[A Message From Frank Azor] - Leaving Alienware?

On the one hand ASUS has been making some pretty decent stuff this last few years. But they always seem to cut corners in the wrong places. . .so having an Ex-ASUS member with Alienware could go either way. That’s assuming they don’t just use her as a taking head and don’t listen to her ideas. But I’d be for and M15 Zephyrus or an Area 51m Mothership.

 

Some reflections...Frank Azor was the Godmother for soldered storage in XPS 13 on his work duty. Same also for the soldered ram + wifi cards on newest thin Alienware's. Dell got another boss for the XPS brand and we can now see that the "soldered on storage mess" will be replaced with normal ssd slot.


CES 2020 | Dell XPS 13 9300 in pictures: Don't worry, the SSD is now replaceable

@Mr. Fox @Vasudev @Ashtrix +++ all not mentioned but not forgotten.

Is this a fluke/coincidence? Nope, I don't think so.

 

It happened on his watch. He can run, but he can't hide. Dell will still be Dell, but even dummies know stupid on steroids when they see it. Soldered RAM, SSD and WiFi are just stupid. There is no nice way to say it.

 

Maybe the ASUS chief experienced boiling SSD and failing SSDs after few months on her work PC and was fed up with Apple Macbook like soldering and lose valuable user data including future Powerpoint Slides, Excel sheets or even huge Word documents! Maybe that's why they pulled back to good old replaceable hardware!

Dell and EMC2 are one so they come with new SFF and gets deprecated really quick due to bad cooling!
I think Smartphones and other portables have better thermals on their BGA than on Dell/AW/XPS BGA with much bigger Form factors.

 

All the new AW boss needs to do is check out the interest generated by latest AW models on NBR (in pages of comments):

51M - 1750
m15 R1 - 350
m15 R2 with soldered RAM/WiFi - literally just 35

 

If they were to pay special attention to the criticism, and do something to correct it, that would be great. Although, it is extremely unlikely that would happen. Skunks don't change their stripes. If we believe what they say, everything they sell "functions as intended" and that's great except for one thing: Their intentions are messed up.

Being liked by all isn't necessary when you're a legend in your own mind.

 

Hear hear, although the main argument and hope here is that the chief skunk is out of the door. I'm all for giving the new chief animal at least a little benefit of doubt. Of course, it may well end up being another case of "the skunk is dead, long live the skunk", or worse. Should be clear soon enough, I guess around CES?

 

Or after the release and reviews is finished and we see new tampering with firmware in same way as for Area-51m. Use of soldered hardware everywhere to lower costs isn’t the only problem. Destroy products with cripped firmware ain’t much better. Even worse if/when they fiddle with firmware after initial reviews is done.

 

Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Pepe Le Pew... they're all different, but they're all Looney Tunes and they are all funny.

Dell is Dell, Alienware is Dell... both are Mickey Mouse... but, neither one is funny. Sad is how I would describe that. I've never viewed Mickey Mouse as being funny.

 

So, it's been a while. Any word from Azor's successor? What's the vision?

 

The R2 has 2 less RAM slots, worse keyboard, same RAM limitations it sounds like. So idk...

At least we get a SD card reader

 

Haha, spot on - actions speak louder than words. But still, one would expect an Azor-level exec to have something to say publicly by now!

 

Can you picture the round table discussing these ideas?

"So Jim, what ideas have you come up with to improve the 51M?"

"Well boss, I think we should remove two memory slots and bring back the SD card reader!"

"Great idea Jim, let's get that done. You deserve a raise!"

"What about you Dave?"

"Well, I've been working on a new keyboard that actually performs worse than the current one."

"Jesus Dave, why didn't you mention this earlier?! Brilliant idea!"

Claps all around the table and possibly streamers and balloons falling from the ceiling.

 

Could be pretty accurate, but I guess discussion of expected profits might also have taken place, especially around the RAM ripoff changes.

Anyway, I found something - the name: Vivian Lien, and a Q&A!

https://uk.alienwarearena.com/ucf/s...n-new-vice-president-of-alienware-dell-gaming

Now, I've got to say, I'm impressed by the historical FPS credentials here: an associate of Quake 1 God Thresh himself, and a CS (1.6 presumbaly) fan! Those were the days! I was actually excited for a brief moment by how dated this stuff is: chances are she is more pro and enthusiast market focused, until I realised the recent changes suggest she ain't a pro enthusiast either..

Other than that, it's possibly the most useless Q&A ever, although we could argue that it was Umar's fault (unless of course he got the whole thing in an email from VL's secretary).

Maybe it's just corona, maybe she needs a bit more time... Fingers crossed! Good luck Vivian, you can do this! You can create great products everyone is super-excited about and bring Alienware back to its former glory! Give us the best and most powerful notebooks on the market again! And speaking about, Q&A: don't forget about QA, since it's been a bit of a problem for a while.

BTW if you get stuck, don't hesitate to talk to us, we are here to help (for free!!). First pro tip: join Twitter like everyone else.

 

The one really good thing about Frank Azor was he was active on Twitter, not just as a normal user, but also for us who messaged him about Alienware.

He was also here for a brief amount of time during the whole 980M SLI thing for AW 18. BTW that was one of the best things they did for us. Whether people want to admit it or not, they actually went through the trouble to update the AW 18 with 980M SLI (it had been discontinued and the new 17 (BGA) was here) AND continue selling for several months.

I hope the new VP has something in plan for AW because the R2 wasn't in the right direction for sure.

 

I only heard that they started shipping the 980M's with the 18 recently but I didn't hear the reasoning behind it. That doesn't seem like something they'd do for the consumers any longer unfortunately. Hopefully I'm wrong.

 

You mean improvements/progress Dell just made Area-51m more equal it’s thinner siblings with this move. Next step will be soldered on ram and WiFi as all the new modern thinner AW gaming models.

Spot on. Fantastic post. +reps

With Capped power!! Learned by old behavior. No dice. Zero points!

 

I just upgrade my M18xR2 to 32GB RAM and added Intel AX200 Wi-Fi thanks to them not being soldered.

I'll be putting AX200 in all my laptops. Also will have 16GB in M17xR2 (unofficially supported) and have it in my M14xR2.

Their laptops aren't as thin as apple's, idk why they solder.

 

Pure profit-seeking. Hopefully it will backfire due to the resulting decrease in sales.

 

I amm still going to buy Alienware product ...... for gaming purpose. lol

 

No change there then, lol

OTOH I would love to continue buying Alienware products for various purposes, alas none of the new models currently on offer are satisfactory. In fact Dell recently offered me a new machine swap to solve a minor issue (sounds great, love that kind of support!) unfortunately there is nothing I'd really want to swap for.

 

Luckily, I don't have to worry about deciding if I want a modern-day Alienware. Between work and the kids, I have about 35 mins of my own time every day which isn't very conducive to gaming.

 

Not so sure you would want spend so much time on BGA anyway On the other side... You could have some fun swap a few MB as @VICKYGAMEBOY
The records holder in MB swap I think it’s around +20 MB for two or three AW BGA machines.

 

I have more fun playing with my older AWs in sig anyways. You probably would too

 

Its 25 as we speak! He has now a Ryzen PC and he said its better than AW BGA.

 

100%. I'm going to be 41 next month and as much as I want to keep enjoy playing computer games, I find messing with the laptop hardware much more interesting.

I've got a few more 17's on their way in the next few weeks to tinker with

 

This is the first I have seen from Azor's successor the new Vice President of Alienware & Dell Gaming Vivian Lien. You asked about what's the vision. I think this below explain it well. Posted on dell.alienwarearena.com 1 June 2021

X Marks the Spot: Alienware targets new frontiers victims with brand new X-Series Gaming Laptops

By Vivian Lien
Some search far and wide for the “X factor” of mobile PC gaming -- the unique and significant quality that makes a product exceptional. For Alienware, exceptional is part of our DNA and nothing brings that to life more than our Alienware X-Series: a brand-new mobile gaming family that exemplifies our values of bold innovation, high performance, iconic design and premium quality.

Today, with the launch of X-Series we’re proud to present Alienware’s thinnest 15” and 17” gaming laptops, introducing the first-ever Alienware x15 and Alienware x17. With breakthrough system-level engineering controls to let you play the latest and greatest game titles with confidence, it boasts patent-pending cooling technologies, the latest performance components, framerate-splitting displays and Legend 2.0 design features. What’s more, our collaboration with Intel helped us achieve one of the thinnest form factors ever seen in a PC of this caliber.

When developing the X-Series, we wanted to provide our community with more than just your everyday thin gaming laptop. We wanted to challenge the status quo and create something that redefines the ultimate mobile gaming experience. This was easier said than done due to the physical limitations and mechanical challenges that come with a thin laptop, but our team was able to overcome the challenge with tenacity, extra espresso shots and several engineering breakthroughs.

 

All sounds like marketing gibberish to me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, I know. But @etern4l wondered what vision the new VP had for Alienware as brand. And from the marketing (gibberish) you can clearly see it as "Thinner than ever AW gaming laptops" that match Apple-books/Razer-books in thinnes. If this insn't an leap in vision by Vivian Lien, I don't know

When developing the X-Series, we wanted to provide our community with more than just your everyday thin gaming laptop. We wanted to challenge the status quo and create something that redefines the ultimate mobile gaming experience.

"Everyday thin gaming laptop wasn't enough. It had to be stupid thin. Even beat Apple's thin thick design"

This was easier said than done due to the physical limitations and mechanical challenges that come with a thin laptop, but our team was able to overcome the challenge

"To be able to reach that goal", the engineers had to remove some of the I/O ports (No need for all - same as Apple) and no numpad for the bigger thinner sister x17. Yeah, this is what we call visions/innovation". As you can see, the new VP Vivian Lien delivered in loads.

 

X marks the spot where a treasure trove of massive profits guaranteed by thin and light engineered obsolence lies hidden in plain sight, covered up by but a steaming pile of transparent marketing content.

BTW When will we start talking about the environmental impact of these non-upgradeable and costly to repair laptop designs?

 

Check the details in the link I posted above.... Non upgradeable just mean it will recycled into an new model/package you can buy sent to your door. No need for upgradeable laptops.

• As an extension of Dell’s 2030 Moonshot Goals, the X-Series comes directly to your door inside sustainable packaging made from 92% recycled or renewable materials.

 

Haha, cool diagram. The thing is: reuse is much better for the environment than recycling!