*Official* Alienware Launch Discussion Thread

That's not long to wait if you really want the AW instead of an MSI unit. 4 months from now you won't remember the wait.

 

Yeah also I just got the base model and absolutely nothing added. So I would bet it would ship out before a couple weeks hopefully.

 

Alienware Mark has a much longer list, you may want to add to the forum list:

 

What Dell stated was it was First come first serve on facebook. So who knows. We could see ours a few days before you because we placed our order yesterday.

 

I've just noticed that on the UK website, when looking at the 18x (not checked others) but the very first option to configure states COLOUR!!! - although there is no radial to make any change, perhaps this is something that will change? - Brother Luis...care to comment, buddy?

 

Need to know if it will only offer silver forever, then I can order because I know a month later other colors won't be available, but if other colors will be available then I would rather wait. Any info on this would be greatly appreciated and would bring decision to my purchase.

 

Hard to say. That would all be speculation.

 

Mine still shows a 07/03/13 delivery date. But its still in pre-production. I am hoping I got on the first batch of machines.

 

Okay so my last question is, will the 18 probably (since none of us truely know yet) have a decent battery life for when I take it places and can't plug it in?

 

Probably not. I mean sure it has haswell which would help but they shrunk the battery.

 

Here's Laptop Mag's review of the Alienware 18:
Alienware 18 Review | Gaming Laptop Reviews

Said Battery life was 2 hrs 30mins, but that was on SLI it looks like. You can disable the SLI and it'll probably last much longer on the integrated GPU...

Does anyone know if they actually used those screen calibrators before running these screen tests?


For new Alienware buyers who need ideas on how to get a better price, this thread has been around for a while and all the tips are still relevant today:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/456885-aw-dell-ordering-advice-how-save.html

Highest posted discount so far seems to be around 12% off. This doesn't include Dell Advantage (5% GC) or people using deals where they bought a dell gift card for $400 and got a free $75 gift card afterwards, etc.

Have fun haggling.

 

Waiting till July 17th is probably going to be a deal breaker for me, unless I can get a really good deal from dell.

 

Just purchased my first Alienware machine! I'm nerdtastically excited:

Monitor: 17.3" WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare Display
Processor: Overclocked 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4900MQ (8MB Cache, up to 4.0GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
Memory: 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
Hard Drive: 750GB SATA 3Gb/s (7,200 RPM) + 64GB mSATA SSD Caching
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5
Optical Drive: Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVDRW, CD-RW)

I was not going to go for OC cpu, but with 0% financing and knowing this machine will last me 4 years I couldn't resist! This machine is going to be a BEAST. The screen may be a TN, but it has to be leaps and bound better than the crappy TN screen I had on my recently deceased ASUS G53JW. Dell atleast chooses good TN screens.

My delivery date, like others in this thread with the 780gtx, is delayed until the 19th.

 

My 14" is delayed until 7/18/13

 

Alienware/Dell Canada really sucks for haggling.

 

I thought you were buying a razer blade and leaving us alone?

 

Good to hear. I will be using it for school, so some battery life would be good

 

I'd think that if an AMD video card option is added down the line, the red color will become available as well.

 

Don't drive yourself crazy by continuously checking the status. When I ordered my M11x r3 it was in "pre-production" until it just suddenly shipped and showed up at my door way before the shipping quote.

 

I am, just keeping tabs on this thread.

Just wanted to let fellow Canadians know that haggling is quiet difficult and you will be lucky to get 4 percent off.

 

This gave me $50 off. BHW1L0MX0D?MCX

Better than nothing. Didn't pull the trigger though.

 

Even though there is a month long wait (hopefully that will be cut in half). I am very excited. This is not only my first Alienware, but my first computer with a dedicated graphics card. Needless to say I went out and bought a 100 dollars worth of games I've been missing out on to play. Such as Skyrim and Bioshock infinite. I'll be curious though to see how a dual 765m will be, should be sufficient considering I could only play LoL on the lowest settings possible on my 2 and a half year old 400 dollar hp laptop

 

Well they look better than in the leaks! I believe the optimus are still there, yes?

Sent from my PadFone 2 using Tapatalk 2

 

Good Morning. Will try to answer all the questions possible. Would contact sales directly for config/quotes.

No, the 14 still has the VC on the motherboard. The 7 series GPU with the 1920x1080 was a quite noticeable change for the 14. Would definitely go for the screen upgrade.

Good call out Joe. The configurations not only decrease the ship time, but also allowed for a lower price for the tech. Personally, I am very happy to see the 18 coming with SLI standard. Have always thought that the beast should come with dual cards. I think in the coming week we should see some of the quirks worked out if the system in the regions. I would call sales if you have any concerns.

I am sorry I did not direct to that thread. I posted the full list that was released from engineering. I freaked out the other day when I loaded up Metro Last Light on my 17. Had no idea it was on the list. Very cool integration with the game.

I liked the old power button as well. They decided to bring back one awesome thing in exchange. The alien heads on the back of all the new panels can change color again. I would drop the idea to bring it back here

Battery life from testing is not bad for having such a power consuming beast. If you go integrated and go power saver on the power settings, you will get a decent amount of time. The 14 will obviously give you much more.


One other question that I wanted to highlight was about mechanical keyboards. All models do not have mechanical keyboards. What was mentioned in the video was a new reinforced metal design that limits the flexing under the keyboard. The keyboard itself also has a new design with some additional Macro keys on the 17 and 18.

 

Awesome mine is now in pre-production!

 

In the reviews people posted it said optimus was not there, you have to switch between dedicated and integrated GFX by restarting and pressing that key combo fn+f5 or whatever.

 

That's a bad news, so the new lineups are more to power and less to battery efficiency. Are the reviews able to compare the battery lifetime of them using integrated and discrete graphic based on casual computing usage (non-gaming activities)?

Sent from my PadFone 2 using Tapatalk 2

 

No, they said it had the option! It works just fine with both on at the same time. They left the switch intact for when the AMD GPUS come out.

 

I may have misunderstood what they said in the verge review about it then, good news.

 

I just thought Alienware had totally forgotten about AMD GPUs. Do you also happen to know which model will they offer?

Sent from my PadFone 2 using Tapatalk 2

 

They will probably offer an 8970m when AMD releases it.

 

Well hopefully I can at least upgrade to 770's. But, for a college student that just bought a new car, that's pushing it. Hopefully next month I can place an order

 

Yeah I read somewhere that one can choose integrated+dedicated (which didn't really switch that well but also means good for battery because it's iGPU biased) or dGPU that is good for gaming.

Whitelisting games is probably the best idea and I'd like to see to what extent that the switching doesn't work. Maybe it's just for a few games.

 

We can still haggle it down, won't we?

Sent from my PadFone 2 using Tapatalk 2

 

Just got this for £2,400/$3758 (12% discount)

Price before discount: £2,729.01 ($4,274)
Price after 12% discount: £2,400 ($3,758)
Discount amount: £329.01 ($515)

Alienware 18 BTX Base Mod
1 Intel Core i7-4700MQ (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz w/ Turbo Boost) (Standard)
1 18.4 inch (467.36 mm) WLED FHD (1080p) TrueLife TN 400 Nit Display (1920 X 1080)
1 Alienware 18 LCD Hinge Up
1 8GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
1 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s + 64GB mSATA SSD Caching
1 Slot-Loading 8x SuperMulti Drive (DVDR/RW)
1 330W A/C Adapter
1 8-cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr) Battery
1 Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI Enabled
1 Broadcom 4352 802.11 ac 2x2 and Bluetooth 4.0
1 5G WiFi Broadcom 4352 802.11n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 driver
1 Internal UK/Irish (QWERTY) Keyboard

Basically the base system but with Dual GTX 780m SLi
I have my own SSDs+HDDs that I will be adding (the ones from my sig)
The CPU is powerful enough for gaming, and the RAM is more than enough for gaming although if I needed to upgrade would be cheaper aftermarket
The DVD writer is going to get replaced by my own caddy with a 1TB HDD in

Tips for haggling:
1. They will tell you over and over again they cannot give you more than x percent off, don't let them trick you lol they can give you quite a lot more than they say. If you start to believe them when they say they cannot offer you a higher discount, just remember the markup they make on these machines.
2. Tell them you are ready to pay there and then; if they offer you the system you want for the price you want.
3. When you get to the point where you say "I want x% off" and they say "we can't do that sir", and you WILL get to this point, you tell them "Thanks for your discount, but if you are able to talk to your manager or whoever and get authorization for the discount that I want, then call me back and we can sort it out". The bit in bold is important, because it is unlikely they will give you the discount you want in the first phone call
4. They may say to you again "But thats too much", repeat what you've said and say have a nice day
5. They will either say "ok let me speak to my manager and I'll call you back" or they will simply say ok goodbye and close the phone
6. Wait, they will call you back, with the discount you want. If not, you will get a better offer; in which case, you are halfway there to the discount you want.

When I was speaking to them, they said "ok ill call you back in 30 minutes" and in fact they called back less than a minute later with the 12% discount.

 

Did you snag the 5% eGift Card for the loyalty programme or is that not in the UK?

 

One BIG question remains, will other colors ever be made available?

 

Can you give us the color gamut, contrast, and brightness of the new screens?

 

By the way, in my order, the following LCD is mentioned:
18.4 inch (467.36 mm) WLED FHD (1080p) TrueLife TN 400 Nit Display (1920 X 1080)

But according to the first post, this is the only option in the 18 inch
18.4 inch (467.36 mm) WLED FHD (1080p) TrueLife PLS 350 Nit Display (1920 X 1080) (Standard)

Which one am I going to get?

 

I want them to make a magenta. That would sell it for me :thumbsup:

I'm not sure yet its a toss up. Some reviews i read said they didn't have some IPS screens in. I would call and check before you can't cancel the order.

 

Well of course!

 

Note this is all my order says for my aw14:
1
391-BBDL
Display : 14.0 inch (355.6 mm) WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare Display

 

Wow, thats a huge price difference.
On Alienware.de that system costs only 2.499 € without any discounts.

 

for 14

how many hardrives can you install it ? how many mSATA drives are available ?

 

No one has seen the motherboard yet. They offer a HDD caddy in the 17 and 18 i think so it *MAY* be available at some point in time for the 14.

 

The UK is an absolute rip off. Everything here is expensive and the weather is bad.

 

That's a nice discount. 8GB of ram is not enough anymore though, you should get 16GB. Games like Metro: Last Light use more than or close to 8GB. Also I think the CPU bottlenecked the 680m's on the last models IIRC so don't under estimate the power of a good CPU.

 

The weather is bad made me laugh. Move to the US We could use some educated immigrants rather than uneducated ones for a change

8GB is plenty unless you run VM's or have 20 Chrome tabs open like i do :hi2:

 

Perhaps. Metro: Last Light optimum is 8GB so it's pushing it close!

Optimum System Requirements

Windows: Vista, 7 or 8
CPU: 3.4 GHz Multi-Core e.g. Intel Core i7
RAM: 8GB
Hard Disc Space: 7.5 GB
Direct X: 11
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 690 / GeForce TITAN

I have no idea why I got 32GB. I knew I'd never use it EVER but it was a cheap upgrade so whatever lol. I wanted to max out everything so I'd have no regrets. Bragging rights leveled up at least.

 

Those are to run the game at like 100 fps at 1600p.