Convince Me.

I am interested in purchasing a new laptop my pricerange is anything upto $3500. I have narrowed my choices down to the Dell XPS M1710, or The Alienware Area-51 m9750.

As far as I know, Alienware is synonymous with gaming, and top performance. I want to buy a new laptop from Alienware, the Area-51 m9750, and I am interested in hearing from this community whether or not this is a wise choice for my price range. I have seen many sites bashing Alienware, such as BewareofAlienware, but I have seen many sites talk badly about Dell as well.

My Main concern, is whether or not the Laptop will stand the test of time. I have heard many complaints about recieving a laptop that was broken right when they took it out of the box, and I have heard other people say that the laptop has overheated, video cards were damaged by heat etc, over the course of a year.

For an Investment of upto $3500, I want this laptop to atleast be able to last 4-5 years, before gaming with it is no longer an option. Hopefully with 2 Gigs of Ram, and 2 7950 GTX's in SLI, it will last awhile.

Should I worry about the laptop arriving to my house broken, or not functioning properly?

All of you on this forum seem to have a better understanding of what makes a good laptop than I currently do, and im interested in buying it, so... Convince Me.

 

The squeaky wheel is a lot more noticable than the good ones.


You cant go by a few threads of horror stories or even a website some internet programmer cooked up from a bad experience. Ok maybe you can, but not with companies that sell the amount of product these companies sell.

Im not saying dont listen to it at all, its all valid, but keep in mind, these companies sell TONS of laptops that work fine and if everyone was getting broken laptops, the company wouldnt be able to stay in business. Most people that get these laptops (either brand) dont have problems at all and never post on the net about their computers. Its good to do the research. Its GREAT to do the research. Look at as many reviews as you can, read these forums, send questions to the company (to see what responses are like). And you may even have to accept these are BOTH great machines and it just comes down to details of preference. People have all been playing games on gaming machines with one video card for years and have been doing fine considering gaming companies only recently even started doing more testing of games on laptops cause not too long ago, I know for a fact that LucasArts wouldnt even BOTHER to test on laptops cause it was too hard to deal with all the different configs, and parts, and design issues.
And we all do VERY different things with our laptops and computers that is just asking for various conflicts here and there. Theres gonna be people with problems and people with none. The ones with will be doing most of the talking on here - and thats fine, but you have to keep in mind, they tend to be the minority.

I personally am going for the m9750 after eyeing the 1710 for a while. Im not a big gamer but there are reasons Ive decided this and Ive done a lot of research. I think BOTH companies are as good as any. Dell sells more than most so your likely to hear mroe complaints about them. Please remember this. Until you have percentages of computers sold, problems experienced, and types of problems and causes of problems, you cant JUST base all your decisions on these negative bits of info. Some perhaps, but not all........

hope this helps.

 

Your opinion does help, I have looked across plenty of forums, I have seen the reviews that are good, and the reviews that are bad. I am looking forward to more answers, because I am certain people here did plenty of research before purchasing their laptop as well.

 

Well Ive done a lot and heres what Ive found, Theres been a LOT of people happy with the 1710 for a long time now. Its been out for at least a year now I believe. Ive had general good exp with my dell apart from one issue.

And so far now looking at Alienware, Ive been pretty impressed with them as a company. They respond to my email questions WAY faster than Dell does (I know Dell own them). And they have been really helpful so far. Most official reviews have been really good on this machine.

oops, gotta go, Im sure people will give you other good info here. they always do.

 

Ive been an Alienware owner for more than 3 years - 1 desktop and 2 notebooks. During that time, I've spent a lot of time on forums with sections dealing with Alienware computers. There have been some nightmare stories - but these usually get resolved if the individual is persistent and can get to the right people at AW. Remember, there are always two sides to every story.

I buy Alienware because they design products that incorporate the latest technology, they test them before shipping them, and I happen to like the style and build quality. I also appreciate the large web-based community of users who can help with issues. Alienware isn't perfect - I don't know a company that is. Don't buy an Alienware if you aren't willing to ship it back for repair, as that is usually what is required, and can take a couple of weeks. I've had good fortune, and both my m5500 and m9700 have worked flawlessly since day one. I'll be upgrading my desktop soon, and will most likely go Alienware again.

The 1710 is also a good performer. I believe it comes down to specs and style when choosing between the two. Dell is a larger company, so it generally takes less time to get a machine repaired. While AW is owned by Dell, they continue to operate as a separate business. Good Luck with your decision.

 

The m9750 andm9700 are flawless laptops, no heating issues whatsoever, the models to watch out for are the m7700 (This is what gave Alienware a bad reputations, the quality of the model wasn't Alienwares fault, at the time the Clevo was the only decent chassis, also the m5550 appears to have a badly placed temp sensor and it doesn't turn on the fans when the lappy gets hot

 

well for that budget you can get a beast m9750 with upgrades personally many people have bin getting the m9750 and not any problems i can tell you mine has bin amazing from the first day no heating issues the performance has not let me down and ive bin playing every single game on high settings. I think you should go for the m9750 and with the extra budget you can make it that much more amazing

 

FYI: Dell, nor Alienware care which machine you buy, since they are both the same company. Dell purchased Alienware last year:

http://www.betanews.com/article/Dell_Acquires_Alienware/1143070457

 

i wouldnt get the 1710. yes it is a nice machine, but i think there is only 1 screen option. and that is 1920 X 1080. and i know the 7950 GTX is a beast but it just cant handle that high of resolution in a single card setup. i have about 4 friends out here in the desert with me and we all play COH and Fear together and they cant play the game at native resolution with all the settings cranked up. they need to step down and then it looks like garbage. the high res screen is nice but u would definitely need an sli setup for that high of resolution screen.

 

Old News. Alienware continues to be run as a separate entity ... so they certainly do care which machine a person buys (Altho I don't recall the OP asking if they cared ... he/she was just looking for recommendations).

 

the whole thing with overheating issues after a year or so of use; just be sure to get a 2 year warranty. Again like ppl above me have said it happens to a small minority of consumers. The chances of your notebook arriving broken would be like winning the lottery. Of course if it does happen it'll be a pain to ship it back and all.

Whatever you do i wish you luck.

 

Lol? A bit late?

As was said, Alienware is maintained as a seperate entity, as specifically stated by Mr. Dell himself at his CES 07 keynote, (Same place where the m9750 was introduced, love at first sight ) said that they "teamed up" with Alienware, not robbing Alienware of all the IP and licenses. Alienware has neither suffered nor benefited (much - the 7900GS in the m9700 used to be a Dell exclusive) apart from getting full product placement in Die Hard at the cost of Dell (e.g. every monitor you see in it is dell, every laptop is an m9700 or an m5550)

 

Moving back on track: for $3500 (Especially depending on whether that includes tax, shipping), I'm not sure the second GPU is worth it, especially considering drivers are not here yet, although it seems they are arriving soon.

 

Alienwares are beautiful machines, and have a good reputation imho.

But if you ever have doubts you can always look at other brands which are still raved about like the Sager NP9260 with a C2D E6420 and a 7950GTX for alot cheaper than the m9750.

17" WUXGA "Super Clear Glossy" TFT Active Matrix screen
nVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX w/512MB GDDR3 memory
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6420 2.13GHz Processor w/4M L2 Cache - 1,066MHz FSB
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
2,048MB (2 SODIMMS) DDR2/800 Memory
100GB SATA/150 Hard Drive at 7,200 RPM
Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW 5x DVD-RAM 24x CD-R/RW Drive w/Softwares
Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965 802.11a/g/n
Built-in Bluetooth Wireless
1-Year Parts & Labor, Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Customer Service

Price from powernotebooks.com is $2494 with the 50$ cash discount.

And it is completely customizable up to SLI 7950's and the powerful x6800 processor.

I am not downing Alienware at all, I think they probably ave the best looking machines out there, but there are alternatives to think about before buying a new laptop.

And for 3500$ you can customize a Sager to a very strong laptop.

 

hey imhungry29, you just scare me with what you said ^^.
I'll buy an m9750 with single Go 7950 GTX (perhaps M8800 SLI later . . .), and thought about the WUXGA. . .
Is it unplayable in native resolution, or do they can't just put all settings to maximum ?
Is it really like a garbage when your friends step down the resolution ?
(is it resolution or settings that are stepped down ?)
Thanks

 

i'd really like to help convince you, but with my experiences of late, i won't really do a good job.

 

I bought a Aurora 9700 Last summer, and it has been the best machine ihave owned.. it has worked perfectly since the day i bought it.. runs great looks cool, I dual monitor off my laptop, Alienware is a good company imo, ill agree they are slightly overpriced but i think the style of the laptop makes up for it.. i just wish I couldve gotten a stealth black laptop a year ago..

 

Some of the never games you will definitely have to reduce sittings with. Even on my fully loaded review unit, I had to reduce the settings and /or resolution in some games like Splinter Cell 4.

I agree with you there. The design process is more expensive for Alienware because they fully customize the chassis.

 

Also a good idea to check www.resellerratings.com to see real world reviews before spending that kind of cash.

 

sorry it took so long to respond undertaker. his notebook can handle some games at its native resolution of 1920 x 1080 but i just think its setting u back with the higher res screen. im not anti pixel or anything. its just i would rather have more fps then clarity. his fps in COH is anywhere between 25 and 60 fps. it just dips down alot. so he lowers it so it stays more in the 60 range. when he steps down the res. it just looks a little blury. maybe its the screen quality compared to the native res. i think chaz would know more than me.

 

Okay thanks for your answers =).