Alienware’s latest laptop has shrunken the butt

An image of the rear of Alienware M16 R2. It lacks the large thermal shelf Alienware is known for.

If you do not like big butts, Alienware has a new gaming laptop for you. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Gaming laptops generate a lot of heat, and Dell’s Alienware brand long ago settled on giving its gaming laptops big butts in order to exhaust it. But the problem with a large rear end on a laptop is it looks kind of goofy and makes packing it up a little more troublesome, so the Alienware M16 R2 has gotten a little booty reduction.

Compared to the previous generation, the M16 R2 is just 9.82 inches deep. That’s 1.58 inches shaved off compared to the M16 R1, or about a 14-percent reduction in depth. Which should make it fit in a lap or on a cramped dorm room desk a heckuva lot easier.

To go along with that less obtrusive back end (officially called a “thermal shelf” by Dell) the M16 R2 also has a new “Stealth Mode” that should allow you...