*Official* Alienware Launch Discussion Thread

Ask Cloudfire - he's just bought one from the US and it's getting shipped to him in Norway via a similar service - not BundleBox, ShipItTo I think he used.....

But yeah, plenty of people do this. It's not always the case that you get massive savings, so do your homework on fees, exchange rates etc before biting the bullet.

 

I'm interested in a 512 GB PM841 mSATA SSD as well, and I'm wondering which Dell number did you call for pricing?

 

I got it with the system I ordered, not sure how much they would sell it for separately or if they even would

the phone number for Dell Spare Parts is 1-800-372-3355

 

Thanks for the tip mate! Will do

 

You guys think its worth getting one of these? I was thinking of making my setup the 512 msata SSD as my OS and apps while I also put in 2x 1TB 7200rpm Drives in raid 0. What do you think?

 

I would save some money and get a smaller say 120g mSata for caching the 2x1TB drives.. I ran some Crystaldisk scores and the mSata speeds the platters up a lot. That includes OS and game load times. I thought long and hard on either to put the OS on a SSD or on my mSata and I just wanted fast storage with out selling the house.

 

that's what I'm basically going to do though probably won't bother with RAID

 

FWIW, I had some trouble with large texture files on a 2x750GB RAID 0 array. The cache size on the 2.5" HDDs is too small to handle them, and they'll take longer to load. So you'll have textures pop in seconds after the scene itself loaded. Which just annoyed me to no end, and I wound up with 3x512GB 840 Pros/PM841s in RAID 0. The problem popped up in The Witcher 2, Crysis 3 (and 2 with the high res texture pack), Skyrim with the high res textures, etc.

 

your saying your using textures larger then the cache on these drives ?? Do not quite understand u

 

Yeah, that is kinda odd - I haven't noticed any issues with texture pop-in playing Witcher 2, and that's installed to my spinning disk... And yes, I am using the maximum resolution textures, even with my wimpy 765m

Maybe I just haven't played it enough to notice. No idea.

 

So, I was awarded $100 added on to my $200 Dell Promo Gift Card (for a total of $300) because of the total one day delay in my order.

Ordered August 25th; EDD September 11th

New Delivery Date: September 12th

Awesome! You really just have to chat them up, and when you get someone who is not in the mood for your sweet talk then just keep pestering different dept. until you find someone that is!

 

That's kind of nuts. I mean, don't get me wrong - I'm all for a 'sweetener' if you are kept waiting for ages with continually pushed back delivery dates etc...buy getting compensated for just one day is just crazy. Dell call them EDD's for a reason - they are estimated.

Not having a go at you personally, but I think that the mentality of compensation for these kind of things is getting out of hand and ridiculous to the point where people phoning up and whining that their order is arriving a day late and trying to get compensation for ESTIMATED delays is laughable.

Surely to god, when people order these machines, they can see that they require building, customising etc - then the logistics of shipping from China to wherever....it all adds up and EDD's can be exceeded.

In my humble opinion, when you place the order, you should be aware of this and act accordingly, not get on the phone crying that your order is gonna be a day late and asking for compensation for it......

 

No dude, I had called up when the EDD was changed from Sept. 11 to Oct. 3. Sorry I didn't make that clear. But then for some reason it was changed to Sept 12, and I was compensated for the one day delay.

And I'm not going to refuse the nice gift! We exchanged contact info and all that, so I may owe him for pushing things along; but I do have a man on the in now.... Muhahahaha

 

Ahahaha - well, that's slightly different then!.....seems you just struck it lucky with the change of EDD. I wouldn't turn it down in that instance either.....

 

if you could send his info my way that would be nice, I've yet to find someone that's actually that helpful

I mean the guy I've been working with is nice but seems to be extremely limited in what he has the power to do

 

For some reason the extension he gave me is not working, but I do have the email address that he used to communicate with me. PM'ed you.

 

Anyone have issues with the rubber coating rubbing off the palm rest?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

Yep, and I expect that it'll be an ongoing theme with these machines. Fortunately, reaching out to AlienwareTech on twitter worked out great for me. I told them that the soft-touch coating was peeling of on the edges, they had me e-mail them, and, after a few days, someone contacted me to arrange for a tech to come over to replace it. I now have a new palm rest, and I'm very much hoping that it hangs in there. No peeling has shown up anywhere else.

Give AlienwareTech a shot - they should be able to help you out. It'll also be good for Alienware to know that this isn't an isolated case.

 

I had the same problem along the front edge of my AW17, I think its an inevitability with the new AW's.

I called AW support, sent a couple of photos and they sent out a technician with a replacement palm rest the next day. However, the right trackpad button sticks on the replacement which isn't too much of a big deal but its annoying at times. Ive spoken to another NBR forum user and he's had his palm rest replaced twice because of the same problem with the right mouse button sticking. Ive spoken to AW support regarding the button but i've decided to wait a couple of months before getting them to replace it again incase its a bad batch of palm rests.

All in all great service from Dell/AW Support (UK) you should definitely give them a call.

 

Hi guys,

I actually want an opinion on whether Alienware will upgrade any hardware by the end of the year like GPU ? or when can we expect hardware update ? What is the opinion on different color for laptop like nebula red ?

 

99% of the time new hardware is released Q2 (April, May, or June) of every year. This year they were a little behind, releasing the new lineup on June 10th (if I remember correctly).

 

It's the wrong time of year to start another speculation thread, so I am going to put this in the launch thread. No to both questions. A number of people would like to see Nebula Red come back and some other colors perhaps, but it's not likely to be anytime soon. It is already difficult enough to keep up with the demand for 780M. Complicate the process with color options and it's even more of a challenge to not run short on something awesome.

 

I don't think that something will come out that quick. If we get any updates we'll post them here on NBR

If you are experiencing issues with that you can always send us an e-mail with a couple of pictures to [email protected] and we'll help you out as much as we can.

 

Atleast please release the color options for this series. I am looking forward to red color. I am holding off money just because of the color

 

You could submit your thoughts to IdeaStorm.com, that way the engineering and marketing teams will review the request.

 

Don't everyone rush at once... questions will be answered in the order received.

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I'm really ticked that Dell company-wide has been removing configuration options. It's a joke on the Dell side, but until now wasn't too bad on the Alienware side...but now...

The 14 for example requires that you get the middle config to get Blu Ray. I don't want the middle config, and especially don't want a 14" 1080p screen!

The 17 is even worse, requiring you to get two configs up the chain to get Blu Ray, with all sorts of junk on it I don't want.

The reality is I've been sitting for a couple of months not buying anything because I hate the configurations.

Is there some way to get Dell to actually sell you the configuration you want?

EDIT: Ugh, I just tried chatting, and they claim they can't change the base configs. *sigh*

What is Dell trying to do? Their claim to fame was being customizable. A lot of their "Dell" systems now actually have zero customization...

 

It's actually pretty funny, because some companies agreements allow them to get completely custom AW systems, but Dell won't offer it to the public.

I'd try calling a couple times to see if anyone can help you. Alternatively, you can get the lowest model, and we can help you install an aftermarket BluRay player or even burner.

Hell, I bet if you ordered the Dell BluRay part seperately, and asked a Dell tech to come install it, they would.

 

I understand your frustration, we now have base models that go according to what most customers need. They are built quicker and delivered faster.
If you ask me, I would say that the 1080p screen is a must on the 14. It's beautiful, makes everything look waaaaay better. I have always said that.
About the rep saying that they can't change the config, they aren't lying, they are limited to what the website can offer.
You can do as hybrys suggests and get the BD later. It's not going to cause any issues with the warranty unless something breaks while installing it.

 

Will Dell sell the BD for the AW14 (with support and warranty, etc)? It seems the only aftermarket options appear to be buyng on ebay from someone in China or buying from a US online store that buys it (grey market) from China. Either way, good luck on support and warranty.

 

Dell will sell you the part. Just contact their Parts Department and ask!

 

Dell sucks now, they are trying to put what they think is best for the customer. If you want to buy new go to exoticpc.com. At least you can get it built the way you want. Or just buy a refurb and go to newegg and buy the stuff you want to upgrade and install it your self.

 

I just want an AW 17 with the 4800-4900QM and FHD screen, but nope, if I want that, I have to start with the last config for 2200. Hopefully that change by May 2014.

 

I encountered this problem today as well. I told my Dell business sales rep that I was looking to make a personal purchase on a high-spec M17X but he couldn't do non-business transactions or deal with Alienware either so he passed me off to someone else. Unfortunately, the guy I got didn't seem like he cared what I wanted.

I told him I was looking for i7-4700, 16GB, and GTX780M but the configuration options on the site were very lacking so I was hoping he would have more options available. It's very backwards the way it works now, I remember they used to have so many customization options, now you are lucky if you can modify even 2 components from their standard builds. He gave me a few "choices" but none of them were really a fit for what I was looking for (basically I was looking to match the specs of some Clevo/Sager builds I have been pricing, while hoping to negotiate pricing through the Dell rep that I always deal with).

To get a GTX780M with 16GB RAM I would have to choose the model that starts with the i7-4800 and can't be downgraded. This one also comes with an 80GB mSATA and 750GB 7200RPM drive. Sadly, the harddrive options can not be changed at all and these drives would be replaced with a Samsung EVO so that route wasn't looking good.

Then I was told there was a model with the i7-4700 and GTX780M, but it only had 8GB and could NOT upgraded (what?).

Then he suggested a $5,500 M18X build. Anyway, after some discussion about the options not being quite what I was looking for, he refused to do any haggling at all so that was that.

What happened to the days of huge customization? You virtually can't change anything now and it's a shame.

 

Just go with the i7 4700 GTX780 and you can put in another 8GB of ram easy..you get what you want and keep the warranty intact. :thumbsup:

 

It's kind of mindblowing that they'd want to limit these things, but it makes a lot of business sense. You can order stricter part batches, and can easier estimate income and stock usage, nevermind the customer service aspect of being able to Quick Ship the most popular models. It is probably losing them a significant amount of sales, though, and in a year that they can take more risks unlike now, I bet they'll be able to revert the model to the customizable format.

I would personally be taking the money right out of their hands by purchasing the lowest model, and upgrading it aftermarket. Most RAM/SSDs have their own warranties, and you don't void your warranty by modifying the configuration. Just be sure to keep the spare parts around if the system needs service.

Also remember, for the average user, you won't see the difference between the 4700 and 4800, nor 8gb and 16gb. Both are fairly unlikely to affect gaming significantly as well.

 

Very good advice, plus I find half the fun of this Hobby is making your Pride and Joy better than Dell made it.

 

I really disagree with almost everything you posted. For one thing, discounts, if you are patient are a ton better direct from Dell than from a reseller (some of us had discounts near 40%). If the reseller can even buy the system (was hard to get for M18), your wait could be even longer than from Dell and someone posted a story on that.

Buying refurb from the Dell outlet could be a good option, but like it's been posted, this was done to streamline the process and speed things up a bit. Since AW, (mostly the 18) is in a class by itself, buyers don't really have much of an option and that's just too bad for us till some actual competition shows up. Just have to deal with the situation and not get so pissed off about 8GB more memory or 4700 vs 4800. Wait for a good discount and buy.

I would have liked a better option from the disk drive front since that was changed with this release, but such is life. If you no likey, just don't buy.

 

Ya I just looked and now they make you have the extra crap software also. So now you are just buying a fancy Dell. I would get a r4 and put in a 780 and max out everything and save some cash.

 

Had the same issue when I ordered my Base Model 17 from the dell site.
In order to get a 1080 screen you had to go to the next model, forcing me to purchase a video card upgrade as well as RAM, and that put me well out of my budget.
Then Dell changed things and offered the 1080 screen upgrade option by itself just weeks later after mine was ordered and received..
Thankfully they were very nice and agreed to replace my current build and will be sending me a new laptop with the 1080 screen at no additional cost...
I basically put in a New SSD drive as well as additional RAM for half the price Dell offered...

 

Yeah, the issue is though that on the site you can't configure a base model with i7-4700 and GTX780. Maybe they will do it on the phone, maybe they won't. From what I gather here on the forums, a lot of people ordered that spec when it was released and then Dell realized people were just getting the base models so they added the forced upgrades. Same problem as OP though, again you have to go 2 upgrades up to get the Blu Ray drive which is something they refuse to add to the base model.

It is the forced upgrades that are the real problem. I want to upgrade, but not the things that they push at you each time you jump to the next tier for Blu Ray, 780M, etc. I want to add a Samsung 840 EVO 500GB because I don't like their SSD options (don't want mSATA caching, don't want <250GB mSATA/SATAIII OS). That's another ~$375 I have to spend on top of what I'm getting from Dell that will not be used (at minimum, the 80GB mSATA SSD from tier 3). I want 16GB RAM, but I don't want to pay $100 for the extra 8GB and would have preferred it be 2x8 rather than 4x4 so that a few years down the road if for some reason I wanted to go to 32GB I could without dumping what I have now.

To get what I want from the M17 + third party 840 EVO purchase is about $3600 (Canadian) pre tax and shipping. It is $1000 cheaper to just spec a Clevo and I can't imagine I am going to get %30 off from Dell. On one hand, I want to know I am getting something from Dell with good build quality and support, on the other... they make it really hard to actually make the purchase at the price that the product should be.

 

The AW marketing and sales teams will have a lot of data to go over after this launch to decide which system they will continue, forced or freewill. Who knows if it will be best for the enthusiast or the company, it's just not likely it will be best for both.

 

Hi all longtime lurker figured I'd actually join. Been keeping a big eye on alienware especially since the new models came out. Time to get back on the PC side of gaming!

I'm in the market at the moment and I really don't like the configurations. If rather see them all basic with just upgraded CPU and GPU's- top middle and bottom, with blue ray drives RAM and HD as changeable extras.

Id buy the top end 17 at the moment if it came with a 780 instead of blue ray. So if I can't ring up and change it either there is a sale going. Not being able to use a 10% voucher with them at the moment is even worse. Just gonna have to wait and see.

 

I agree that 30% off is pretty rare, but 10%, if you asked is posted on the forums all the time. Of course, all my experience is based on US purchases. If you're not in the colonies, then you're going to be paying more with typically worst support and limited sale options.

I don't think I've ever seen resellers offer any discounts so my point has always been to take the 10-20% sale price and just accept the limited configs, and use the money saved on things you might want to add.

Dell still has to make money and the forced upgrades probably allows them to do that. Maybe I'm more biased now since I'm able to buy AW for cheaper and I'm ok with AW being more mainstream and not so exclusive, but price it out and a lot of times, you'll notice that you aren't paying that much more compared to the clevo/sager machines.

Obviously, the warranty is miles ahead of whatever any other manufacturer offers (at least in the US)...

Bottom line is if you don't like how they do it, just don't buy. Don't give them a cent of your hard earned dollars...Some of us just had to upgrade (my laptop is pushing past 7 years) and the M18 is still the most powerful out there currently.

 

All my Dell laptops are usually replaced after 4 years, My Alienware may break that pattern.
I may wind up keeping it far longer...

 

Agreed. They took out the 11 inch M11X, and I need a lighter laptop than their 14" model for constant travel and such... so if I'm going to replace my M11X R1, it will be with a R3 version.

As with the 17, I still don't know why they haven't put dual graphics back in . Plus the new keyboard and removal of the AlienHead power putton just turn me off from the unit. The configuration also is very limited, I want to be able to buy the laptop custom made with what I want in it like I did with my old M17X R1... but sadly, Dell ruined it.

In the meantime I'll just keep upgrading my M17X, Dell can keep their "New 17"

 

The 4th tier 17 is not bad I suppose for what I am looking for

i7-4800 (would have picked 4700)
16GB
750GB + 80GB mSATA Cache
GTX780M
120hz/3D
Blu Ray
3 year support
3 year damage

$3,297.99-$150 coupon+tax = $3,558.92+$375 Samsung 840 EVO 500

I still have no interest in the HDD+SSD cache mode setup, so I'll add my own SSD, but other than that it's basically what I would have upgraded the base model to (other than the 4800). Still, the fact that you can't make the choice upgrades yourself is still a big step back from what they used to be. I think if you started with the base model and upgraded to this it would have been less, so there are some mystery premiums in there somewhere. The real killer at this point is the $650 for 3 year support/warrant and accidental damage... I gather the service is supposed to be good, but are they really that concerned something will break? $4k seems really steep for a 780M machine, almost better to be looking at the 18 at that point but then again, the configuration problems hit you there too.

If I could get 15-20% off the total I would be pretty happy.

 

I wonder if you can have the BIOS ignore that mSATA drive. Sounds like it's a paint to remove, and I'd have not point for it (despite being forced to buy it).

 

From what I have been reading here if you are planning to add an SSD it is easier to actually just leave it in and let it remain as a cache for the HDD. That's my plan anyway.

 

It's all about market segments. The 18 is supposed to be the king of the hill, the model you go to when you want maximum upgradability and power. The greatest differentiation between the 17 and 18 is the dual-GPU option, so removing that factor will take sales away from the 18. Look at it like this - if you can have three hard drives, 32GB RAM, XM CPU, mSata, dual GPUs and a 17" screen, why would you pay $600 more just to get an extra inch of screen real estate and a hard drive slot?

As far as configuration options go, it does seem that they don't provide as many options as they used to. The fact that I can't add a BD-ROM to a base model, yet I can pay $1k to upgrade to 780M SLI irks me. As well, bumping up to the second tier configuration requires me to get 16GB RAM and an mSata drive, options that I would pass on because it is always cheaper to do post-purchase memory/storage upgrades. I understand that allowing too many options is time-consuming and cost-prohibitive, but it would be nice if they would make concessions for individuals that take the time to call and place a custom order as opposed to placing a more generic order online.