AlienWare Laptops - revisited
 

Ive done the searches and there have been a couple of threads on this subject, and with some pretty strong comments from some of the heavyweight tech gurus on this forum.

However, most of these threads are almost 2 years old and lots has changed in the world of laptops, so I wonder if we could revisit this topic... I appreciate the patience of all the experts here and look forward to your feedback.

I need to replace my old & faithful ThinkPad T30. A T61P is a natural candidate, but Im considering going "radical" and maybe buying an AlienWare machine. I realize that this is an OEM shop, and that they do charge a premium for the fancy paintjob and other gizmos... Im willing to shell out the additional $$$, however, I do have a few conceptual questions.

a) will reliability of an AlienWare laptop be similar to a ThinkPad?

b) do any FTers have recent experiences with AW laptops?

c) most ThinkPads are made in Mexico, AW seems to make their gear in Taiwan... which Im guessing is got to be as good or better than Mexico, or?

d) ThinkPad keyboards are legendary.... how does the AW laptop keyboard compare?

e) if you think AlienWare is not the name to go with, what alternatives would you consider?

Many thanks!!

Alex (Gaucho100K)

I had to buy 3 of these for clients and for the money $5000 / each they are pretty damn impressive, but I would NEVER buy one of these for myself. I mean we fully macked these things out....

These things are SOOOOO heavy.....

Model Information: Aurora mALX $4,849.00 (Qty. 3)
Additional Configuration Modifications:
1) Genuine Windows XP Professional
2) 2GB Dual Channel DDR SO-DIMM at 400Mhz 2 X 1024
3) Dual 512 NVidia GeForce Go 7900 SLI Enabled - 1GB of Total Memory

Didn't Dell buy Alienware earlier this year?

http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/22/ali..._0322dell.html

Hmmmm... does this mean that AlienWare will cease to exist as a brand and merge into DELL...?

Not that it makes much of a difference either way but my brand new T61 was made in and shipped from mainland China, not Mexico.

I would never pay Alienware prices for this sort of stuff.


You can find just about the same thing from several other companies. It won't have the fancy paint job or the like but the guts will be the same.

Consider what I just bought:

The processor is a Q6600--they had faster upgrades even but above that you pay a lot for a little speedup. The memory is 4gb of the fast stuff. 200gb/7200rpm HD + 250gb/5400rpm HD. (With matching HD's raid 0 or 1 is an option.) There's a third HD bay that's currently empty. The keyboard has an actual number pad on it, something I've never seen before in a laptop. The video I have is a nVidia 8500, it's capable of going to dual 7950's IIRC.

Note that the CPU, memory & video are the equivalent of what's in my reasonably high end desktop unit.

Unlike the Alienware stuff I only paid $3100 for it.

The downsides of such equipment:

It's big, it's heavy and I'm sure it has miserable battery life. (I didn't even look into what the battery life is, that wasn't important to me.)

Describing these as laptop machines isn't really right. They're not intended for such use. Rather, they are intended as something approaching a desktop machine that you can haul with you. It's expected that you are going to put it on a desk somewhere and use it.

I would not get such a machine unless you are planning to do either heavy crunching of some sort or are going to use it for games.

Hmmm.... Ive perhaps overlooked the weight issue. Whats the difference in weight between a 15.4" T61p and one of the 17" Alienware machines...?

Try Sager from Powernotebooks.com.

The T61 is 6.4lbs compared to 8.5 for the Alienware.

Both in the most basic configuration.

I dunno man.... the above ones that I got weighed at least 15lbs.... that's a very heavy laptop.

last i looked at alienware the only thing worth the money was the ALX desktop. dont recall looking at their laptops.

others you might check out >
http://voodoopc.com/system/Notebook.aspx
http://www.gamepc.com/shop/category....a#Customizable

http://www.dynamism.com/Notebooks/category.shtml
although none of the performance ones seem to be graphics oriented.

i have only purchased 2 desktops from gamepc.

How did you manage to get from 9 to 15 pounds...?? :eek: :eek: :eek:

Mine came from Pro-Star but it's the same hardware at the heart of it.

I don't know how much mine weighs but the shipping box was 22 pounds. Beyond the laptop & power supply) there was a lightweight carrying bag, manuals & discs that certainly don't add up to a pound, a t-shirt from the company and some plastic foam packing material, and obviously the heavy-duty box it shipped in. If it is as low as 15 pounds I would be surprised.

Alien ware does make nice notebooks but they are geared more towards the mobile gaming market. This means that the battery life is usually pretty bad and the weight will be high. This is fine if you plan to use the laptop for video games and need maximum performance but for general use you would likley be better off with a higher end dell.