Alienware or 15z

lolage

lolage

lolage

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Hi guys

Got about £1000 to spend on a laptop for photoshop/illustrator and a bit of gaming. (tf2 and maybe bf3 if it will run?)

Speced up two dells, both roughly the same spec but unsure which to go for? I think bizzarely the 15z has a better graphics card - but I have people telling me to go for the alienware!?

Which would you go for out of these two:
whichdell.png


Cheers!
 
lolage said:
Hi guys

Got about £1000 to spend on a laptop for photoshop/illustrator and a bit of gaming. (tf2 and maybe bf3 if it will run?)

Speced up two dells, both roughly the same spec but unsure which to go for? I think bizzarely the 15z has a better graphics card - but I have people telling me to go for the alienware!?

Which would you go for out of these two:
whichdell.png


Cheers!
Click to expand...

I,d look on the Auction Site for a better deal brand new ..i saved £200 buying a laptop brand new on the no1 auction site
 
The 555M is better than the 525M so if you have to get one of those, go for the Alienware. If 17" isnt too big for you, the XPS 17 is £900 for a better spec (i7, 6GB RAM)
 
I'd buy neither of these and take a very close look at the Asus N55SF. Be sure to check the spec closely though as they come in i5 and i7 flavours with either 1600x900 or 1920x1080 displays.

I believe the i7, 8gb, 1600x900*, gt555m variant can be had for a little under £750 atm, which imo is great value and a better option than either of the ones you suggest. Oh 15.6" format too.



* <edited> for duff gen on the display. I had originally suggested The n55sf was available with 1920x1080 display at the £750 price point. It would appear that it is only he 1600x900 model is available at that price.

Even so it still represents good value vs the m14x, which has the 1600x900 display as the maximum res available.
 
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JimboJet said:
I'd buy neither of these and take a very close look at the Asus N55SF. Be sure to check the spec closely though as they come in i5 and i7 flavours with either 1600x900 or 1920x1080 displays.

I believe the i7, 8gb, 1920x1080, gt555m variant can be had for a little under £750 atm, which imo is great value and a better option than either of the ones you suggest. Oh 15.6" format too.
Click to expand...

ah sick, that does look pretty good. thanks for the heads up!
 
No problem, I'm tempted to get one myself. I recently bought a very nice m17x r3 with gtx580m etc from the dell outlet but ideally it is too big and bulky for my needs so may move it on in favour of one of these. The Asus is nearly half the price of the Alienware even at outlet prices! - just depends on how well they game. I've read reports of them being very quiet which is another plus!

With the right combo of discounts the i7 flavoured m14x can come in at £850ish and the i7 m11x r3 for about £680!
 
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I just specced this up with the 15% discount codes and the current free upgrade offers, added a backlit keyboard, tv tuner and 1920x1080 screen on top of the basic spec, oh yeh and onboard bluetooth.


XPS 17

2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM processor 2.20 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.10 GHz
Microsoft Operating System English Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Memory 6144MB (1x2GB, 1x4GB) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel SDRAM
Keyboard Backlit UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Video Card 3GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M Graphics Card
Hard Drive 1TB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Dual HDD - (2x500GB)
Optical Devices DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read and write)
Wireless Networking Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1030 (1x2 b/g/n+ Bluetooth Combo Card)
Service Standard Service - 1 year of Collect & Return 10 day coverage included with your PC
Extended Service 1Yr Next Day Hardware Support
Primary Battery 9-cell 90Whr Lithium Ion battery
Dell System Media Kit XPS L702x Resource DVD
Color Choice Silver Anodized Aluminum Cover
TV Tuner Internal DVB-T TvTuner
LCD 17.3 FHD WLED AG (1920x1080) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera

TOTAL :£900.13

There should be a further 8% cashback through quidco too making it £828 inc

I was originally looking at £650 machines to play eve online on and work away, so videos etc, but as always thing escalate, this looks pretty decent?

edit: then again you can get the msi gx660R for £980 after the £100 cashback msi offer, http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LS-000-MS&groupid=959&catid=1828&subcat=
 
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There hasn't been many XPS 17 laptops on the outlet since last Monday. Four showed up on Thursday and on Friday there was only one.
 
lolage said:
After struggling to find the Asus N55SF which had 8gb ram and 1920x1080 screen I'm considering the above! Just put off that its an i5, not an i7.
Click to expand...

Yeah I couldn't find it either! Oh well, maybe I'm not looking in the right places
 
Ok, it appears i gave duff gen, apologies. That said the i7 asus n55sf is available with hd+ (1600x900) display for the £750 or less figure! Which is still some £250 less than an m14x even including blueray!

They do offer a 1920x1080 display as well but am unsure as to whether this is freely available in th uk and am unsure as to how much extra the fhd is over the hd+ display. Again apologies for misleading info, asus don't make it easy with their model naming policy.


I have edited my original post so as to not mislead others.
 
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If you care about gaming you can get a clevo machine from a shop in the UK with a 1080p 15.6" screen and a GTX560M for around £900.
 
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