Author Topic: High end laptops - Alienware etc.. any good? Experiences etc..?  (Read 2742 times)

  • Offline Dave

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I've previously had a dell laptop from work + a desktop PC at home (and my rather aged macbook)

now I'm going to be a full time student in a month and so am in need of a laptop (as I no longer have the dell since leaving my job), my PC is a bit mediocre too really and could also do with an upgrade

I'm considering killing two birds with one stone and getting a powerful laptop and ditching the desktop PC at my parent's house or something. Since I only have a 1 bedroom flat in London it might save a bit of space too.

has anyone got much experience of gaming laptops? I'm considering getting something from the dell outlet Knighty recommended on here a while ago... I'm not a massive PC gamer but would like the ability to play a few games on occasion - elite for example. But overall I would like a powerful machine, 3+ GHz processor, 16GB ram, decent graphics card

  • Offline matt5cott

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Depends how much you want to lay down, the new range of Nvidia GTX cards for laptops look the nuts, http://www.techspot.com/article/1227-nvidia-pascal-geforce-gtx-10-mobile/ likely £££ though.

  • Offline Serious

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Alienware from what I've read and seen over the years have been expensive, you pay for the name. The other problem is gaming laptops tend to be heavy with short battery life, more intended as desk top replacements.

So it depends on how mobile you want it to be against how powerful.

  • Offline Dave

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yeah not sure about alienware

am tempted by the Dell Inspiron 7559

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15-7559-laptop/pd?ST=dell%20inspiron%207559&dgc=ST&cid=41142&lid=1069631&acd=239715600720560&ven1=sdJDlyarF&ven2=e

i7 3.5ghz processor, 16GB RAM, 128 SSD drive + 1TB SATA drive, NVIDIA 960M 4GB graphics card

not really fussed about paying extra for the XPS 15 - though they look a bit fancier the inspiron seems to offer more bang for my buck

unfortunately knighty's dell outlet doesn't offer much of a discount in this case £999 brand new vs £971 for a refurbished one

  • Offline Dave

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Depends how much you want to lay down, the new range of Nvidia GTX cards for laptops look the nuts, http://www.techspot.com/article/1227-nvidia-pascal-geforce-gtx-10-mobile/ likely £££ though.

yeah they do... but I'll probs be OK with the current offerings tbh... I'm not *that* into games tbh... just I do want the ability to play them from time to time. Basically I've dabbled a bit with elite on the PC and I play GTA on the PS3 occasionally - GTA games + red dead redemption are the only reason I own a PS3 and Elite is the main reason I'll likely game on the PC occasionally... (would like to have a reasonable GPU though for other projects etc.. too - if I've got time to pick up CUDA)

  • Offline zpyder

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Re: High end laptops - Alienware etc.. any good? Experiences etc..?
Reply #5 on: September 04, 2016, 16:49:24 PM
Two years ago I started a new project that had the potential for lots of raw image processing in large batches. Was pretty told to choose what my work laptop would be. I opted for an alienware 17" as money wasn't an issue. I figured you might be able to get the same spec somewhere else for a bit less, but not sure on build quality and post sales support.

Well, the support was put to the test from day one, when they actually built the wrong spec machine. It had less ram and only 1 hard drive, when we'd basically opted for two drives and the highest quantity ram. They were very quick to send out a replacement built to the actual spec we had ordered though.

Laptop wise, there were two complaints. One of which was to be expected, which was weight/size. It was built like a tank, and weighed like one to. You definitely have to think of that kind of laptop as a desktop replacement, you can move it around a bit, but you'd not going to be able to easily carry it with you all day out and about.

The second complaint, the fans. As it was overclocked to the nth degree, it had some pretty obscene cooling. The problem was, there wasn't really any logic to the cooling. As soon as the laptop got remotely warm the fans would go full blast and they were pretty loud, to the point of annoying my colleagues in the evening when we were in the work accommodation. Other laptops I've used will throttle the cooling to suit.

Other than this, it was a rock solid performer, and easily outperformed similarly priced "desktop workstation laptops" in the 3D applications we were using. It was actually ridiculously faster, to the point that I'd have said the project productivity would have been 2x as much if they'd swapped to using the Alienware instead of sticking with the laptops they were using.



I'd actually recommend looking at the Lenovo high end gaming laptops. Just before xmas I bought a Y700 gaming laptop. It's the same size screen, but weighs half as much as the alienware, and is half as thick, and actually slightly smaller all-round. Spec wise it's not far off of the alienware, has a good screen, and cost just under £1000, as I managed to get it in a cashback deal + 10% off promotion. SO it should have been about £1300 or £1400 and ended up being about £980. The alienware on the other hand was about £2800. 

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  • Offline Clock'd 0Ne

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Re: High end laptops - Alienware etc.. any good? Experiences etc..?
Reply #6 on: September 05, 2016, 08:44:39 AM
Everyone is talking about the new Razer laptops, they are the absolute sh*t right now if you want a serious gaming laptop:

http://www.razerzone.com/gb-en/gaming-systems/razer-blade

  • Offline Dave

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Re: High end laptops - Alienware etc.. any good? Experiences etc..?
Reply #7 on: September 30, 2016, 02:11:50 AM
My priorities have changed somewhat, after looking at my course content and having a lecture on Wednesday where the course director basically said don't think about booking any holiday for the next year I don't think I'll have any requirement for this laptop to play games! Now I think I want something nice and robust, reliable, easily transportable and that I'll be happy working on for long periods of time.

My old macbook is a 13" as were my old dell workstation(s) - and thanks to the work laptops I didn't bother upgrading the mac

I decided to have a look in town today - John Lewis on Oxford street had a selection of laptops, the XPS 13 was on display and surprisingly compact, they also had the current macbook pros... as they were only a few meters apart I could walk between them and compare the keyboard, trackpads etc.. while the cases on both seem pretty robust the mac keyboard and trackpad are nicer, the XPS 13 was even a bit clicky. Unfortunately there was no XPS 15 on display. Had a look at a few other laptop brands but none really stood out.

I think I might get a new battery for my 2009 macbook and wait till October and potentially upgrade to a newly released macbook pro - probably a 13" one. In the mean time though I probably ought to find somewhere stocking the XPS15 to take a look at it, given how compact the XPS 13 is if the XPS 15 is about the size of a regular 13" laptop then it might be worth buying.

  • Offline Dave

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Re: High end laptops - Alienware etc.. any good? Experiences etc..?
Reply #8 on: December 26, 2016, 15:51:34 PM
After much faffing and deliberation I've placed an order for a shiny new 13" macbook pro, they just look awesome and it probably makes sense to just transfer everything over from my old macbook easily + I use an iphone 7, quite like OS X and would like to use textmate for programming etc.. I'm sure some autistic chap on here a few years ago claimed they were '3 times faster' too :D

Re: High end laptops - Alienware etc.. any good? Experiences etc..?
Reply #9 on: December 26, 2016, 16:35:16 PM
After much faffing and deliberation I've placed an order for a shiny new 13" macbook pro, they just look awesome and it probably makes sense to just transfer everything over from my old macbook easily + I use an iphone 7, quite like OS X and would like to use textmate for programming etc.. I'm sure some autistic chap on here a few years ago claimed they were '3 times faster' too :D

Well... I have a mid 2011 27" imac & it runs flawlessly for what I do. Maybe not 3x faster - but it certainly outlived any PC I have had 3x times longer!
I also have a 11" macbook air - but the screen is way to small to do anything without constantly needing to scroll up & down.
hope the 13" dont suffer form that problem.

  • Offline Dave

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Re: High end laptops - Alienware etc.. any good? Experiences etc..?
Reply #10 on: February 13, 2017, 17:02:24 PM
well I've not had any issues with it so far, quite please with it actually

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