New to forum and AW. Standard newb questions

Hi everyone I’ve been checking this forum for about a week now and I was very stoked to see the news about the new m15x which I would prob have missed and ended up buying a new lappy last night when I saw the posts. I have been shopping around online (probably over shopping but buying new hardware is a guilty pleasure so screw it) and I’ve had my eye on several lappys and of course I wanted to ask here to get some heavily biased opinions before I plunk down the 2gs+/- I'm willing to part with.

Mainly I've been trying to find a 15-16" with a good gpu. A 17" isn't out of the question but it has to be semi portable and although im impressed with the M17x it seems too heavy for me to lug from class to class. Ive pretty much talked myself into an AW IF the rumors are correct and I can get a new m15x. The others I've been looking at are the ASUS G series (17 inch bc i think the white lid on the 15" is ugly) and the lineup from Sager (although their cases also look very bland and generic) does anyone here have experience with those manufacturers?

My main questions about alienware are reliability and upgradability.
On the issue of reliability I'm wondering how many of you AW users have enjoyed say 3 years of use from your laptop without any major issues. I ask because I see alot of negative posting about reliability and customer service however its safe to assume that users who haven't had any problems prob wouldn't post to say so. Basically I'm wondering have all of you had major issues or do shoppers like me only get to read about the negatives that angry forum flamers post to vent their frustrations. My final question is more of a gpu question, I see that AW gpus use some kind of mobile pcixpress slot or something and the cards are upgradable to a point. I was wondering if the new m15x has an nvidia card, say a 260m is the pci slot cross compatable or brand specific if I wanted to switch to ati somewhere down the road. I see a lot of people saying the 260m is a rebranded older card so I don’t want to invest a lot into a card that may fall behind quickly.

Thanks for reading a long post, I don’t know a lot about laptop hardware so this will hopefully be educational.

 

If you like the new m17x you will surely like the new m15x it will be the same quality build, the specs are well...just speculation at this point. So your real question should be are we happy with our new m17x hehe.

 

Yeah I wouldn't suggest the M17 or M17x then the m17x's are quite heavy. Although it is possible to haul to class it would probably be better to wait for m15x refresh

 

Just an FYI, the only G51 with the white lid is the RX05 BB version.

All of the other more powerful higher-resolution models (X1A, X2A, etc.) have a slightly different case (it's blue and black).

 

Thanks for the reply. On the issue of video card replacement is it possible to switch between nvidia and ati?

 

yes it is


RE 5 FTW

my single 260 is rocking maxxed out at 1900 res with 4 AA

 

well, I am!!!!