Hmmm should i get an alienware ? ..

[garyfl]

ive always thought they looked a bit too geeky so never bothered to look much into them that and the price. but ive noticed some cracking almost steal worthy deals on the outlet, and im thinking its a great idea, i showed some pics to my gf whos pretty trend savvy as well as me and she actually thinks they look sweet. can anyone with one in the flesh tell me if they are ok carrying it around in public, are they actually sleek in real life ? im wondering whetehr to pounce on one.

looking towards the mx 17 r3

cheers.


if someone ould put pics up that would be great, also, ive heard it dosent have a pci card input so i wont be able to use it as a studio laptop, BUT i could go firewire.

 

[Robbo]

My friend has one and they're quite nice.

As long as you can't get it better specced from a different company for much cheaper then go for it.

 

[Metalface Mark]

Mine arrives tomorrow from the outet, ill stick some up.

 

[Andrei23]

I have an m17x R3 sitting here on my desk right next to me. I wouldn't personally take it out to uni to do work on it -some people might though - but as an entertainment laptop it's ace; even my girlfriend agrees. The laptop itself is pretty heavy, weighing in at around 5 kgs, even the power brick which pumps 240W weighs 1 kg, so I wouldn't call it ultraportable. I will tell you one thing though, this lappy will stand out among a sea of MBPs. Oh and did I mention I love this friggin' thing?

 

[Scrutinize]

cracking price on the outlet, great laptop but you really want to be adding the 3 year warranty onto this which is circa £200-£300 iirc.

but this is personal preference, i would not want to be at the mercy of a 1 year warranty with one of these considering cost and value or dell/alienware in general. ok so you can argue points of law with them if it breaks after 1 year but then you have the hassle of getting it fixed and the 4-8 week downtime at least whilst you battle.

 

[Metalface Mark]

cracking price on the outlet, great laptop but you really want to be adding the 3 year warranty onto this which is circa £200-£300 iirc.

but this is personal preference, i would not want to be at the mercy of a 1 year warranty with one of these considering cost and value or dell/alienware in general. ok so you can argue points of law with them if it breaks after 1 year but then you have the hassle of getting it fixed and the 4-8 week downtime at least whilst you battle.

Dell always call you up prior to your warranty expiring, you get a reduced cost then, so its worth waiting for that call.

 

[garyfl]

hmm never bothered withthese things, looking on youtube they do actually look sick, not as bulky and as led'ish as i thought, theyre quite conservative and really sleek. cross between the mx 17r3 and the mx 18 arrghh. though the mx18 isnt on the outelt and the starting cost option for it on the site is a bit laughable with only 4gb ram and 320gb hdd. £1700:O

 

[Django x2]

cracking price on the outlet, great laptop but you really want to be adding the 3 year warranty onto this which is circa £200-£300 iirc.

but this is personal preference, i would not want to be at the mercy of a 1 year warranty with one of these considering cost and value or dell/alienware in general. ok so you can argue points of law with them if it breaks after 1 year but then you have the hassle of getting it fixed and the 4-8 week downtime at least whilst you battle.

Haven't had chance to talk to you about this in person, but you seem hung up on this warranty issue. I thought you were aware that all goods like this are governed by a 6 year ability to return goods if faulty irrespective of the manufacturers guidelines. I would stop telling people that you wouldn't buy it just because it has a 1 year warranty. It technically doesn't, it has a 6 year warranty (5 in Scotland), 1 of which is the one given by the manufacturer. Whilst the other 5 don't offer parts and labour, they do cover that the device should last a reasonable amount of time given the price paid. Obviously here, with laptops, this is not an issue. We would all expect a laptop to last longer than a year, so, in the majority of cases, taking (and paying out) for an extended laptop warranty from the manufacturer is pointless. Dell are actually pretty good at honouring this too.

The other thing to note, especially with the likes of Dell, is that most of their parts are easily obtainable through ebay and the like, and wouldn't cost anything like £200 to replace. Boards for the 15r for instance can be had for £100

 

[Scrutinize]

Haven't had chance to talk to you about this in person, but you seem hung up on this warranty issue.

yes i know, and as i include with all my posts on this (heck you even quoted it but you seem to have ignored this fact), the law is clear.

i know the law, however, applying the law is not just straight forward and certainly not a next business day engineer fix. it is also not an automatic 6 years as after the first 6 months the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate an inherent fault or design flaw. any retailers offering longer warranties inc parts and labour which don’t require the goods for testing before refund or replacement (especially with laptops) do so out of company policy or good will. dell are not one of these outside of the 1 year inclusive warranty with the laptop.

if dell don't cave in straight away when you start referencing the sale of goods act etc, then you have to get an independent engineers report to prove an inherent fault. this may or may not cost you but the process of undertaking all of this and bouncing correspondence / email back and forth can take a few weeks.

equally, laptops live a hard life, take a few knocks and show visible signs of damage. an engineer is more likely to overlook this whilst under warranty. under a legal challenge, they will use anything against your claim. (ok ok so accidental damage cover on house insurance could take care of this but again it is hassle)

my point about the warranty is not that it is the only way to get things fixed but on the dells and alienware as it is next business day which is a whole lot less hassle than arguing the toss under soga or finding parts and fixing it via ebay. these are the xps series or alienware, parts for these are not as cheap as the 15r esp ones which just have the integrated graphics.

you are more than welcome to endure the headache which comes with the battle with the indian call centres on the finer points of an out of warranty dell.

it can be bad enough communicating with them when things are in warranty

 

[Django x2]

you seem to be suggesting that the laptop will just stop working after a year. This isn't going to be the case, and even if it was, they are not expensive to repair with most common issues being refluxing or ancillary hardware issues, all of which can be fixed within a day by yourself, or local repair shop. I certainly wouldn't be advising against buying a machine just because it only had a 1 year warranty. If a laptop makes it through 3 years and the develops a fault, it's going to be so out of date its unreal, and let me assure you, the manufacturer warranty is only eligible to replace it with the same model (of which, they will have hundreds in warranty stock). You won't get a new like for like replacement from the likes of Dell or HP. If you pushed, you might get a credit refund, but that won't be a day turn around either. I have 3 Dell laptops, the oldest of which is 5 years old. It developed a small crack in the palm rest. £20 later, it was fixed and still doing fine today. The newest of which is 4 years old and gets battered day in day out by the other half. Not one issue with it. If it does die suddently, beyond the capability of even the most anti-competent screwdriver user, which it won't, it will just be replaced, because, now, for the same price I paid for it 4 years ago, you get near on triple your vfm.

A 3 year dell or hp warranty on a £1000 laptop, even if you had a like for like replacement (which you won't) would see it replaced in 3 years time with a laptop of similar spec (costing around £300 to £400 pounds), not £1k.

XPS and alienware laptop parts are just as cheap on the bay. You'll find most of them even share the same board in some cases (just without the gfx) as mobos without integrated gfx are even cheaper than those with (XPS mobos are around £80 on the bay)

 

[garyfl]

can i ask, if i got an alienware with a 560gtx inside, would i be hampered with having to live with that or could i just buy a 580gtx on the bay, and can i install it myself and if i did that does it void any warrenty

 

[Django x2]

technically, you can, but you need to make sure that the 560gtx is for the alienware (as not all the cards are uniform in design and layout for laptops). i did this with an old Asus laptop I had with dedicated ATI mob radeon, but I had to make sure the card I replaced it with was for the Asus and not other laptop manufacturers.

 

[RobK]

can i ask, if i got an alienware with a 560gtx inside, would i be hampered with having to live with that or could i just buy a 580gtx on the bay, and can i install it myself and if i did that does it void any warrenty

It depends on which Alienware model you mean, but the M17x R3 uses an MXM module which you can swap out pretty easily for a more powerful one. See http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/m17xR3.html for a guide with photos.

 

[RobK]

To the OP, if you get the black version rather than the red I think they are pretty good looking without being too flashy. You don't have to have a wild looking light set-up on it; I just left mine on the default setting and it looks great.

Like others have said, I wouldn't carry it around with me though. It's pretty heavy and bulky too, especially with the power brick as well.

 

[Datamonkey]

Black M18x on order here, i have an M17x R2 at the moment which is going to my bro in-law.

Love them, i was never a laptop gamer always have full size watercooled rigs, but a house move has meant while the new place is bigger my study shrunk dramatically!!

Love the alienware laptops, warranty is excellent even if i did have to send it back to repaired but the laptop came back in tip top condition.

 

[Metalface Mark]

Black M18x on order here, i have an M17x R2 at the moment which is going to my bro in-law.

Love them, i was never a laptop gamer always have full size watercooled rigs, but a house move has meant while the new place is bigger my study shrunk dramatically!!

Love the alienware laptops, warranty is excellent even if i did have to send it back to repaired but the laptop came back in tip top condition.

Did you pick up the one from the outlet with the crossfired 6970's?

 

[garyfl]

how do you look for mx 18's on the outlet theres only options upto mx 17 r3, the mx 18 seems perfect with the screen size and pci slot. whats the average price ? my budget is around 1200

 

[RobK]

There aren't any M18's there at the moment otherwise the option appears.

 

[Datamonkey]

Did you pick up the one from the outlet with the crossfired 6970's?

Nope. Havent seen any m18x's on the uk outlet.



Direct from dell.


Sorry for long paste posting on iphone lol

Spec is

Alienware M18x Stealth Black
Memory
4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
Keyboard
Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Video Card
Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD® Radeon™ HD 6990M CrossFireX™
Hard Drive
320GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
Microsoft Operating System
English Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Optical Devices
DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read and write)
Sound
Integrated High-Definition 5.1 Performance Audio Powered by Klipsch®
Wireless Networking
Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 - EUR
Cables
UK 2M 250V Power Cord
Shipping Documents
English Documentation
Gedis Bundle Reference
N08W1801
Standard Warranty
1 year Next Business Day Hardware Support included with your PC
Enhanced Service Packs
3 Years Next Day In-Home Service with Premium Phone Support
Bluetooth
Dell Wireless 375 Bluetooth Card - EUR
Order Information
Alienware M18x Order - UK
Primary Battery
Primary 12-cell 96W/HR LI-ION
Carrying Cases
No Carrying Case
Processor
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 2760QM (2.40Ghz, 6MB, 4C)
Dell System Media Kit
Alienware Resource DVD
Camera
Integrated 3.0 Mega Pixel HD Camera
Avatar
Alienhead Glow
AutoMatic Updates
AutoMatic updates - On
Wallpapers
Alienware Glow Wallpaper
TimeZone
(GMT + 00.00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London
AlienFx Colour
Quasar Blue
Accidental Damage Support
No Accidental Damage Protection
LCD
18.4" (47 cm) WideFHD (1920 x 1080) WLED LCD
Hidden NamePlate Engraving
Generic Name Plate Engraving
Protect your new PC
No Antivirus Software
Power Supply
330W AC Adapter


Got it for just under 2k haggled on the phone, should be closer to 2.3k

Also got an orion backpack and 16gb jump drive for £75

I have 2x 120 vertex 2 ssd's i will be chucking in + 8gb of kingston hyperx ram.

Screen wont be as good as the RGB 1920x1200 in my m17x but from what i hear its not too far from it

 

[Metalface Mark]

Nope. Havent seen any m18x's on the uk outlet.



snipped

There was 3 up I think on Wed last week, was pretty much the same spec as that one (except had 6970 crossfire, 2720 cpu), it was £1200 inc VAT, was sorely tempted but I had already ordered a m17x with a 6990 from the outlet the day before.

The last week has had some amazing bargains, there was even a m17x with a gtx580 for just over a grand.