What users want in the M18x R2

so just wondering, is it possible to update the list, and make it so R2 includes 3 harddrive slots + optical.

i mean sagers 17 and 18 inch laptop both supports it, i would hate to buy a sager just cause of it, having raid 0 + additional harddrive storage is just too good.

 

I doubt the will be a third drive option, that would require a chassis redesign.

 

yea, idonno imo changing from pci 2 to 3 will probably have to change design due to motherboard, then again i donno about that for sure.

 

Mobo can be designed to fit the existing chassis for the same price as the previous mobo, whereas a new chassis would be far more expensive to make.

 

Hello Unityole,

Please excuse my late answer,

Is it possible for an 18" laptop to carry 3 HDD/SDD + Optical & a SLi/CF ? (Without the laptop do more than 10cm thick?)

My question is is there really à nead to put SSD in RAID ?! Now I think the SSD drive speed is enough and they get enough storage capacity.
In other words I prefer to have a laptop more thicker than one woth more disk slot.

Evidently it's personal, and I await the opinion of others about it.

If there's more peopole that want more disk I will add this to the OP.

 

There's only one high-end gaming laptop out there with 3 HDD slots. 17.3" Clevo/Sager NP9270. It's thick but if that's not a problem for you - go for it. As far as I know, M18xR2 will not have that.

 

Info here for the NP9270 : Sager NP9270 (Clevo P270WM)

I'm curious to know the noise product by this beast !

Why putting all that in a little 17" laptop !!

 

The P180HM has 3 HDD slots plus optical.

 

True, thanks for pointing this out.

Noise is around 48 load/57 max(db) vs 43 load/ 53 max for the M18x.

 

@Aikimox
Thank you for the Information

 

You are welcome. you can find all the info @ notebookcheck.net. Normally I take their reviews with a huge grain of salt but I happened to test both the x7200 and M18x and the results are very similar, the Clevo is a quite a bit more noisy.

 

Those "other laptops" are made of plastic and might not be a good (durable) option for people that travel extensively with their mobile gaming system. Before I decided to only buy systems with a metal chassis, every laptop I have owned ended up with chips and cracks in the chassis, and I am very careful with my stuff. It also seems like the larger the laptop is, the more likely it is that the chassis will end up cracked.

Even for my work computers, all with a plastic chassis end up with cracks and chips. My current work computer is a business-class HP and it is cracked in two places and one of the corners has a chipped spot. It still works (as good as an HP product is capable of working) but it is no longer being included in the corporate laptop "fleet" because it is not durable. I have had several Dell Latitude laptops at work, and they were not an exception. Great computers, but you cannot expect plastic to hold up to heavy travel... it just doesn't. This is one of the reasons that the ThinkPad and ToughBook have been two of the best business-class systems available. Based on my experience, a plastic laptop is a poor investment unless you rarely travel with it and handle it with kid gloves.

 

ThinkPads are dropping the ball lately. Seen too many issues with their plastic shell. My wife's W510 has a nasty crack below the touchpad...and she never travels with it

 

Totally agree! ( from my 16 years experience with laptops and looking whats going on with my fellow coleagues and students )

 

Since Lenovo took over they have noticeably lowered their standards on ThinkPad quality. I believe the T-series still has a magnesium chassis with the rubberized coating like they used to. (I will have a new one in a couple of weeks to replace the crappy HP Compaq 8510p "business class" pile of thrash, so I guess I will know for sure when it arrives.) Even if they do, their reliability under the Lenovo brand is way less than when IBM was making them. I would be remiss to not mention that I really hate the pointing stick and extra buttons. I find them both awkward and unattractive. I cannot imagine using them, although I know some folks do. The 8510p also has them.

So, back on topic... plastic is a major fail for laptop chassis construction. The aluminum chassis on the M18x is the bomb. If Alienware ever starts making their flagship with a plastic chassis like they did with the M17xR3 downgrade, they will lose many customers. (Including me.)

 

this thread is interesting actualy pointing to dell what they did good in previous alienwares and telling them to integrate it back

i wonder if dell even bother looking at what users like

 

Yea there's a few dell guys around on this forum and I'm sure they looked through the thread

 

well depending on how many features are reintroduced i might very well be jumping in for the m18x this year otherwise ill wait to see next year

for me no 16:10 is what killed the recent alienware

but since i recently hit the wall with my 4850 i'm looking to upgrade

(i never hit a performance wall but a feature wall one of my programing project require OpenCL suport and my 4850 only have partial suport) sadly for dell the project still have many years of devlopement comming so even if they don't reintroduce 16:10 i still can wait a couple years

 

@granyte
16:10 will not be back in the R2 :/

 

It won't be back at all, it's a dead standard now
The only hope is to see a higher total res. And since the upcoming GPUs are gonna be quite a bit more powerful I'd say it's time to bump the res a notch

 

that would be pretty sweet, but how much of a performance hit would a higher res screen cause?

 

to bad then ill just keep on patching my m17-r1 till it dies for good

cause those 120 vertical picel are mighty usefull when programing and 16:9 makes me claustrophobic XD


ps as an old school alienware user i'm nostalgic about the skullcape desing (not the cheap version off the plastic lower alienware) maybe we can add an oldschool skullcape area-51 style lid to the desing sugestion?

 

You got a great system there. I'd keep it!

 

I'm not sure to understand, is there no WIFI in the m18x, or simply that the WIFI is not managed by the Killer Network card ?

What is really the problem ?

 

i would actualy not have put in my plans to upgrade if my gpus did suport OpenCL properly

 

Have you tried upgrading to the 6990s? I know that R2 supports those cards for sure.

 

He has the pre Dell AW model which is MXM 2.1 not the M17x.

 

FUI, I added to the IdeaStorm discussion a request for a Killer Gaming NIC to be added as a wireless option.

 

" End of an era: NASA shuts down its last mainframe" Oh my G', the one that have "4MB memory..."? ( End of an era: NASA shuts down its last mainframe | Deep Tech - CNET News )

Maybe they are switching over the new M18x2?

 

You already have the option of choosing the Killer 1103

The Dell Online Store: Build Your System

 

If the new m18x had all that stuff in the OP, I would scrape together all the money I don't have and buy that in a second. On the other hand, maybe the m17x would have equally epic features...

--
Sent from my SGS2 Skyrocket using Tapatalk

 

From the American site, yes, not the UK site

 

bigger heatsinks and bigger fans

 

yeah, more and bigger pipes, copper radiators to give a better ocing headroom. That and a Matte 120hz IPS RGBLED would probably be the 2 most important, IMHO, reasons to upgrade...

 

Yeah! I'm in the waiting line for that...

 

Manual fan control, especially something like clevo does. FN+1 puts fans on full blast. And of course all the other things like RGB screen, doesn't need to be 3D for me.

 

I don't care about 3D but 120hz would be more than welcome, especially for smooth FPS.

 

is OLED superior to RGB LED? I don't see many monitors being advertised as RGB LED anymore? This seemed to be more popular 2 years ago?

 

I know 120hz means vsync at 120 fps how long do we honestly think we can play games are max settings while keeping FPS that high? thats why I am totally fine with 60Hz. I would rather it last long and not have to deal with screen tearing.

Or do I have the whole vsync thing wrong?

Oled should not be implemented as PC monitors, they have serious burn in problems with static images even on the latest models (on cellphones), it doesn't show that much on phones because of the small screen sizes. But with my Galaxy S 2 if you look close enough you can see burn in everywhere. Especially when its a black background in a pitch black room. I think thats the main reason why we haven't seen a huge push in OLED for PC monitors yet.

 

You can always cap your monitor at 60Hz in nVidia CP or CCC for AMD.

 

Oh, I didn't know you can do that...Well if its at no extra cost IE standard why not

 

better service

 

Need some help?

 

Better QA. I went through 3 M18X's before I got one that worked, and even so, it required me to swap parts from replacement 2 into replacement 3.

Designed by Alienware, assembled by Shadowyani. Lol.

Haha last I checked I didn't purchase a kit computer.

 

+1

Alienwares are amazing systems...if you get one that actually works lol

 

It is my 21 days after sending the M18x back. I don't know what happens in the service flow but I think it is better to change the service. , I have paid $823.36 for the annual service....

And the most strange thing is the support history. I did not call the Agent on one day, but the history shows "Agent initiated phone contact." The other days calling history disappeared. The agent's promise depended. Someone promised to send the computer back this week, the next day the other one denied.

 

Better service, better Q&A, laptops that work when you first receive them or when you buy an upgrade, not being called a liar by the tech support (aka, better training), and i think this is enough...to begin with.

 

Agree! +10!

But, please don't forget the RGB/IPS LED with better resolution ratio (as in the 17":1920x1200 or similar )

 

Is that with regular phone support or the North American phone support?

 

It really depends on who you end up talking to. I live in america and I have gotten both call centers in costa rica and some here in the U.S. The people here in america have been a lot more helpful to me personally than the outsourced call centers.