I was about to buy Area-51m 7700 Extreme ....

I was about to buy Area-51m 7700 Extreme .... but after finding this forum finally and finding the answers to my question about previous Alienware owners and experiences with the machines and the service I am convinced I would not buy from this company. Thank you for posting your reviews and warning me.

Now what should I buy that would be comperable in what Alienware advertises but with a company who could actually deliver the product as advertised with good service?

 

The Sager 9860/9870 whatever the model they sell. Wait until february though (if you are a gamer,and that goes for everything else I mention about graphics cards), which is when the Geforce 6800 will have pci-e x16 and gddr3, unlike the mobility x800 wchich only has pci-e x12. The Sager has praised quality and all notebooks that have the 7700s power are in the same case, the companies just mod them to look a little different. So you will still get 2 hard drives, 2 optical drives, etc. The thing is, these things are superheavyweight at about 12 pounds. You don't want to carry this around much. There is also the HP ZD8000, which I don't thing is a much better buy because it offers only one hard drive and one optical drive and is still the same weight.

Also, you probably heard somewhere, but the new Intel Sonoma should offer the most of the same qualities the 7700 has minus the P4 (because it has Pentium M) and also minus the second harddrive and optical drive, but this time those minuses are worth it because notebooks like the Dell 9300 will be feature-full with a 7700-like graphics card (the Geforce 6800) and will be much more lightweight and portable. That is pretty much what Sonoma is: giving Alienware, Sager, high-end stuff in a portable machine. Then again, if you don't need all the portability and mobile wireless and all, the Sager 9860/9870 should and would be your best bet.

 

Yeah i would go with the Sager, Alienwere is Extreamly overpriced in the laptop department. Or u could get the Sager 7620 a PCI e Centrino looks like it might be a monster.

www.pctorque.com is a Good Sager reseller, they will be shipping the 7620 Soon, They did a review of it.

 

Ballin4life,

What is coming in February that I should wait for? I can probably wait till then. I am leaning now towards the HP Pavillion ZD8000 with the 60 gig 7200 rpm. Its still heavy but I wont be traveling much, maybe from one room to the next thats about it. Also who sells these things without operating systems installed? My company pays each year to license several copies for our machines and my boss's son says for me to buy it without the operating system because they pay for that for me.

 

Actually, it doesn't really matter anymore, and I'll explain why. It only applies if you are going to do vid editing and gaming (or any high graphics apps)...and actually I did list whats coming in my last post...the Geforce 6800 with 16xpciexpress and gddr3. I told you to wait because I had previously read that sager's other graphics offering, the Radeon MOBILITY X800 only has 12x pciexpress but does have GDDR3. Then, I go back to Sager's site and they say it the x800 does have 16x pciexpress, so it is pretty much the same thing as the Geforce Go6800 that is coming out in feb, but different brands (but I do think the x800 is better, it performed better at CNET when the desktop version was tested).

As for your question about the no OS shippers...this one i really don't know. I do know Dell does have no-OS shipping option on one of their desktops, but I don't think on notebooks. The only thing I can think of is to like order by phone or something and arrange for no OS, or get in one of those Sales Rep internet chats. Otherwise, the only other thing I can think of is just buying a notebook as it is and reformating it (cleaning the harddrive of everything, including OS)...and then having your company do their OS thing, but that would be pointless, as you would still be paying for the OS when you bought the system, maybe just saving a couple bucks here if you get it with home edition and your company gives pro.

P.S.- I did find one company that does have the option of no OS. It is at www.cyberpowersystem.com, under the notebook section (if you visit it, scroll down on the homepage and find the notebook tab, dont click on the buttons on the top, that'll be more confusing), and the model is the X7-9000-nearly a carbon copy of the Alienware 7700 and Sager 9860, except without one of the optical drives. I'm not sure if this OS thing is a big issue for you, but if it isn't, just get a notebook that comes with one because cyberpower has excellent options and prices, but its quality is kind of a mystery. Not everybody knows about it, and a good portion of those who do own one like it, but still, it is unknown. I have posted a few of the mentioned notebooks in ranking of best quality and features below...I'm trying not to have a biased thought, this is just based on reviews I've read on this site...

1) Dell 9300/Sager 9860 tie (I have had good experience with Dell), and have read good about Sagers.
2)HP
3)Alienware
4)Cyberpower (like I said unknown, but I'm not 100% sure I'd go with them because it is like questionable about their quality...and it is not a big name, more like with ibuypower.com, which I haven't heard much good about).

 

Question:

Does the Sager w/ the X800 offer a user-replaceable graphics module (Axiom)?

Looking at PC Torque it's pretty cheap for how I would want it configured.

 

Ballin4life,

Thank you for your help, that last link was great too. In a sea of links I cant believe you find one with an os option.


Cyberpower has good reports.

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller6897.html

Today I discovered the Voodoo Envy M790. Expensive. Tempting. I called. The salesman sent me to this website to see what people were saying bout them. Sorry I dont know how to do the links correctly.

http://www.http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2044.html

The Voodoo seems to attract me because of the color options. Can you beleive that? It's seems so silly. Powder blue! Can you tell I'm a girl? Don't worry I'm sure I'll get over it in a day or so, specially when my husband figures it out, course I could try female manipulation on him.

I'm still pretty hardwre illiterate. Especially on the graphic cards. The HP ZD8000 has the 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) X600
and the Voodoo Envy M 790 has nVidia Geforce 6800 Go PCI/E 256.

Re-reading your posts I think your saying the Geforce 6800 is good, but I dont know what the x16 means and I also dont know what gddr3 means and how to tell if any of the comps i'm looking at have that. I've been trying to pick the most expensive one if there is a choice when configuring them. The Voodoo man said that the Voodoo card was better than the HP, plus if it becomes obsolete you can get that switched out on the Voodoo, I don't think you can do that on the HP. So maybe it's worth the money to spend up front to extend the life of the laptop, they are both going to be heavy. And HP didnt have as good feedback on that same website. Voodoo had pretty perfect.

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1397.html

Then Alienware was surprising better than HP.

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1650.html

Sager was down there with HP

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1693.html

Anyway Ballin4life thanks for you help and I hope you can find some way to talk some sense into me about the Voodoo thing, I got real emotional when I saw the picture of the laptop in powder blue, all reason left me and the price tag is up there. I could probably get my husband to buy it for me but I dont want to take advantage of him and I dont want to be stupid, it's not jewelry or clothing for crying out loud and it's not a car or a house or my first born. I like to look at it this way, How long will the computer last me? If I spend $5000 will it last 5 years with minimum upgrades? If so then It costs me $1000 a year to own it. Else I can buy a cheaper computer say $3000 close to pretty blue one. How long will it last it me? 2 years? Then it's costing me $1500 a year to own. Which is better? My business doesnt depend on this machine, It's total fun and games.

PS that company Cyberpower looks to be worth some more research.

Thanks again.

 

Yes you can User upgrade the Sager's GPU's, Sager is going to be offering the 6800Go with DDR3 memory soon.

 

Voodoo is good, up there in botique-ness with alienware and those kinda stuff..., but I guess with that link it shows they have better quality.

Not exactly sure what gddr3 is, but I think its supposed to be the best out. As for the graphics cards. The higher the #, the better, and this is the brand name, not the Megabytes. So if you want to do High end gaming or something like that, stay away from 2's, 3's, and 5s, 6's might work in some cases but not in others.

(Example: Look at Geforce Go6800, Radeon Mobility x800, x700, Dont look at Geforce Go6200,6300, Radeon Mobility x300, x600).

256 mb is the best for high end gaming. If cyberpower has good ratings, look at them too, they have nice custom systems at unbelievably good prices.


As for how long it lasts, it should last you more than 2 years. I'd say 4-5 years, probably.

 

I am not sure if any of you are aware of this ,and it may be common knoledge here (so if I am wasting your time please continue on to other posts) ,but Alienware,Eurocom,Sager,VooDoo,Hypersonic, and a few others out there are all the SAME desktop replacement. They only differ in price and colors. You can get them all with identical Specs because they are all Clevo machines.

I am purchaseing the Sager 9860 with the new GeForce go 6800 card (DDR3 version) from discountlaptops.com because of the warrantee options available. I want to have the 3 year Accidental Protection plan more than I care about the colors available.

As for benchmarks I have been researching this purchase for about 2 or 3 months now. I was first told about this machine from the N-Vidia guy I met at the AMD Tech tour and he showed me a couple of versions of the same box. (I know it was bad of him to show me an Intel based machine while at the AMD show but I still would like to thank him for it!!) All the benchmarks I have seen so far have been pretty even now with the 2 cards with the DDR3 the N-Vidia one has a slight advantage over the ATI at stock clock speeds while the ATI has much more overhead to OC. My reason for gettin the N-Vidia one is this Why would I want to OC a laptop where the heat is already a concern so I am sticking with the stock settings and getting the card with the slight advantage.

 

hey ...try www.newgenpc.com if you want a laptop without an os...that's where mine is coming from

 

After VERY careful shopping/research, I bought the Area-51m 7700. I shopped Sager,falcon-nw, ibuypower, dell, and buy-abs websites. They all use the SAME CASE, they just slightly modify it for their company. The Alienware was actually LESS EXPENSIVE than it's competition! The Falcon Northwest was WAY TOO OVERPRICED! And the Area-51 had a few nice touches I liked. (looks TOTALLY DIFFERENT than any other laptop, L.E.D eyes, on back of LCD, personalized Owner's manual, ect.) This system is performing FLAWLESSLY! I've had it for almost 2 months now. Gaming at least 6hrs. a day. No Probs.

The system I got was: P-4 (3.6GHZ)/1GB DDR2 DUAL CH. RAM/17" CLEARVIEW LCD/2 60GB. 7200RPM HDs (RAID 0)/ 2 OPTICAL DRIVES! (DUAL LAYER DVD BURNER) AND CD-RW DRIVE (SEPERATE), GIGABIT LAN/EXTERNAL WIRELESS/MICROSOFT 4.0 MOUSE/XP HOME/RECOVERY DISC/AUTOMATED TROUBLESHOOTER/BACKPACK/AND 5 GAMES FOR 3,700.
No other company could beat it! BUY-ABS.com cam closest.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by tryjahlove

 

ALIENWARE CUSTOMER SERVICE WARNING: I ordered an Alienware Area 51m 7700 with 2, 1GB mem sticks and received 4, 512MB mem sticks. Alienware did not even advise me of the switch, nor did they refund my money. I am in a state of limbo with them as they will not answer my emails. Last thing they told me was that I was on a waiting list for the memory. I have not heard anything else from them. I ask for updates, but I get no reply. Buyer beware ... their customer service might be award winning, but it sucks for the average customer. I dropped $4,000+ on this system, and they treat me like a stranger. So, do what you want with this info ... I'm putting it out there. BTW, the machine does kick-ass. But you can get a kick-ass machine anywhere.

 

what the!!!??? this guy is soooo making it up... look at him! 3 posts!! whats that!! thats high quality, sweet, honey sugary, spam right there!! just to make alienware's name bad.