alienware getting pretty stale..

So with companies like razer putting an 870m and quad core in a super slim 14 incher. with a 3200x1800 res screen, does alienware have anything interesting to combat something like that? Their lineup has been pretty stale as of late.. where is the innovation. Anything new rumored this year or are they going to continue to let these other companies take their market share?

 

Razer won't take my market share no matter how stale the Alienware line gets. I won't waste my money on one of those mickey mouse machines with a low-spec BGA (soldered CPU) i7. If they made an 18-inch with 780M or 880M SLI and Extreme CPU they might get me to pause long enough to look, but I think everything they have for sale now is just an overpriced joke. 3200x1800 needs a magnifying glass on a 14-inch display. If you increase the scaling to where text is large enough to read without squinting everything else is jumbo-sized and looks terrible.

 

Still, its innovation. The razer blade had almost the same specs as the alien ware 14 minus the screen, but the razer had more battery life and was far more compact. Basically what im saying is, where is the innovation from alienware. i miss when they were pushing the envelope instead of cutting corners. I'm wondering if they are going to come out with anything good this year because I think eventually they will lose market share. I dont think last generation did anywhere near as good as the days the of m18x R2s, m17x r2, m11x days.

 

You're right about all of those things, Brother Dan. Obviously, I don't own an Alienware 14 for mostly the same reasons I laugh a Razer products. Innovation without extreme performance bores me, though. If I have to put up with ordinary performance, I'll just save some money and buy a really nice 15-inch XPS Ultrabook with the same display resolution instead... and use some of the money saved to buy some magnifying eyeglasses so I can read the tiny text. Personally, I think anything with 3K or 4K resolution needs to be 17-inch or larger, have the flagship GPU in SLI and Extreme CPU. Others might think differently, but that's what it will take for me to be willing to spend my money. Just being 3K or 4K without the rest just ain't gonna cut it. I'll settle for 1080p before I fudge on the other specs.

 

I would like to think Alienware will open up screen options this year, considering practically every competitor is doing so, and NVIDIA GPU's have up to 8GB's of VRAM now (which is overkill for 1080p). But this depends on many things, also. They may keep 1080p, because in doing so, they can say that they have "the most powerful gaming notebook in the universe" (at 1080p) as some marketing gimmick. They made a big deal about this for the 2013 lineup, not sure if they'll do it again or what, but the 880M is barely an improvement over the 780M. No one knows, though... I'm guessing they will launch their products at CES in June. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

I hope we see something exciting. I really do but I dont think I'm going to be getting giddy until the next facelift comes around with hopefully some internal changes. I personally don't care a great deal about the screen since I'm usually using an external monitor, although having an option for a higher res panel or 1080p would please everyone.
I've said this before but if AW made a the 14 with a MXM GPU i'd actually grab one.
I hear you Dandan though. Some innovation would be great. I'd like to see them do something really hardcore on the 18 range.

 

Funny thing is the 870m isnt even maxwell. Its just the upgraded 770m with more cores to be the 680m rebrand. ( fixed )

 

Actually they are saying it's slightly above the 680m and slightly below the 680mx....

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The video card in the new Razer 14 is not nearly powerful enough to push newer games at acceptable frame rates at that resolution. The Razer 14 already had problems trying to keep cool.I think the new refresh is far from stale and it actually is what brought me back to AW.

 

I honestly can't stand my Alienware at the moment. This thing has given me more problems than the last two laptops I've owned, combined. Took out the 6970M today and it died. Put in the 580M, I get 7-beeps, which is a dead CPU...but take it out and the CPU is fine. Did everything you're supposed to do and nothin'. Not a peep from this machine.

Just gonna go for a Clevo and be done with this...thing...

 

The point is, alien ware hasnt done any boundary pushing or anything exciting in a long time. Just corner cuts. Not cool. They need to get off their buts and make me something I want to buy that is an upgrade in every single way.

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That's mainly now because they are more integrated within the Dell family now. Alot of us could have saw this coming in 2009 when Alienware was bought by Dell.

 

Before they were just fancy Clevos instead of unique. Now they are not only unique, but have better support and warranty than what is available anywhere else. I'm glad Dell bought out Alienware... that was good for the brand and its customers.

 

I definitely agree. Their support has been nothing short of amazing for me, even with a US service tag in Japan.

 

Your posts are usually very infomative but in this case you re wrong. Explain me why the entire world is choosing tablets and smartphone with over full hd res? So if everyone notice on 5,7, 10 inch, why 14 is too small?
Windows 8.1 looks amazing on my dell 4k 24incg screen and on my mbp retina. What you describe is no longerc true.
And it will be vastly superior to the 14inch AW screen. Yes, once u get used to it, you cannot go back. We all want competition and i hope AW will raise the bar. Full hd with dual gpu would be very disappointing. And aluminium should be back.

 

I'm not sure how you can convince me I am wrong about my personal preferences, LOL. You missed all of the key words... mainly "my" and "I" in that post. It is an absolute fact that I despise 5, 7, 10 and 14 displays. That won't be changing. I want 17" and 18" and dual GPU only. I don't mind if others are willing to settle for that. We are all different, so it's not the entire world choosing. It's limited to those that actually want small displays, thin and light anemic devices and those that flat-out don't know any better... i.e. their friends think it's cool so they do, too. Remember, fads are often driven by what the device manufacturers think and convince us that we want and need more so than excellence... happens all the time. That's how they think and consumers fall in line with it. Clever television marketing like people break-dancing in the office conference room with their Micro$lop Surface tablet is all it takes to convince some that it's the product to die for... along with the slimy fingerprint-plastered screen, inefficient touch interface and all of that mediocrity.

Soldered-on CPUs, low spec CPU and GPU will never be on my shopping list. To me those products are a joke, even though there some people willing to pay money for that.

There are many former Retina owners that won't be going back to a Retina display on a small screen. Nobody listens to them. They only listen to those that like it. I had an Ultrabook with a 15" QHD+ display. Yes, it looks absolutely amazing in terms of clarity and sharpness, but the text was too small for comfortable reading with such a small screen. If you make the text scaled larger for comfortable reading then it is no longer amazing and defeats one of the primary purposes of having all of those lovely pixels (screen real-estate). Not everyone's eyes have 20/20 vision. I would be OK with that in a 17" or 18" laptop display, or a 21" or larger desktop display, but for 15" and smaller I don't want it because I've tried it. I am sure your 24" 4K display does look amazing. That's the right size for that kind of resolution and I would not mind having a 4K desktop monitor in that size.

Agree on the aluminum. Plastic looks, feels and smells of cheapness.

Now that I have seriously overhauled the OS, my Windows 8.1 looks amazing, too. I've corrected all of Micro$lop's mistakes to make it look even better than Windows 7 does with cleaner Aero transparency and my own array of customized colors that they left out of the personalization options, but the performance decrease, inconvenient UI and issues with draconian "security" (Micro$lop's fancy word for permissions errors) with Windows 8/8.1 still bothers me. But, you're right... I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid. Pssst... *whispering softly* "the emperor is naked."

 

But you can increase text size as much as you want and it will be still crisp with 8.1, it s healthier for your eyes not to see the pixels. Now if you talk about real estate i definitely agree.

M18x r2 is nebula is still the most awesome notebook i ever owned. I was really sad to see the new ones. It doesnt feel AW to me.

Dell service is also the best, i agree.
I want them to compete with razer on the 14inch. And not run after clevo by lowering production cost with cheap material (rubber plastic) or make things big and heavy.

 

Yes I agree the m18x r2 is amazing and I love mine. I still have over two years of warranty left on it and I plan to upgrade the gpus when the 680m sli starts to struggle but for right now it's pointless as it pushes everything out at ultra with ease. But I also want to see alien ware make something that I want to buy. Nothing this past year and maybe even this year seems to be good enough to topple the m18xr2. And that bothers me. Other companies are beginning to attract me and and being an alien ware fan that also bothers me. It's like being married and not attracted to your wife anymore but still love her. Sucks.

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Honestly, your going to be able to get waaay better support from the small boutique manufacturers like Maingear and Digital Storm. Even Xotic has less horror stories, but sell more machines. Also, good luck with Dell support if you don't like in NA or at least western Europe. They don't give a damn about India apparently.

 

Maybe it is like that in Europe, as we have heard multiple horror stories about EMEA, but it is absolutely not true here. Alienware's service and support totally eclipses their competition and you'll never convince me otherwise as far as North American Support is concerned. Even if their intent is to do marvelous, a small boutique simply does not have the resources it takes to match Alienware Support here in the USA. I already know of a new Clevo P570WM owner that is going to sell his machine. He was a long term Alienware customer and got disgusted about the lackluster performance of the new Haswell stuff (had a new 18 with 4930MX). He bought a brand-spanking new Sager with 780M SLI and 4930MX. Had issues from the start. He was OK with a few kinks, but the service was so stinking slow and poor that he is selling that new machine. It paled in comparison to what he has always received from Alienware.

 

The service can he both better and worse depending who you go with and what machine.

 

Do some of the Clevo resellers send major replacement parts like displays, motherboards and video cards, and/or a tech to install those parts if you don't know how, to your house the next business day? If they do, then that's truly awesome and that would match Alienware service. Dell/Alienware repair depot is typically 5 calendar days, including shipping time, except for when service parts are not in stock.

 

That's how it is not as good, however the turn around and capability of those looking at the machine if you have to send it in where it can turn into a plus.

We have sent parts for users to work with themselves if everyone was happy for that to happen.