Don't bother with the new alienware r5.

[smoth]

A while back my beloved m17 r4 was dropped. I had a full warrenty so I mailed it off a month ago to get replaced. However, they have marked it as end of life so I have no way to get another r4. That laptop was everything I wanted. I spent about 4.8k on the sonofabitch, it had all the bells and whistles short of the SLI because I was worried about power consumption.

I get a call telling me there are no available laptops to replace it so they will update me to the latest. I didn't like the look and it did not come in red but hey form over function right?


well, the new r5 came in monday and yesterday was the first chance I had to evaluate it to test out the hardware(it is a haswell ) honestly, it seems to run pretty well. So I began the hours of install work and went online to order the battery... why is there no battery order? flip it over, the bottom has no panel or button where i can get at the battery. YOU HAVE TO UNSCREW THE CASE TO GET AT IT! WTF.

what asshole would do that?!? then I take a closer look at the keyboard. IT IS THE DELL KEYBOARD! They replaced the old keyboard with their own. There is no dock where I can disable/enable wireless, adjust volume etc. GODAMNIT, the new alienware is a DELL!

So there you have it, don't get the new alienware!


so now I will wait a year or two for this madness to end so I can buy another laptop with a spare battery.


inbefore alienware/dell always sucked I LOVED the r4, they had a winner with that one and my dell before is excellent. Panda and I still use it.

so after my month of pain, my constant freeting ove what is wrong with my brain(which I am going for another MRI and a CTA scan today) I get this piece of shit "laptop" that I have to DISASSEMBLE every time I want to change the battery!

FML

"Their sales are gonna suck this time around. I'd say 70 percent of alienwares fans either don't like the design, or don't have the need to upgrade because the spec bump in hardware isn't suffient. Add to that the subtraction of the name plate, subtraction of the top right media buttons, 2 pipe instead of 3 for the GPU heat sink, and smaller battery, and over all we have an epic fail I think." I agree with this bloke

[Beherith]

Sucks to hear that, I only spent 350$ on my new lappy, but obviously our use cases differ.

Ebay it, get a different computer? It is practically brand new, no?

[smoth]

Can you really expect a reasonable return on a laptop via ebay? I have never sold something on ebay before? I mean I am trying to sell computer stuff on ebay

also how do you know you are getting scammed on ebay. I want to try and get a replacement for my old laptop but don't want to be scammed(because a replacement would cost a pretty penny)

[Forboding Angel]

If you need an extremely good yet cheap alternative, check out the Lenovo z585. I LURVE mine.

[Silentwings]

Yeah, I needed a new laptop recently and was disappointed by what Alienware was offering; I've also often bought from the high-end Dell business range before (and been happy with them) but it seems like Dell doesn't do customized stuff anymore :/.

In the end I bought from these guys: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk - can recommend them 100%. Idk if they've made it across the water though :p

[Johannes]

In the end I bought from these guys: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk - can recommend them 100%. Idk if they've made it across the water though :p

They're pretty surely europe only, but there's a ton of stores in US too selling customisable laptops based on the same Clevo chassises.

I got myself such a thing too last winter, from www.mysn.eu - and iirc it was a lot cheaper than what the same configuration would've costed with pcspecialist. Been satisfied so far.

[Silentwings]

Hmmm, well I couldn't resist trying the closest match to the config I bought into mysn & seeing if I could have got cheaper; turned out it cost almost the same. Does look like another good store though.

[PauloMorfeo]

Can you really expect a reasonable return on a laptop via ebay? ...

You can not expect reasonable return on any IT equipment anywhere, that's my perception.

... also how do you know you are getting scammed on ebay. ...

I think it was on these forums, where one of our «colleagues» posted «laughing» at how he scammed some dude (in Hawaii or Australia or New Zealand?) by selling him a broken laptop, and how he was saying the guy couldn't prove the laptop was his, and how the guy found out in the HDD his CV, photos of him and "countless upskirt photos".

(I guess the "upskirt photos" part made the thread ingrained in my memory)

[smoth]

yeah, I kept the thing. God I miss that r4 but no point compounding my loss by spending more money.

[REVENGE]

... also how do you know you are getting scammed on ebay. ...

I think it was on these forums, where one of our «colleagues» posted «laughing» at how he scammed some dude (in Hawaii or Australia or New Zealand?) by selling him a broken laptop, and how he was saying the guy couldn't prove the laptop was his, and how the guy found out in the HDD his CV, photos of him and "countless upskirt photos".

(I guess the "upskirt photos" part made the thread ingrained in my memory)

Thanks, I had to look that one up, hilarious!

Also smoth, you might only recover 70% of the retail price, but you could use that towards buying a less over-priced laptop.

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

[smoth]

Dell's site is having issues but this things doesn't even have an optical drive. I am not going that route. I don't trust razr for gaming laptop one of the AMAZING things about the r4 is that it was very cool sitting on my lap. Which is HELLA better than this thing will be when it starts overheating and crashing/underclocking it's self to maintain stability.

Sorry I understand your meaning but consider I spent a year + looking into the alienware and the r4 was my IDEAL machine. if the dell site was up I could do a full comparison of my current vs this but here are some key issues when comparing it to my r4
razr r4
14 vs 17 display and the 17 was 1080 instead of 1600x900
no optical drive on the rzr, I don't care about your opinion this is for me.
win 8 vs win7 home premium, is it just me or is microsoft giving manufacturers a discount of windows 8?
no offices vs office professional

the only advantage is the 765m over the 680 but my new alienware has a 780m..

and better ventilation. some people may not see that as an issue I actually did use my laptops outdoors where they get hot in the sun. It matters.

[REVENGE]

Dell's site is having issues but this things doesn't even have an optical drive. I am not going that route. I don't trust razr for gaming laptop one of the AMAZING things about the r4 is that it was very cool sitting on my lap. Which is HELLA better than this thing will be when it starts overheating and crashing/underclocking it's self to maintain stability.

Sorry I understand your meaning but consider I spent a year + looking into the alienware and the r4 was my IDEAL machine. if the dell site was up I could do a full comparison of my current vs this but here are some key issues when comparing it to my r4
razr r4
14 vs 17 display and the 17 was 1080 instead of 1600x900
no optical drive on the rzr, I don't care about your opinion this is for me.
win 8 vs win7 home premium, is it just me or is microsoft giving manufacturers a discount of windows 8?
no offices vs office professional

the only advantage is the 765m over the 680 but my new alienware has a 780m..

and better ventilation. some people may not see that as an issue I actually did use my laptops outdoors where they get hot in the sun. It matters.

Ah yes, I get it man. Weight and volume savings are not really high on your list of priorities. I would personally never buy any machine weighing more than 4 pounds these days, but there a lot of trade-offs when you try to cram gaming hardware into a small package.

The amount of heat you expose your lap to is actually rather important, I hope nobody tries to use the Razer as a "laptop", that heat is actually very bad for your genitalia.

[PicassoCT]

Is there a "Alieware can make you impotent" Disclaimer in the manual? Else, prepare the Lawsuit- and the Jurismobile, we have work todo

[Senna]

Buy a mac :D they are pretty cheap and faster than many table pc

[Das Bruce]

Buy a mac :D they are pretty cheap and faster than many table pc

Your lies hurt my brain.

[Silentwings]

After I bought my new laptop I went am found out how much I'd have paid for the same thing in 'mac' form... 2x more expensive

[Neddie]

I'm surprised you bought an Alienware in the first place.