Opinions on Alienware

hahaha "smack dat woman in line!" I keed, I keed haha. But really, I would kill over this thing.

 

You are not the only one. I baby both of mine. I won't even let my 14 yr old touch my M17, lol.

 

I'll admit I haven't read the whole thread, but this seems as good a place as any to get my opinions out there, and maybe vent a little.

Before I got my M17x, I too heard a lot of conflicting reports on Alienware. I managed to convince myself that their merge with dell would vastly improve things though, and that all the naysayers were just talking about the "old" alienware.

So anyways, got my Laptop last July, I think. I've had nothing but problems with it since then, although admittedly mine aren't near as bad as many of the horror stories I've heard. I ended up having to replace a fault hard drive, which Dell thankfully made pretty painless. But since then I can't tell you how many weird little problems I've had, and how many times I've had to reformat this stupid thing. There's always constant things going wrong with it. The newest thing is that it loves to lock up while playing certain games, about once an hour. Fun!

My friend on the other hand got an Asus, and he's had absolutely no problems with it whatsoever. I admit I'm kind of jealous. As it stands right now I won't be buying Alienware again, and as soon as I get the funds together, I'm just going to buy myself a nice desktop from CyberpowerPC or something, and maybe even sell this one off, if I can find anyone crazy enough to take it.

So yeah, sorry if that seems overly negative. It's just that this thing has absolutely worn out any patience I have, I'm just sick of it by now.

 

What other problems did you have? I just bought one and I'm trying to put it through it's paces to look for potential problems & fix them early. Was it just your hard drive? Do you think the lockup was due to a problem with cooling the video card? Just curious. I plan on running 3DMark Vantage a bunch of times to see how hot the GPU gets (luckily I received a free copy when I bought some RAM a whlie ago). I might run SpinRite too to see how healthy the HDD is now that you mention you had problems with yours.

 

Support sucks? They always replace anything I have an issue with.

 

That was my old experience with alienware.

Since I've gotten my M17x R2 a few days ago, I've been extremely happy. This thing has performed like a champ in every way. The driver issue could be better, and needs to be rectified, but other than that and a few small quirks I've worked out (due to the driver issue): smooth sailing.

 

I think that there is no reason to go around hating Alienware. I have an m17x-r2. I have had issues...but I believe those issues to be more the fault of AMD/ATI and there bad support for mobile drivers then alienware.

I think the biggest knock one could have on AW is price. Honestly, the $2500 my laptop costs is ALOT of money...but where else can you go and get dual 5870 cards in a laptop? Nowhere really. They do things a little different then the competition...and they NAIL the details. In addition to being a great gaming rig, my laptop is a conversation piece. It's beautiful and really has a WOW factor.

It also has excellent build quality. I mean this lappy is SOLID. My old gateway p7811fx felt as fragile as a $500 laptop.

A note on support...I think support is great when you call the Alienware phone number on the AW support site. If you call Dell you talk to morons who sometimes didnt even realize that my computer was a laptop. One guy tried to tell me that my computer couldnt possibly have two video cards in it "its a laptop sir." he said to me!! LOL
No support issues for me when I called AW direct.

 

He got a point!

 

I used to think Alienware laptops were overpriced until I realized how much you can talk them down in price over the phone... Getting a good deal on a laptop is easy when you tell them you're looking at a Sager. When I ordered my desktop I just emailed a rep the list of parts I wanted, what they cost at NCIX and newegg, and he gave me the system for $100 cheaper than the sum of the parts.

As far as problems, they have been few and far apart. Most of them are Windows related. I've seen many people here have physical problems with their computers, but it seems Dell has always replaced/fixed them.

All computers have problems right out of the box. I've had 2 Macbooks DOA. One HP elitebook that fried after about 10 minutes, and an exploding Sony laptop. So far Alienware has been the best experience yet.

The problems most of us have are with ATi. When they program their drivers it's a crap shoot. They rush their flawed products to hit the market before Nvidia then try to patch everything afterwards.

This thing is a powerhouse. It tears up every application I throw at it.

 

I have enjoyed my r1, but am waiting for the next update hopefully with a 470m and USB 3.