17 R2 - Anyone else have buyer's remorse yet?

I honestly believe the blue-screens are directly attributed to the new bios but people here have also been saying they are getting the blue-screen with A00. I have been using A00 though and not a single blue-screen in 3 days of use, whereas with A02 I will get it after half a day easily.

 

Was that a very common issue with most of them? This does not happen to mine... at least not yet (fingers crossed). So you assume that it must have been how Dell put the MB together or Dell's Bios that was causing it?

I guess I just take the idea that with every electronic even the best manufacturers have at least a few percent with issues or failures and sometimes we get unlucky being the ones who got those in that failure or defective percentile. Frustrating when it happens and it usually results in us changing brands.... whether that means anything or not I am not sure (as in it "could" happen with a different brand just as easy).

 

I tried A00 and A02, same result. Another weird thing was the system would freeze on the windows desktop at boot after loading the icons whenever I had any usb device plugged in. Once i removed the device it would continue normally. Happened on both systems and with all my devices.

 

If you don't have any issues then thats great, you lucked out! Yields are not that much of an issue for these systems, it could have been a bad batch, or a bad driver, I never looked into it enough. Ive been a supporter of alienware since I had my green M9700 back in the day, I really want them to continue to succeed, but the issues affected my work and play.

 

Well it is a perception thing... you say I lucked out but I think you got unlucky. But it is where you sit I suppose... I am just assuming the majority did not have that happen to them like it did to you.

Yeah I would have switched to something else at that point as well. When my Lenovo died I still needed a PC for work so before I even knew if they were going o fix it or not i bought this new AW. You got to do what you got to do, and if you lose faith in a brand or a brand's new model then you need to move on for sure.

 

I'm going to actually agree with this. I think maybe the drivers aren't playing too nicely with the new BIOS. Someone posted on AlienwareArena that the new BIOS (Even though it was released and recommended) is still a "beta". I'm not sure if this is true, but if it is then holy smokes!
I hope it's a small issue that can be fixed over time. But it's strange it isn't affecting everyone that updates, so it may just be a crappy driver in general not liking the Dell hardware.

 

I'm actually thinking about trying alienware again , already miss it

 

To add to the bios convo:
According to my bios, I have the A01, which can BSOD.
I haven't a clue if it's the Bios, but I'm happy to say I've been BSOD free for 5 days. I had 3 BSOD over 24hours, reset the PC, and have had none since.

To add to the buyer's remorse convo:
I also add that I was initially remorseful, but am now a very happy owner.
Perhaps my laptop just needed a little attention out of box.

To add to the Razer convo:
I have a close friend with a razer, who games the most out of our little group of friends who game. Runs most games off her super huge desktop PC, but she's been very happy with the razer - having also switched over from older gen alienware. They're good laptops.

 

The razer is nice and all but I miss the look of the Alienware and the 980m plus I wanted the amplifier eventually . I still have time to return the razer and get the aw17 fully decked out . Does the glossy touchscreen have a better panel than the matte ?

 

I heard "yes" from 2 people, but obviously, that's not enough people for it to be just beyond an opinion more or less. I have the Truelife glossy touch panel coming in my new laptop, the matte screen in the old one didn't work out for me when I had it. If you have until my Estimated delivery date to return the Razer, I can give you a better review, but I doubt you have that long and don't wanna wait that long! EDD: April 9th, 2015. But it should be here before then I HOPE!

 

Newegg would take my laptop in in a few days and then overnight me the aw

 

I can hear a 980m calling your name

 

Alright just did the RMA with newegg for a refund . Instead of waiting for the refund first I just purchased the Alienware from them today (with free overnight shipping ) and will hopefully get it tomorrow or Wednesday. Specs are in my signature, hope it's worth it !

 

LOL, that was quick. I hope you enjoy the machine

 

The last model I had was the matte screen , I love the glossy look and from what I know these types of screens are less likely to have light bleed. They don't have the plastic bezels that are not always uniform to the screen, and instead have a sheet of glass across sealing everything off

 

Yea, the matte screen is one of the nicer ones i've seen, but at the end of the day it is a matte screen. It still dulled colours, dark games became super dark and hard to see, turning the brightness and contrast up affected the overall look. I find matte screens make my eyes strain more because of the lack of contrast and clarity a glossy screen provides for me. So I went with that in the new laptop.

 

So it came today. The glossy is screen is in a completely different league than the matte , I am truly astonished. The colors and contrast is the best I have seen. The only con , which doesn't really matter , is the Alienware logo on the front is dimmer than the matte version.

 

Wow, that was a quick

Glad you like it!

 

is there a huge difference within then True Life vs the Anti glare ?

 

YES!

 

which is better, for my case i really dont like reflection in screen, i often see my self in screen when gaming in current laptop

 

I'd honestly say it is personal preference. I've heard great things about the matte screen, but I didn't like it myself at all.

 

Yea the matte screen definitely needs a calibration, I know what a really good IPS looks like and it is too washed out. I'm sure with correct calibration it would look fantastic though.

 

sorry for noob question, how do you calibrate??

 

Devices like this: http://spyder.datacolor.com/display-calibration/

You can manually calibrate from the windows control panel though.

 

You can either tweak the colours manually in windows (you can get a printed sheet to compare with colours on the screen) or you can get a calibrator from the likes of spyder.

 

Probably a decent clarity boost when not in reflective light.

 

Silly question .. How do you know if it's a true life display? I bought mine from tigerdirect and it just says anti glare screen with touch. I wonder if they just didn't put it in the description because I thought all touchscreens came with true life. Any way of finding out once I get it? Does it say somewhere on the screen because I don't know the difference or what they would look like..

 

I believe the "True Life" refers strictly to the glossy screen. From what I have heard it's the exact same panel though, except one is glossy and the other is matte. I absolutely love my machine btw, still do not regret the purchase in the least 2 months later.

 

I have a GTX 970m and play Wildstar (91 FPS), Elder Scrolls online (solid 60 FPS (v-sync on) and GW2 solid 60 with v-sync. All on ultra with no problem at all.

Love my machine, no issues.

 

The difference after color calibration of the matte screen is the tones appear slightly warmer touch after correction. So far no remorse yet, because there is really nothing to complain about.

 

How do you manage to get 60 fps in Elder Scrolls Online? I can barely pass 35 with mazimum settings. Do you use the graphics amplifier for that?

I have already "overclocked" the GPU up to 1173 Mhz and the memory to 3105Mhz, TuboBoost on, and executing ESO using (obviously) the GPU. Is my performance ok withouth graphics amplifier?

Thanks, hope you could read this post

@corbintechboy