Alienware Laptops

[nephalim]

I saw a link to them and checked it out, never heard of them before, and they seem to offer some really nice machines at a decent price. I'm wondering whether it would be a good idea or not...laptops are very very delicate creatures, and I don't feel 'safe' buying from a company that doesn't have a long track record (such as Dell or Toshiba,) especially for a power machine that'll cost upwards of 2k...but this company seems very good, and they do offer 3 year warranties. Anyone deal with them before? What do you think? They are offering their laptops with upgradable graphics card slots which makes me really interested (they are the first, just starting now.)

www.alienware.com

(This isn't SPAM, i'm not affliated with them in any way nor have I even bought anything from them, as i've said. Just making sure that's clear.)

 

[Malcolm]

One note about toshiba - don't buy them.

I have a satellite 1110 and lemmie tell ya, unless you like to bring in you laptop every 4 - 5 months for repair then toshiba ain't for you. For the past year or 2 they have been manfacturing their laptops with a backlight design flaw.

The backlight is what lights-ups your pixels on screen after they have been drawn and after the backlight goes out your screen becomes so dim its almost im possible to read.

I've had my laptop sence January of this year and I've already brought it in twice; the tech support told me that I wouldn't have to bring in the laptop anymore because they had perminently fixed the error. With that inmind I upgraded the laptops hdd to a 80gb'er. 2 months later the backlight goes and I can't get it reapired because I voided my warrenty.

I did try to bring it in tho and they said it would cost me $180 for servicing.

Anyways, I'm not too impressed with Toshiba anymore. For laptops I'd go with HP, Compaq, IBM, AlienWare, Shit-Box Computers (down the street) or anyplace that can give you decent tech support and where you can upgrade the technology in the laptop without voiding the warrenty.

check to see how 'helpful' these people really are, go below and search for 'screen' and/or 'backlight'!!

http://forums.compuserve.com/gvforums/default.asp?SRV=Toshiba&loc-us&access=public

--Heres a small example!!--

From a nice user named imaketv1
have an 1805-s253. It came with windows ME, and I upgraded to XP. Sometimes, inadvertantly, the screen goes black. If I push the little button that turns off the screen when you close the top, the screen comes back on. Then it might go out again.

Is this a hardware or software problem? Is there a new XP video driver available, or should I use the win 2000 driver, or the win me driver???

Please advise.

steve
magiclemailname!!@tampabay.rr.com

Here's an amazing responce from a toshiba techie!

imaketv1 Hardware problem in the backlight system. Service time John - Team Toshiba

no jokes! it amazing how 'detailed' that responce is; yummy even!!

 

[Lex]

no jokes! it amazing how 'detailed' that responce is; yummy even!!

omfg

 

[SurfPA]

i've seen alienware desktops and they LOOK really cool as far as the case and everything...but i dont know about quality

 

[Malcolm]

I've just looked over the mobles that they have; the hardware is really nice. Lookin' at the default warrenty, you get 1 year of on-site tech support (very nice) and phone support.

Personally I'd feel safe buying from them, except for the fact they they are quite expensive.

My suggestion, shop around; looks aren't everything

 

[nephalim]

They are expensive - but believe it or not for the quality of the components (they only offer high-end machines) it's actually quite reasonable. Looks definetely aren't everything, hence why I made this topic. I'm more concerned with quality (looks do matter when it comes to the screen, however )

I always thought Toshiba made great notebooks, i've never owned one though, sorry to hear of your bad experience. Believe me, Dell's Warranty & Tech Support suck ass most of the time as well. I have a Dell notebook, and it is a decent machine, although for the 3k I paid for it I should have gotten more. Nearly everyone who works for them is a downright moron, and their systems have major casing issues as the most notable problem (a small example - my modular CD-RW keeps falling out. This is my 2nd case and 2nd CD-RW, and it happened with both.) They are also big and heavy (the notebook "performance" line.) I just had mine nearly completely refurbished, which they made me pay for heavily (it wasn't worth it, but I didn't have the money at the time to get a new machine unfortunately,) and the screen clip that holds the system shut has broken, 3 keys are busted, and the hinge cover won't stay on anymore. I would think a company that makes so many laptops can get the damn casing right... :ermm:

Even though I have major issues with Dell, I do think they have the best balance of price and performance/quality. I wouldn't buy from them again though unless I thoroughly exhausted my other options.

 

[Kahenraz]

Dell, all the way. I've got a Dell PC, Dimension8100 w/4 year warrenty (up this Dec.), and it's been invaluable.

The system is excellent except for the crappy 5.25 mounts and something funny I discovered today while working on my win95 tripple boot. The OEM motherboard has IRC 5 reserved in the bios. IRQ 5 reserved is typically for ISA slots.. yet.. this board has no ISA slots. I had alot of laughs with a great guy at Creative Labs about this. And a bonus!! I discovered that my Sound Blaster Live! is actually Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Platinum!! Heh, I've only had this card for what... 8 months?

 

[URAMetroid]

Alienware computer's are for high end gamers, not for every day user's.
There laptops use (AFAIK) some desktop parts (e.g., the CPU), but they are grate laptops.
Me, if I had 3k to spend on a laptop, I would get an Alienware or an IBM ThinkPad T40, but I don't have 3k to spend.

 

[The Phenom]

The battery in Alienware notebooks lasts only about an hour.

 

[nephalim]

Only an hour? You sure? That's a MAJOR downside. One Dell battery lasts about 3 hours with moderate use.

Desktop Processors are also a major downside. They generate more heat (thus shortening your system's life and AFAIK running slower - chips run faster when cool - but that's just an assumption on my part,) and drain the battery like crazy. I assume the mobos are also desktop mobos, which is also bad...the only good side to that is they are easily upgradable unlike most OEM laptop mobo's.

If these 2 things are true, it's unlikely i'll buy an Alienware laptop...

 

[URAMetroid]

Intel Centrino laptops get up to 6 hours, thats why I like the IBM ThinkPad T40.

 

[CpU MasteR]

I own a Dell Inspiron 2600, has 1.2 GHz, 256MB RAM, 15G HD, DVD/RW, 32 Intel Chipshit (Who cares really? not into PC games anyway ) and its been a dream for $899. Take it with me anywhere I go out of town, if its playing mame or PJ64, or just listening to MP3s, or writing a paper for school on the road. It rocks

/me feels like a cheap dell computer commercial

must die!

 

[URAMetroid]

I own a Dell Inspiron 2600, has 1.2 GHz, 256MB RAM, 15G HD, DVD/RW, 32 Intel Chipshit (Who cares really? not into PC games anyway ) and its been a dream for $899. Take it with me anywhere I go out of town, if its playing mame or PJ64, or just listening to MP3s, or writing a paper for school on the road. It rocks

/me feels like a cheap dell computer commercial

must die!

Sounds like a nice laptop, you don't want to know what I'm using ATM (of this post), an IMB ThinkPad 755CX (Note: it's only a pentium 75MHz), but it was top of the line at one time.

 

[CpU MasteR]

Sounds like a nice laptop, you don't want to know what I'm using ATM (of this post), an IMB ThinkPad 755CX (Note: it's only a pentium 75MHz), but it was top of the line at one time.

I remember having my ol' 100MHz, 16MB Ram, 877MB HD, 2MB Video, Toshiba Satlillite Pro 420CDS (RIP). So I know how it feels.

and about my inspiron, here is a pic to tease you

 

[Plisco]

I own a Dell Inspiron 2600, has 1.2 GHz, 256MB RAM, 15G HD, DVD/RW, 32 Intel Chipshit (Who cares really? not into PC games anyway ) and its been a dream for $899. Take it with me anywhere I go out of town, if its playing mame or PJ64, or just listening to MP3s, or writing a paper for school on the road. It rocks

Here Here. , on subject of Alienware I read this a couple of days ago, might be of some help / interest.

 

[Kahenraz]

I had an old NEC 220T with a NeoMagic Magic Graph 2mb vid card, 2GB HDD, and 96megs of ram, 233MMX processor. Man... I miss that thing. I liked the MMX processors much better than those pentium2 pieces of garbage.

 

[URAMetroid]

I remember having my ol' 100MHz, 16MB Ram, 877MB HD, 2MB Video, Toshiba Satlillite Pro 420CDS (RIP). So I know how it feels.

and about my inspiron, here is a pic to tease you

Thanks for the tease.
My IBM ThinkPad my be slow, but it does it's job very well:

Pentium 75MHz
40MB IC DRAM, just upgraded from 16MB
1MB Video
SVGA 800x600 16bit display
1.2GB
No CD-ROM
MWave (mono) audio + 33.6k

Heres a pic of what mine looks like (Note: this is not my unit, this is just a pic off eBay).

 

[ra5555]

I disagrees about the toshiba part, I think they still makes decent machines, my dad has a toshiba satlight with P3 1.33Ghz M processor and GF2Go video card and after a year, never has any problem ever occured, I do preferr them than the dell counter parts.