So long g73 hello Alienware m17x r3

Brand name meaning botique branding (e.g. Voodoo, Falcon NW, Origin). Asus was never a botique brand, not that it matters. It's just something they (dell) use in their favor for marketing and mark up.

 

When I was shopping for a gaming notebook, I had also considered the M17 and another notebook from MSI (which I forgot the name). I ended up ordering from amazon said MSI notebook, but when it arrived, it wouldn't work no matter what. I had gotten the bad one, so I ended up returning it for a refund. Was going to order M17 from Alienware, but that day I went to BB and saw the G73... loved the specs and specially the price. And since it was in store, I felt more comfortable and compelled to get the G73 because I know I would be able to return it and get a new one in case of problems way faster than through online retailers.
Long story short; if Alienware M17 would be sold at places like BB, I might have bought it instead. But I'm glad it doesn't because I'm very happy with my G73. =D

 

Dell has offered lots of good features for their AW compared to Asus' G73 at an expense of sky-rocketing prices. Good thing Asus made a way to steal some gaming laptop market share from AW. Now AW had no other way but to lower down their prices by watering-down their specs. I believe, Asus' G73 is not that full-featured compared to AW M17x but I don't think I'll be using much of the M17x other features not present in G73 at any time soon. I basically sit down, plug my G73JH to the outlet, connect the mouse, then play a demanding game with an acceptable FPS, fan noise and temperature.

Regarding Dell's support, it's not always the case. The 2 year Global warranty of Asus is so worth-it specially on countries outside the US specially here in Asia. Dell's support here in Asia sucks a lot not like there in North America and Asus won on that part.

Another issue is that Dell has tainted its reputation by its tons of defective mobos when it was plagued with bad capacitors couple of years ago. While Asus has ranked one in terms of quality and customer support recently that's why I've decided to buy Asus as my first laptop with my hard-earned money. But too bad, tons of problem came with G73. Good thing there are lot's of expert and great people here at NBR to post their tips and solutions.

With AW's M17x-R3, we'll see how would Asus respond to this to preserve its standing or even surpass AW's offers. Worst case is that Asus would just get left behind if they don't think of good things to offer to the market.

 

Jokers not Trolling (Alienware is in the title of this thread), he contributes to the site much more than many others(look at he post numbers and rep). I will soon own a G73 also to replace a dead Gateway FX. There is nothing wrong with either lappys. It sounds like there is Laptop envy going on here .

as far as Service, Dell's support is much better than most others, I have dealt with many, when you send your laptop off for a few weeks to a repair warehouse (Teleplan, Barrister which many company's sub contract too) and get it back with a reformatted hard drive, and the problem still not fixed, you can appreciate what I am talking about.

 

No need, the SW model already competes with the M17x R3 and still gives you more of what most people actually use.

2 Hybrid 500 GB drives, 8 GB of 1333 ram, the same 460M, same sandy bridge, BluRay standard and all included in a price nearly the cost of R3 bare minimum. 3D and 120hz LCD included. Still has the 2 year warranty, one year free accidental, 30 day zero dead pixel guarantee for free. 2 way shipping for RMA free included still. I don't see Asus needing to do anything for the time being.

When the HD6xxxM high end are released, do you doubt Asus won't have something with that? When the 460M replacement is released same for that. The 470M is $350 more than 460M so that isn't the replacement. Certainly not the 485M which is again another $300 more than the 470M.

No doubt he contributes to the AW forum considering what fanatic he is, almost maniacal. But I have NEVER read a SINGLE post in Asus forum where he wasn't trolling in the last year now. Not only is he trolling the laptops but their users also. It's a constant barrage of insults.

 

Something to keep in mind, I'd say your correct there are about an equal number of Asus issue threads as there are Alienware issue threads.

However the most important aspect of that information is a hidden one, and one I recently decided to explore.

User Base - I had previously said in another debate similar to this one that Asus is one of the largest laptop manufacturers in the world and the G73 is one of there most popular systems easily selling 5 systems to every 1 Alienware sold.

While my guess is good and all, I then started a ownership poll to get real numbers. The poll right now currently clocks in at 77 G73 owners and 15 M17X owners.

This is almost exactly 5 to 1, and the M17X has been around longer to boot!

Now the importance of this is that we effectively have a 5 times larger chance to have a problem thread show up.

If you bought a dozen eggs and one was broken that is a 1/12 chance for a broken egg.

So if you had bought 5 dozen eggs and had 5 broken eggs its still the same failure rate. Its still 1/12 broken eggs.

When people post "issue x threads" its a failure, they are reporting the "bad egg"

With having 5x more laptops on market if your seeing about the same number of "I have an issue with X laptop" threads in the Asus section as you are in the Alienware section, that means Asus is doing about 5x better.

Not until we have 5x more issues posted about is the ratio about even when it comes to problems with the units.

Think about that when you start to rave about how AW is higher quality than Asus.


The other thing always tied to quality is Warranty, I have owned Asus products for years and always had super fast warranty fixes. Your saying AW warranty is better than Asus is just your opinion.

It would again take 5x more warranty issues with Asus to equal the same ratio of issues with Alienware.

However you need to notice that when I debate Alienware vs Asus I am using only facts.

It comes with X and Y does not, It cost X and Y cost +XXX more. Facts are direct undeniable information.

On your side Alienware is better....

Because of your opinion, most of what you say is opinionated like it has "better warranty service" thats not a fact thats an opinion.

It has better build quality, thats not a fact its an opinion.

I'll tell you a fact, no matter how much better you claim the Alienware warranty to be, its a year shorter than Asus and after that one year passes any warranty is better than none.

Another fact, a product has a higher chance of failure and problems further into its life span, meaning your far more likely to actually need a warranty @ year 2 when Asus still as you covered than only in year 1 when Alienware has you covered. In a year a system is basically brand new, about the only thing that could mess up a systems within a year is an accident that destroys the laptop.

Guess what? Asus is the only one with accident coverage warranty for the first year, how much sense does that make?

The M17X R3 and G73 are like clone systems. I dont care how much smoke and how many mirrors you put up the differences are so small that nothing can justify the cost difference to me. I think this applies to others as well or the ratio of owners would not be 5 to 1.

Your only argument about prices is always the "haggle" card. Stop playing that card. You admitting it cost more and it needs a discount, or that the company is not honest enough to sell the product at the proper cost off the bat.

Any extra effort required to purchase something is a con, not a pro so it does not matter what angle you try to play it having to call to haggle and play your luck is not a good thing.

 

To the point of "haggling is a con"
Example:
Should I have not "haggled" the price down on my new Camaro, I should have just bought a used car at CarMax? CarMax posts their no haggle price and warranties thier cars. But I want a New Camaro, I can pay more for what I want, or I can haggle the price down, I haggled $2,000.00 off by the way, back when there was a huge markup.

Warranties:
I added to your poll a weak ago, but I do not think it's going to be very scientific, your only getting information from this site, and only from people interested in reading and replying to it. Also G73's are offered at Retail locations, M17X's are not, that's why you see larger G73 sells. I have hands on experience withthe warranty subject, if you send your laptop in, it is not as good as having someone right at your House, you can watch and be held accountable too. I think it's great Asus offers a 2 year warranty, that's way I am getting a G73 for my son, my warranty company settled with me after 4 attempts to repair his laptop and failed. Each time I had to send it in and wait 4 weeks to have it returned no fixed, or worse. I had to go through Compusa.com to pick a laptop through my warranty company. Most warranty company's use the same repair locations, does Asus have their own site to repair thier equipment?

one of my posts reguarding my warrenty mess:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gat...ateway-extended-warrenty-using-barrister.html

 

Why haggle for a Camaro if another dealer has it at the lower price already for lower than what you haggled down too?

You would buy the same car from another dealer if they had a lower price no?

If you had the ability to buy products wholesale or you could optionally try to haggle a public distributor with markup why would you take the 2nd choice? There is no haggle in wholesale you know your getting the lowest price possible.

Even if you successfully haggle the public distributor you wont beat the wholesale price.

Thats much the same thing as what is happening here.

There is no Asus sales to haggle with because its more like the wholesale market with a small fixed cost to products rather than sales agents making wages by selling you stuff based on profit margins and higher markup.

I am close to some Asus dealers, the $$$ they make is crazy small from sales, thus there is no room to reduce the price further, thus there was no need to haggle to begin with, you already had the best price.

Dell being able to give discounts just shows they have huge markup on there products, haggling is taking the long road to get where you already started with Asus.

 

Ruckus, it seems you take this more personal than you should, I see not real slams on Asus, just comparing. Sometimes it's Apples to Oranges. In a few weeks I will have both systems, and I can really give a honest opinion on this.

 

If Asus had "in house sales", they would do the same thing, they do not, they sell to many resellers, that is why you see a fixed price. Some resellers can mark them down to be completive with other resellers, but Asus sells to them at a fixed price also. This is how most electronic company's operate, good or bad. Any company with a "in house" sales setup will usually have the "Haggle factor". Haggling makes company's more completive, and helps the consumer in the end, while it can be annoying, I agree.

 

If you don't have the confidence, wittiness, or knowledge to haggle an AW sales rep, then you would be paying much instead? I'd definitely not go that way.

I'd definitely go to a set of online retailers then compare prices, specs and reputation/feedbacks then buy on the best store I'd be able to find. I'm glad I got my G73JH-A2 with just considerable price range from the other stores I've compared to (actually, I got mine with good specs (not watered-down) on a good price of $1578). And I'm loving this beast.

 

I agree, without this site, I would have paid around $900,00 more for my M17X, like I said, haggling is good, but annoying. . In the end I had a choice, G73, or M17X, if I could not haggle down the M17X to a price I was conformable with, I would have got the G73. I paid around $400.00 more for my M17X, but it did have more options that I wanted at that time, like raid support, Xfire, no regrets.

 

So post that in AW forum, this is a Asus forum...

 

I agree with you on the features available on AW (and to some extent Sager) vs. ASUS. I really enjoy my G73 but would like to have raid, eSATA and the ability to buy GPU upgrades and install them easily. I have so much RAM and disks lying about I think a base AW M17 r3 might be a nice addition to my computing stable.

All the trouble some people had with the G73JH really never impacted me so I still enjoy the system and for $1500 it was a steal at the time. the new SW at $1399 is an even better deal so long as you can live without the flexibility.

Cheers,

 

Thread closed.

When comparisons are done in the Manufacture's forum, it leads to bickering.

If you are interested in the M17x R3, make a post in the What notebook should I buy forum or in the Alienware forum.