hopefully in time for this year's beach trips.
We’re covering all of the latest CES news from the show as it happens. Stick with us for the big stories on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.
And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok for the latest from the CES show floor!
You might also like...Amazfit has revealed the Amazfit Active 2, an AI-powered sports watch under $100 with a redesigned heart rate sensor and voice command functionality, and it looks like a serious contender for the best cheap smartwatch of 2025.
(Image credit: Future)We’re covering all of the latest CES news from the show as it happens. Stick with us for the big stories on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.
And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok for the latest from the CES show floor!
Debuting at this year’s CES 2025 tech conference – ground zero for a load of cool fitness kit – the Amazfit Active 2 features a stainless steel body, 10 days of battery life, offline maps with turn-by-turn directions, 160 sports mode (including a new mode for the popular Hyrox competitive fitness events) and multiple strap and AMOLED display options.
The standard version, costing $99.99 in the US (around £80 / AU$160) features a red silicone strap, while the $129.99 (£105 / AU$208) premium version features both silicone and leather straps, an improved sapphire glass screen that's tougher to fracture, and an NFC chip allowing for contactless payments (in Europe only).
However, the real excitement for most comes from the AI Zepp Flow voice command software. Using speech recognition and the watch’s built-in microphone and speaker, the Zepp Flow app can adjust your calendar, control your watch’s settings by asking it to adjust the brightness and so forth, and help you compose Whatsapp replies with suggestions.
There are more AI features under the hood – the Wild.AI “mini app” also uses AI to create “personalized wellness insights tied to [women’s] menstrual and hormonal cycles”.
The Amazfit Active 2 is available for pre-order in the US now and available globally in February.
Analysis: a sign of things to comeZepp Flow has already been tested on watches such as the Amazfit Balance, but this is the first time we’re seeing AI-powered voice assistants on such a cheap watch. The fact that it’s available for under $100 is very impressive given the sort of functionality on offer. Such a price places it squarely in Fitbit rather than Apple Watch territory, and it’s sure to be popular with Android users who are already AI fans.
This is what the AI-powered smartwatch is likely to look like in the immediate future, including those from the big Android players such as Samsung: voice commands, functionality requests, Gemini-style suggestions used when replying to emails and messages, and personalized wellness information, including sensitive stuff like menstruation tracking in addition to training plans.
The use of AI in period tracking might raise eyebrows: given the nervousness some consumers have about handing their data over to chatbots, asking potential buyers to offer up such sensitive information (especially in countries with strict abortion laws) could put people off.
Otherwise, it’s a pretty standard cheap fitness watch, albeit a nice-looking one: designed for the “everyday athlete”, if current Amazfit trends are anything to go by, the activity and sleep tracking are probably very solid, although those 160 different sports mode are likely to be mostly different names with a smattering of GPS-enabled workouts with unique metrics, such as stride and cadence for running and power for cycling. We’ll know more for sure once we get our hands on the device.
You might also like...Samsung has just unveiled its new The Frame Pro TV, which finally adds the company's Neo QLED mini-LED tech to The Frame range that previously relied on edge-lit QLED displays.
Not only that, but The Frame Pro also adds a Wireless One Connect external connection box, meaning that you can hang The Frame Pro on the wall with a power cable going into it and nothing else – all your set-top boxes and so on connect into the wireless external streaming box, which you can place anywhere within 33 feet of the TV (including inside a cabinet), and the video is beamed in 4K 144Hz over to the TV. Samsung says there should be no noticeable latency here – specifically, the latency is said to be around 1.5 frames, and well under 20ms.
I saw The Frame Pro in action next to a regular 2024 The Frame TV, and the difference is staggering. We've always had a slightly cool relationship with The Frame TVs here on TechRadar, because they're wildly popular and we understand why people like them, but it always rankled that they used such mediocre image tech.
For those who know Samsung's range, The Frame has always been equivalent to the Q70 models, meaning and edge-lit QLED panel with Samsung's Dual-LED tech, but with a matte display that elevates back tones and weakens the already-middling contrast.
Now, The Frame Pro is still equivalent to Samsung's Q70 range… it's just that in 2025, we're talking about a model called the QN70F that's a new cheaper mini-LED model. On top of all this, Samsung has also added variable refresh rate support up to 144Hz, making it a better gaming TV.
That's the background, but the important thing is that in practice, the new screen is a total game-changer.
(Image credit: Future) Wow, actual HDR!The difference between the classic The Frame model and the Pro is night and day. Local dimming when watching movies and TV means that it produces something much closer to real black tones in dark areas, while the bright highlight areas are several levels more vibrant, and have a far more realistic sheen to them. The extra brightness also means that colors are massively richer and bold.
It gives the feeling that the picture you're seeing is just a lot more solid; the shadows actually look shadowy, and the light areas gleam, as if it's real light hitting an actual object.
The old model looks hazy and washed out by comparison, and with black tones pulled towards being gray and light tones also being pulled towards being gray, it's just fundamentally unclear in comparison to the Pro.
It's not just about the small highlights, though – the fullscreen brightness is massively better, which means things like TV and sports are much clearer and more rewarding to watch.
(Image credit: Future) Careful with the artYou might be worried that all this vibrancy may not be a great fit for the Art Mode that makes The Frame such a success. But I saw a direct comparison of that aspect with the old model, and they look incredibly similar.
Samsung says that when Art Mode is active, local dimming is switched off, which means you've got an even light across the screen and no 'HDR' effect. I suspect Samsung may also be limiting the brightness of the backlight so it appears to be a level of light that's closer to ambient light, but that's just speculation on my part.
Either way, it looks basically the same as the old The Frame models, which is to say: a very nice-looking bit of digital art reproduction.
(Image credit: Future) What about wireless?I don't have much to say about the wireless box from my time staring at The Frame Pro, but that's probably a good sign – the whole point is that you shouldn't notice it if it's working properly!
But one thing to note is that it's much smaller than the old wired One Connect box the previous The Frame models use – it looks like it must be half the size by volume, easily. It looks a little bit like a tiny PlayStation 2 which I personally love to see.
I couldn't do anything to try to break its wireless signal or test its limits, so we'll have to try that when we get our hands on a set for a full review.
The big piece of information we're missing about The Frame Pro is its price. I expect that it will cost significantly more than the Samsung QN70F, given it's the equivalent of this screen in terms of image quality, which will probably keep it out of our list of the best TVs – we value bang for your buck too much.
But if Samsung can find a decent balance here, we'll definitely be able to more wholeheartedly recommend The Frame Pro as a TV that works as well for the motion arts as for the classical arts.
You might also likeTechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2025 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.
And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok and WhatsApp for the latest from the CES show floor!