High warranty costs = likely unreliable?

I've been thinking about the new A17 with Tobii eye tracking, but amazed at the warranty costs. Four years for £876 GB, with only "premium onsite" available??? Even an extra year is £295. Is this normal, or are these just highly tuned prima-donna's, likely to fail quickly and expensively?

 

It means if there is a problem they will send a tech to your house to fix it the next day. I wont say these techs are perfect. I ame across really skilled technicians. I also came across one really **** technician. But in the end. If your system breaks down in those years. They will fix it or send you a new one. A technician ruined my laptop and they shipped me an upgraded AW15R2 after it.

 

I was asking a slightly different Q... I could get a Dell XPS 15 and the same level of warranty is £274 for 4y and £140 for 2y. Similar priced laptop, same warranty. So they MUST be expecting a lot of Alienware failures.

 

Well the XPS isnt a gaming laptop so you really cant compare the two. Heat is the killer of electronics, and the alienware is full of hot gaming grade components that are thrown into a small case. So the chance for issues goes way up and the warranty reflects that. I dont think they are expecting your laptop to die, they just understand the chance for a issue to arise in the future is higher when your pushing the laptop to the edge gaming and the cost to repair if it breaks it probably higher too.

 

It's not that they are expecting my one to die, but they are ascribing a much higher probability of it costing them money on the warranty. I guess that could equate to a higher probability of each device failing, or greater parts and labour costs when one does. Sounds like you think it's a bit of both.

Shame, it looks like a long warranty is a must, and that pushes my budget down to the lower end of the 15" one.

 

Those are just assumptions you make. It simply can be because there are less available techs for alienware systems for example.

 

Where are you seeing those ridiculous costs?

The AW 17 With Tobii is $359 for 4 year Premium Support and $149 for 4 year Accidental Damage

 

The inflated cost of warranty could mean anything but I would guarantee if this high spec rig is thrashed out youre not getting 3-4 good years out of it

 

With BGA they need to replace everything if anything on the MoBo will broke and as nearly everything is on the MoBo now soldered then the cost goes up.

 

You know this is what I kinda find funny. If they stuck with slots and modular design then they're actualy saving themselves in the long run if a laptop fails. Least with the likes of clevo still they're using mxm and such so only faulty components need to be replaced but having to chuck the whole thing if one part fails? Whats the point? :/

 

The point is you have to buy whole new machine if you want to upgrade and that's more money for them even if you add warranty fails cost. Todays Dellienware want to maximize their profit so they increase price of additional warranty to insane values to make sure they don't replace whole motherboard.

If you own M18x or M18xR2 then you just buy X series CPU and two new GPUs and Dell gets nothing for that. That's why they haven't released 980M compatible BIOS for M18xR2.

 

A whole motherboard with cpu and gpu is cheaper than one single mxm gpu board these days.

 

It should be interesting to see how much a replacement BGA motherboard with integrated 1070 or 1080 costs. I bet it will be crazy scary insanely expensive, like 4 to 6 months worth of car payments for the average American, LOL.

 

If more people demanded upgradable GPU's and agreed on a standard the price would inevitably come down. Having all the components soldered on simply can't be cheaper unless they can somehow cookie cutter the whole MB and all it's parts cheaply due to scale. Needless to say such a design isn't beneficial to the end user. I'm still yet to see how BGA 'costing less to produce' is making the end product cheaper. Any savings made won't be passed on. Instead we're seeing all machines that are EOL from inception that cost just as much as upgradable/modular machines.

 

And new/used BGA motherboards isn't very easily to obtain

 

I have yet to see a modular system with the chassis quality of current alienware models. The BGA systems of clevo are cheaper than their modular systems. The pricing for the graphics hardware is truly ridiculous on those systems. I dont see that changing unfortunately.

I can find them at parts people, taobao, aliexpress etc for prices around 400usd.

 

Look no further than the older modular Alienware's. Are the Clevo BGA series much cheaper if the specs are to be the same though?

Can you link me some of those $400 BGA boards? If that's true that's an amazing price.

 

It might be a regional thing but here in Europe the non BGA machines are really expensive.

The motherboards, the chinese sites are really cheap. But the specs have to be checked carefully
https://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=21430
https://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=21896
https://world.taobao.com/item/530800550694.htm?spm=a312a.7700714.0.0.ByLJlv#detail
https://world.taobao.com/item/532917786239.htm?spm=a312a.7700714.0.0.ByLJlv#detail
https://world.taobao.com/item/537533045572.htm?spm=a312a.7700714.0.0.ByLJlv#detail

 

but not all clevos do have mxm. but I just think the price of warranty is far too high for this machine. maybe cos of the eye tobi thing. cos when I added warranty for an aw15 it was half the cost for same warranty....at least in the u anway.

 

The eye tracking thing has to be the dumbest gimmick I have seen in a very long time. I think some of the space odyssey MST3K gimmick crap they are pulling now must be to distract people from the fact that the rest of the machine sporting the gimmick has been compromised.

 

Did you check the finding of @iunlock about the latest Alienware? Apart from that it is not upgradeable it is really a well done machine. Running extremely cool and the build quality is excellent.

 

I agree 100%. IMO it's such a stupid piece and a waste of money when AW could have put that money toward something else like perhaps a rebirth of the AW18! Why why why?

Frobii I call it is absolutely a gimmick IMO. Makes me really upset. Especially how they force you to buy it without any option to opt out of it.

If they had just spent that money elsewhere, producing another AW18 variant would have been possible. Again IMO that was such a stupid decision on Dell's part.

 

Yes, the new AW line is very well built, in fact the best built gaming laptop that exist and it'd be inaccurate for me to say IMO, because things are what they are...ie...it is what it is.

The thing is built like a tank and I love that it has a nice weight to it.

I'll be reviewing this unit as well and you can count on it being unbiased. I'm not about and am the furthest thing away from any fan boy nonsense. I'll call it and say it like it is...

 

Yes, as a matter of fact. He did a truly fine job of that and I gave him some rep for it. Alienware has always done a fantastic job of providing good cooling hardware components and build quality has not been a problem for them for as long as I have been around. All the OEMs need to get the thermal paste right. Seems like they all use garbage TIM by default.

Personally, I find the new design to be unattractive aesthetically, but somewhat improved from a service access and functionality perspective. I would not dismiss it on the basis of aesthetics, even though I do not find it appealing.

As far as the other stuff, my position has not changed. If it is BGA nothing else counts in my book and I reject the product as unacceptable on that basis alone. I cannot and will not compromise on this.

 

Exactly my point AW could have diverted all that money for Frobii to perhaps offering a DTR variant or heck even a LGA on the 17" line at least, yet they waste and FORCE the money (both ways) on the consumer without an option to opt out of the gimmick? - Where's the logic?

I too wasn't a fan of the design at first through pictures with the hump (forward hinge design) sticking out on the back, but in person it is much different. From a direct angle it's hard not to like IMO, but it's just one of those things where it's a hit or a miss for some.

This laptop is so thin that AW could have made it slightly thicker to compensate for a 6700K, however, with how well this cooling system is I really think they could have kept it the same thinness and be okay with it...I have 4.3GHz running stable now, have reached 4.6GHz and am tuning that at the moment so if I can get 46x stable, the heat being produced would replicate that of a 6700K at the same clocks...I'm really curious how well it will cool if I can get it to stick at 46x....

Ah don't mean to get off topic here for this thread, but my 2 cents on the warranty and it being so high in cost....well....I think a lot of it has to do with Frobii honestly.

 

While it has no application for most; it is a godsend for the disabled community, and should not be dismissed offhand. While it is a small niche market, as someone with a disabled cousin (who uses tobii) I'm happy that a company as large as Dell, includes them.

However, they should not be marketing it as some sort of new awesome experience for average people...

http://www.abilities.com/community/assistive_eye-control.html

 

This is even worse than I thought. If this is true http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...016-owners-lounge.797457/page-3#post-10371392 This is not the first place I have seen this talk abour customised MB in the new Aw models. Now even more difficult to obtain the correct BGA motherboard for your AW BGA machine and hope you don't need to pay a too high price. You must obtain the correct customised BGA motherboard... Aka correct BGA Cpu, GPU and the motherboard must support the correct display. And then you have the silicon lottery + hope you don't buy a Crappy MB (+ good chance to receive a incorrect MB as well).

 

usually DELL warranty does;t cost very much. They try and quote you though based on how much they think they can get from you if I had to guess.

 

I once renewed an Alienware 13 warranty for a repair and they refused to repair it because it was a Broadwell system and Skylake had just come out. It's not worth purchasing more than 2-years of premium and 2-years accidental because they know their own systems are junk after new hardware comes out.

Back in 2010, you could have bought the M18x R1 with 4 years of warranty and end up with a new Alienware 18 R2 (maxed) if yours was having issues. I predicted this decline and I hate it.