Alienware laptops

[Amphrax]

Hiya im looking into getting 1 of these bad boys and i have approx £1500 to spend.

I know a bit about laptops but what i would like to do is pick u gaming guys brains to build me a decent spec from the dell website thingy if you can ofcourse

 

[megadave]

complete waste of money

 

[caLLous]

Over-priced and over-hyped. You'd be better off getting a decent spec F series Vaio for that kind of budget I think (although it's been a while since I looked at their range).

 

[old.Tohtori]

What was said above, alienware used to be good, but now-a-days it's not the end all of superiority. Best bet is to put a thread on tech-help here on FH, say you got that budget and the boys will set you up with a monster

 

[ECA]

Alienware was NEVER good, even when it first came out I used to mock people who bought them.

 

[Amphrax]

Ok thanks

 

[Zarjazz]

My boss has one and he doesn't even play computer games! He overspec'd it so much that during any given minute it's powered on it has a 50% chance of either over-heating or crashing with a BSOD.

If you want to play games on a laptop, don't bother. Even a cheap desktop PC will beat a £2k+ Alienware laptop. If you just want it for work, watching movies etc then just get a "normal" Dell. They do some great deals on those.

 

[Madmaxx]

I use an MSI gx660R gaming laptop, will probably cost half of that alienware price since new MSI ones came out; and I like it.

 

[Zenith.UK]

I disagree Zarjazz. My laptop is doing pretty good after 4 years.
Acer Aspire 5920G (1st generation). It's got a discrete nvidia 8600M GT gfx card that can handle most things I throw at it. I don't expect brilliant, perfect visuals, but I get good framerates with medium settings on many game. I've burnt out the gfx card once, and got a replacement off eBay for £60. There are half-way decent laptops that you can use for gaming, starting at around £800 upwards.

HOWEVER... if you're after a powerhouse to play games at 50-60fps @ 1920x1080, you're looking at a properly specced up desktop. I'm pricing up components at the moment and reckon I can get a decent rig for gaming on £600. If I pushed the price limit up to £800, it would be scarily overpowered for my needs.

 

[Zarjazz]

HOWEVER... if you're after a powerhouse to play games at 50-60fps @ 1920x1080

Since he was asking about an Alienware I presumed that is exactly what he was after

 

[Aoami]

I disagree Zarjazz. My laptop is doing pretty good after 4 years.
Acer Aspire 5920G (1st generation). It's got a discrete nvidia 8600M GT gfx card that can handle most things I throw at it. I don't expect brilliant, perfect visuals, but I get good framerates with medium settings on many game. I've burnt out the gfx card once, and got a replacement off eBay for £60. There are half-way decent laptops that you can use for gaming, starting at around £800 upwards.

HOWEVER... if you're after a powerhouse to play games at 50-60fps @ 1920x1080, you're looking at a properly specced up desktop. I'm pricing up components at the moment and reckon I can get a decent rig for gaming on £600. If I pushed the price limit up to £800, it would be scarily overpowered for my needs.

About 800 is what i spent (including a monitor) for a decent enough gaming rig. Not top class, but good enough to play any game out at the moment at a good level.

 

[Punishment]

Enjoy your dell built to the cheapest specification possible.

I have an Acer Aspire lappy i got 2 years ago the 8930G and i can honestly say even though it is good it wouldn't have been a patch on a good PC at the same price, just buy a PC and a lavalamp if you like shiny things

 

[old.Tohtori]

Alienware was NEVER good, even when it first came out I used to mock people who bought them.

You make fun of anything that's not your "special" kind of standards though

 

[Fafnir]

Well i can recommend the Toshiba Qosmio, love my laptop runs great, only downside is the battery..

 

[Punishment]

You make fun of anything that's not your "special" kind of standards though

Since Dell took over Alienware are a joke, especially outside of the US specificationwise

 

[old.Tohtori]

Since Dell took over Alienware are a joke, especially outside of the US specificationwise

Yeap, said pretty much that previously.

 

[Aada]

I've been using Alienware for the past 6 years 1 Desktop and 2 Laptop's, yes they are pricey but i've never had a problem with any of my machines bought from them, no cooling issues, no overheating issues, no blowing up and causing the earth to end issues like some would lead you to believe happen's whan you buy something with Alienware on.

Currently own 2 m11x's R2/R3 and for the size of the little thing the sheer power it has is more than enough for the game's i play which are mostly MMO's so nothing too power hungry.

With a 15% off coupon i got the brand new M11X R3 i7 2637m CPU/ Nvidia GT 540M 2GIG/ 2GIG RAM (bought 8GIG myself for £34) and 250gig HDD for £797, that for me was a pretty sweet deal.

I actually can't get a laptop that has the same size/power as the M11X anywhere else because nobody else does them, i've lugged around a huge gaming laptop before and it was quite annoying after a while tbh.

Of course because it has the name Alienware people will bash it for all it's worth.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Well the name alienware and people bashing it might not have any correlation, while bad experiences and non-high opinions will.

 

[rynnor]

It is overpriced junk - its like the apple of the pc world - prized by those willing to pay a massive premium for 'pretty'.

 

[Aada]

Well the name alienware and people bashing it might not have any correlation, while bad experiences and non-high opinions will.

Actually it does have a correlation anytime the name pop's up the bashing begin's, this is mostly from people that have NEVER owned an Alienware thus their opinion is invalid and totally and utterly worthless.

I've owned 3 systems from them, if my first system was a pile of shit and broke after 2 days i'd be on this thread telling people to stay clear from them, but each and every system has not had one single hardware problem/software problem to this day.

Yes Alienware is expensive but their quality on their products is second to none, they don't use cheap crappy parts and their system's don't melt the world as some would lead you to believe.

 

[Shagrat]

Ive got one of the Dell xps laptops (so the kids can game if im on the laptop), got it on some deal from Dell. Really been impressed with it so far, I thought it was a damn good spec for the price, its pretty durable (its taken a few knocks without complaint) and runs skyrim and similar spec games well.

I originally looked at the alienware ones but overpriced really, but glad they drew my attention to the xps ones.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Actually it does have a correlation anytime the name pop's up the bashing begin's, this is mostly from people that have NEVER owned an Alienware thus their opinion is invalid and totally and utterly worthless.

I've owned 3 systems from them, if my first system was a pile of shit and broke after 2 days i'd be on this thread telling people to stay clear from them, but each and every system has not had one single hardware problem/software problem to this day.

Yes Alienware is expensive but their quality on their products is second to none, they don't use cheap crappy parts and their system's don't melt the world as some would lead you to believe.

As i said, it might not be just bashing for names sake, not that there aren't those. Doesn't mean it's just that, or only non-owners bash it. It's as blind as bashing it for the name.

But it's valid to say it's not the pinnacle of gaming it used to be, especially since my cheapo HP works just as well

 

[Kahland]

Very overpriced - plus, if you're going to play games, dont get a laptop.

 

[Raven]

Or a child

 

[Aada]

As i said, it might not be just bashing for names sake, not that there aren't those. Doesn't mean it's just that, or only non-owners bash it. It's as blind as bashing it for the name.

But it's valid to say it's not the pinnacle of gaming it used to be, especially since my cheapo HP works just as well

I think Alienware have grown as a company they offer a lot of different systems to suit everyone's needs.

M11X for example became an overnight success story for them, no where else can you buy an 11'' yes 11''!!! laptop that plays most games extremely well yes it has it's limits but for 11'' it's absolutely awesome for me personally as i travel a lot.

 

[Jupitus]

...this is mostly from people that have NEVER owned an Alienware thus their opinion is invalid and totally and utterly worthless.

I've never owned an Alienware machine, but that doesn't prevent me from being able to read their spec, look at the price tag they are putting on it, and go elsewhere to get just as much bang for much less buck.

 

[Raven]

Not exactly practical as you want a laptop. But you should always build your own PC. Far far cheaper and very easy to do. There are like 5 bits that only go in a certain way. Once that's done, bung in the win 7 disk and you are away.

 

[Soazak]

Very overpriced - plus, if you're going to play games, dont get a laptop.

This ^^

Get a macbook, and build a gaming PC

 

[SawTooTH]

Get Razer Blade.. It's so thin. It is so light and so amazingly thin, did I mentioned how thin it is.
But in addition to its sublime thinness it's so light. So light and thin.

http://www.razerzone.com/blade/keynote

 

[Zarjazz]

If it's anything like other Razer-ware it'll be overpriced, lots of glowing LED's, pointless "gaming" features & buttons, shit build quality and generally a complete waste of money.