(UK M11X) Why is Alienware doing this?

So, just last week, the M11x in its basic iteration was £749. Early this week, it was still £749, however to the naked eye, the change of HDD from 320GB to 250GB would have gone unnoticed. That, now, costs £45 to upgrade to.

The tale doesn't end there, just today, it seems Alienware have decided to take away the bluetooth module. That right there, would cost another £30 to upgrade to.

Right when we thought prices would, if anything, be going down due to inevitable competition in the 13" market come June.

Quick £75 for Alienware.

Thanks Alienware.

 

Wow they have increased the cost of a SSD to a £420 upgrade!
My M11X with SSD cost me £1160 and if I were to get it now it would cost me £1419. That is a rip off.

 

Yes, I've noticed the spec has dropped in Ireland too (but not the prices). I suspect it might be something to do with the weakening of the Euro/Pound against the dollar.

 

Absolutely. Running a business in today's marketplace isnt easy and you can't expect dell to just assume the FX risk of the UK's unstable government and runnaway debts..

I'm miffed as well that my salary compared to dollars keeps getting lower and lower. The pound is fast becoming junk currency..

 

The Euro's dropping. I'd be surprised if it didn't raise.

 

It can't just be the exchange rate as M15X and M17X haven't gone up.

 

I think they lowered the prices for a while and now they are returning to more realistic prices

 

Yeah I noticed that right after I purchased mine I got lucky.

 

just had a look, too. is it just me or is the c2d option honestly now gone up to a pound under a grand?

so glad i got mine before this price hike - now suddenly (for uk/europe buyers) the m11x doesn't look like such a hot deal anymore

 

The funny thing is, if you go for the £749 option, then upgrade it to the specs of the £999 exactly, it's cheaper than the £999 by £16.

This is a ULV ultraportable. The most expensive conceivable ULV ultraportable out there in the market will be around the £550 mark. The cheapest iteration of this ultraportable Alienware is a good £200 more. Granted it's Alienware with a, till now, unused GPU especially in this sized laptop, but I don't think the GPU alone is worth £150. At most it would probably be worth £75-£100. And the casing isn't metal either, so with more basic specs than a £550 ultraportable (which would come with 4GB RAM, bluetooth, C2D and 320GB HDD), what exactly are we paying for with the £100-£125 extra? Or if we wanted to be fair, and throw in the C2D, 4GB RAM, bluetooth and 320GB, then it'd be £270-£295 more.

For the American readers, £749 is roughly $1100 - and that's for the cheapest possible M11x.

 

You Brits think you have it bad? Try buying one of these things in New Zealand, we pay NZ$2000 for one of these with the SU7300, 4GB and a 500GB for around 975 pounds at today's exchange rate. Keep in mind that prices in the US don't cover sales tax so everything we buy is going to be more expensive because our prices figure in VAT or GST or whatever.

 

You brits complaint? Look at the mexican site... You pay like $1250 USD for the BASE unit, and the upgrades are insanely EXPENSIVE, the m15x base unit here with i7 costs $2050 USD, now How is that fair? We better not speak about the m15x upgrades you all would cry...

 

I am Brit and I ain't complaining. I new the specs and the price before I bought mine, I chose to pay the asking price and to be quite honest I am v happy with what I got for the money I paid.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this - with the significant weakening of the UK pound, prices are only going up ! Nobody thought prices would be going down, unless they'd somehow missed the global economic crisis
Some of the IT spends at my workplace are currently costing us almost 50% more than they did 18 months ago...

 

Your calculations are way off - comparing the straight currency conversion is utterly meaningless.

The US spec only includes a 160GB Hard Drive - with the 250GB upgrade to match the UK spec, it weighs in at $858 shipped. That's roughly £588, and once you've added on the 17.5% VAT that we pay here in the UK, you arrive at a total figure of £691.

DELL UK are currently charging £749 all inclusive - an increase over the US price of just £58.

Given that the cashback sites like QuidCo are currently offering 10% back on DELL purchases, then you'll claw back the £58 and more - it's actually cheaper to buy one here than pay the DELL US retail price !

 

it is the currency exchange. For example say when m11x first came out 1100 GBP was worth much more in usd now for that same 1100 when dell converts it to usd they are getting less money. They have to do something to offset it. You UK people and european people need to quit complaining. When the USD went to hell and 1 GBP = 2.03 USD how you think that felt for us? or 1 eur0 = 1.60 when the euro first came out it was 1 euro = .95 usd. Untill 1 euro drops below .95 quit crying cause thats where its supposed to be.

 

deleted my rant was a little rude

 

Feel so lucky now, managed to get a SU7300, 2GB, 320GB HDD & tacX Mouse all for £709! about 1 month after UK release. Upgraded it myself to 4GB for ~ £40 (2nd hand RAM) and fitted an 80GB Intel X25 SSD.

Could actually make a profit if I decide to sell it

 

I got the same deal - but paid just £759 including the 4GB and 500GB upgrades.

It was a mis-price on the DELL page, lasting for one Sunday evening only - they included the 4GB in the base spec, and I paid the additional £50 for the 500GB upgrade. By Monday morning, they'd reverted to the default 2GB spec - but my order was already confirmed

 

We aren't complaining - as I pointed out above, we can currently pick up the base-spec M11X from DELL UK for slightly less than the DELL US price.

Which is nice

(this is including the default 10% cashback though - obviously some discounts will be available on the US retail price...)

 

I am a Welshman in Alabama, (been here 8years), and US prices are not as cheap as you think. As previously stated we have to pay about an extra 12% on the configured price as they never include the taxes. My setup was just under $1900 delivered which is probably very close to the UK price, (also the dollar is worth nothing over here - somethings are cheap, but supporting a decent house, wife, 3 cars and three kids leaves me nothing out of $50k a year)

 

You must miss the sheep boyo