I used to be a sales mgr with Dell. Dell does indeed own AW but says that it will continue as a wholly owned subsid and will not be merged into Dell. Time will tell.

Are you sure that you bought the same model as the one Scott is talking about? If I remember correctly, mALX has a 19" screen.

Yeah these were 19" screens and fully loaded. Very heavy suckers. I have a Dell laptop 9400 with a 19" screen and it's bloody heavy too....

As a previous poster stated, Alienware's primary focus is on high-end gaming machines and peripherals. It looks like they have slimmed their product line down a bit. They used to offer the Sentia, a productivity, ThinkPad type laptop, but this had since been discontinued. It doesn't seem that they offer the the mALX brand (the ALX brands of their desktop and laptop products were the highest end machines you could buy from them) for their laptops anymore, either.

As mentioned earlier, Alienware laptops are in fact manufactured in Taiwan, but not by Alienware. Alienware works closely with various ODMs to do the bulk, if not all, of the manufacturing of their products. They just slap their name on it later. Most large computer manufacturers practice this.

Alienware laptops are manufactured by a company called Clevo in Taiwan. Clevo is an ODM for not only Alienware, but for Sager, Falcon Northwest, Voodoo and many other well known computer companies. So if you find out which companies Clevo works with, then chances are you are going to find many of the same laptops out there being sold with different logos slapped on them. Check this link out to get an idea of the laptops that Clevo makes and their resellers:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=91510

Good luck!

good advice ... though the OP did say he didnt mind shelling out extra $$ for the paint job this OEM is putting on the same ODM product you can find much cheaper elsewhere.

whoever suggested powernotebooks.com also gave good advice.

forget about Dell ... youll just be shelling out extra $$ to finance an elaborate marketing campaign.

I've had the best luck with Compal (an ODM). My current laptop is branded PowerPro (from powernotebooks.com) who have the best customer service I have experienced anywhere.

Amazing information, many thanks to everybody for pitching in here!!! ^ ^ ^

Incidentally the 9400 is a 17" notebook. Dell doesn't make a 19" yet but are rumored to be ready to roll one out. They do make a 20", the XPS2010 (or did, not sure if it's still around).

I'd NEVER buy an Alienware notebook. Save one model ODMed by Arima, they're all Clevo notebooks and can be had elsewhere for far far less money. Powernotebooks.com offers most of them at much better pricing. If you're looking for a power/gaming notebook, the Clevo M570RU is presently the best balance of size and performance. The 19 and 20" notebooks can be had in SLI but are just tooooo big IMO... and are far more problematic. I've had an M570U for over a year (the RU's predecessor) and have been beating on it for 5-8 hours a day. It's never had a fault. I own a Dell XPS Gen2 and we have an XPS1710 in the family... the M570 is hands down built and designed better.

If you want portable power in the 14" form factor, the Asus A8JS is a great choice and fabulous value for money with a good warranty to back it up. For 15" notebooks, the Dell Vostro is actually one of the best values out there. Serious graphics in the form of an nVidia 8600GT, but very reasonable price.