Goodbye

This is exactly what I agree with. No matter the cost it's for these two reasons above. Reliability and Newer Tech.

 

I do it exclusively for the benchmark numbers and higher FPS in games. Otherwise, I'm just fine with old tech. I don't read my emails or browse the web any faster on a new machine.

 

Funny how sales reps at Best Buy and other stores will do their best to convince my father-in-law he needs 12GB of RAM, a UHD display, core i7 and a dedicated GPU to use Outlook and check the weather.

Tech is seriously oversold to the masses. If it wasn't for my gaming, a $400 laptop would suit me just fine.

Well, maybe not $400. I do like a nice FHD IPS display. But barring that, beyond gaming/professional applications, nobody needs all this fancy, high-performance new tech.

 

My "antique" Inspiron E1505 with a Core2 T7200, 4GB of vRAM, ATI X1400, and OCZ Agility 3 240GB SSD running Windows 7 Pro x64 at SATA-2 speeds handles all of the ordinary stuff like Micro$lop Office and web browsing like a champ. Anything more would be unnecessary for those mundane tasks. Nothing ever feels slow doing those things with this old machine. Try to game or bench on it with anything remotely recent, and it's a real slide show. If most people knew they could buy this ancient stuff on Craigslist for $100-150 and do everything they need to do extremely well, Best Buy and Wal-Mart would never be able to sell enough laptops to make it worth their effort. And, that moldy old Inspiron is still much better (and much more powerful) than a nasty little Android tablet or an iPad with slimy touch screen.

 

That's why, when somebody says they're going to buy a new laptop, I tell them to check the classifieds. Tons of shops selling refurbed Dell/Lenovo business-class laptops for a few hundred dollars.

 

Agreed. As long as the keyboard isn't one of those chiclet island-style abominations and the display is at least 15", I'm entirely satisfied using something much, much more underpowered for daily use. I used Inspiron and Latitude laptops for years before having my first Alienware. What I found out from combining that system, the Skikkmod and my copy of Doom 3 (along with the ioquake 3 mod for Quake III: Arena), is that I am hopelessly addicted to high frame rates and sparkly (or dusty) graphics involving things trying to kill me. However, there's ways around that which involve PC gaming but not having another laptop. Building your own desktop and having a living room entertainment center based on that and your normal television is an attractive and not tremendously difficult thing to do. And if you can't do it personally, chances are there's someone you know who can assist you.

Borky crap with the 880m aside--honestly, I've been using it for three and a half months now, and haven't noticed any problems graphically... although the fans will come on in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason and run on the highest level for about five minutes--the AW 17 is a pretty good machine and the one I always try to encourage people to get. The R1, that is. It's hard to recommend a laptop that costs that much without an optical drive, as usually people notice my laptop when I am watching a movie.

But if I had the living room alternative and no need to bring my movies and games on the road (as I currently do), then a $500 laptop would be just fine with me.

 

Guys I agree with all of you. If I wasn't using this laptop for games I would be happy with a $1,000 machine and my backpack would be a couple of kilo lighter and my bank balance would be a couple of kilo heavier. But I do game and while I am working I only want one computer and right now this is it.

I am certainly not complaining because among the choices we make in life is where we spend our money. I have to say that I'm playing Far Cry 4 at the best graphics settings with a FPS that drops to the high 60s and it looks stunning.

 

My only Alienware is the AW14 I'm currently happily using. At the moment I received it I was stunned by it's beauty and build quality. At that moment (when 700 series gpu just went out), it was the most powerful 14 inch laptop. It came with everything I wanted and no bloatware. It was nice at that time to be able to buy a new machine still comes with Windows 7 (even a windows dvd was included) and full support for it. Me too had the thought "Alienware for life". But seeing the new series comes out, I think I've purchased one of the last proper Alienware.

Low voltage cpu, no RAID support, no mxm module....

I was prepared to buy a 18" when I could afford one. But it's gone too. I shall cherish my 14 and my next machine will NOT be an Alienware.

 

The 15 is a decent bit better than the M14x IMO. If it had been the old 17 and 18 along with the new 13 and 15 it would be a comprehensive lineup.