Alienware M17x

Steamboateng, I have heared bad things about their customer service and quality after the Dell takeover.
Your experience with Digital Storm sounds good. Can you give us a link?
 
Digital Storm is a botique computer computer maker. Thy're on line at http://www.digitalstormonline.com/
These are the folks who told me (1 1/2 years ago) that if I pay more than $ 2k for a rig, then I'm buying eye candy!
They will guide you in choosng a practical machine for your wallet.
Every now and then is a 10% off sale.....Xmas time goes to 20% off for some models.
See what Alienware says about that!
 
Bob5446, how did you get the dual drives, I dont see an option for dual drives except for the RAID options.

One more question for you guys about the Hard Drives: What about a 500GB 7200RPM storage drive and a 64GB mSATA SSD boot drive. It says the boot drive is for the OS and commoly used programs. Is the 64GB SSD large enough for Win 7 and Trainz?


Paul
 
I also own a 17mx.

This laptop runs Trainz very well and is my portable system when I want to use Trainz while away from home. I got the earlier system with the ATI video card in it, and it works fine. The NVIDIA will be a nice card too, I'm sure. The system does run hot so ensure you have plenty of cooling for it.

I kept the RAID0, but I do backup my data often. The drives, by the way, are 7200 RPM and not the 5400s which are usually put in laptops.

So I can say that I am very pleased with my last year's investment and if I were to purchase another laptop, I'd go with the same brand and a similar model.

John
 
About the same configuration (3610QM, GTX 675m, 8 GB Ram, 17" display)
Sager: $1749 (60 GB SSD, 500GB HDD (7200rpm))
Alienware: $1946 (32 GB SSD, 500 GB HDD)
Alienware says: "4GB of memory is a good starting point for a gaming PC’s memory loadout. 4GB is sufficient to play most games at basic graphics and performance settings, while 16GB of memory will enable performance at higher settings for more intensive games and programs." It is bull****, no game today will use 16 GB RAM unless it is forced to do so. Maybe it is because all the preloaded crapware (Trials etc.). 8 GB is enough for gaming but if you do serious rendering or modelling or video/photo editing, 16 GB is usefull.
And finally some Alienware reviews: http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Alienware
I hope it helps.
PS: There are other companies like ASUS around.
 
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Thanks guys for all the help. I am going with the Alienware M17x when I get the money. The only bad reviews I have seen on Alienware are the ones TramDU1214 posted above and alot of those were for the M17x R3 model. The current model is the M17x R4. I am just not to fond of these smaller brands, I have never even heard of them before now. Like I siad I have a Dell Vostro 1500 that is close to 6 years old and have never had a minutes trouble out of it. It runs Trainz ok, but not very well.

Thanks Again
Paul
 
just for the record, i'm on my 3rd alienware computer, and might get a 4th. there never has been any bloat or "preloaded crapware" installed on them when i open the box. they normally don't have anything on the desktop except the benchmark results .txt and recycle bin. no trial software for silly isps or anything like that. unless something changed drastically i don't think you will get that. i have never had anything happen to them that wast a direct result of something i did myself.
 
If it is not the case it is fine, but it is rather uncommon for the large companies to give you a total clean Windows.
Now about the M17x configuration
CPU: I7 3610QM
RAM: 8GB (Dual channel)
Storage: 500/750 Hdd with 32 GB SSD for bootup
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
GPU: Nvidia GTX 675M
Personalization and other stuff is your choice.
Sums up to about $2K.
It is a lot of money.
Go for it if you want.
 
TramDU1214 said:
If it is not the case it is fine, but it is rather uncommon for the large companies to give you a total clean Windows.
Click to expand...

It may be that Alienware has retained it's 'boutique' roots in this regard. I agree that the large companies such as Dell and HP do include a lot of bloat, but the smaller companies like Alienware used to be, and the companies that primarily build for gamers have typically left the extras out.
 
Euphod said:
It may be that Alienware has retained it's 'boutique' roots in this regard. I agree that the large companies such as Dell and HP do include a lot of bloat, but the smaller companies like Alienware used to be, and the companies that primarily build for gamers have typically left the extras out.
Click to expand...

This is in fact true with the Alienware. The only thing they included on the system was Roxio which I removed because I don't like their software. Instead I installed CD-BurnerXP and ImageBurn. These are both burning programs, but ImageBurn has some better features like creating ISO files on a hard drive. :)

John
 
JCitron said:
This is in fact true with the Alienware. The only thing they included on the system was Roxio which I removed because I don't like their software. Instead I installed CD-BurnerXP and ImageBurn. These are both burning programs, but ImageBurn has some better features like creating ISO files on a hard drive. :)

John
Click to expand...

That makes sense though, as I'm sure they feel obligated to include some type of Burn software if the product was shipped with a CD or DVD drive. That's a far cry from a trial AOL subscription!:D
 
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