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I get the idea from Phong that Alienware products are bad:

[16:01:06] Phong Nguyen: alienware BAD

Well, I got an email from them with a special deal on this product which I can get a nice chunk off of. But I need more details on Phong's remonstration. Why Alienware bad?

Overpriced. Massively. The systems can be gotten with the same specs for alot less through other avenues, so essentially you're paying a massive markup for a pretty corporate logo.

SirNitram wrote:Overpriced. Massively. The systems can be gotten with the same specs for alot less through other avenues, so essentially you're paying a massive markup for a pretty corporate logo.

Which avenues? I've bought from Dell for ages simply because I don't know how to tell if a mom-and-pop PC store is trustworthy, and can't seem to find anything approaching a reliable opinion on any major retailer.

If you build it yourself using the same specs you can get it much cheaper.

Ninja edit: Newegg.com is the best bet if you're going to do something like that.

Lagmonster wrote:Which avenues? I've bought from Dell for ages simply because I don't know how to tell if a mom-and-pop PC store is trustworthy, and can't seem to find anything approaching a reliable opinion on any major retailer.

Alienware laptops are rebranded Sager notebooks, IIRC.

Natorgator wrote:If you build it yourself using the same specs you can get it much cheaper.

Ninja edit: Newegg.com is the best bet if you're going to do something like that.

Do they ship to the middle east or just to the US?

DEATH wrote: Do they ship to the middle east or just to the US?

It may depend on what country exactly is involved, the US has restrictions on exporting computers and computer parts to a number of places in the world.

Dalton wrote:I get the idea from Phong that Alienware products are bad:

[16:01:06] Phong Nguyen: alienware BAD

Well, I got an email from them with a special deal on this product which I can get a nice chunk off of. But I need more details on Phong's remonstration. Why Alienware bad?

Not bad, expensive, plain and simple.

Alienware will give you a shit-ton of support options, a handy binder with every single iota of software installed on your PC from the factory, inculded backups of said software. Locking cases, spiffy badges, well wired chassies and everything else that would be "luxerey" if you were buying a car instead of a computer.

Seriously you could save $1000+, Alienware has a +10$ to +40$ markup to most items with some things(Video cards, CPUs and memory) getting +100$ markups in cost.

Natorgator wrote:If you build it yourself using the same specs you can get it much cheaper.

Ninja edit: Newegg.com is the best bet if you're going to do something like that.

Problem is they don't ship outside the US (excluding US military bases). Sucks since they do have very nice prices.

So does anyone have any newegg like sites that ship overseas (for me, anything shipping to Canada would be appreciated)

Don't all countries have local cheap sources? I can go to shopbot.com.au and get shit for only slightly more than wholesale + tax.

phongn wrote:

Lagmonster wrote:Which avenues? I've bought from Dell for ages simply because I don't know how to tell if a mom-and-pop PC store is trustworthy, and can't seem to find anything approaching a reliable opinion on any major retailer.

Alienware laptops are rebranded Sager notebooks, IIRC.

They are. I convinced a friend of mine to acquire one, and it's identical to a high-end Alienware except sans the cheesy logos and inflated price.

Don't all countries have local cheap sources? I can go to shopbot.com.au and get shit for only slightly more than wholesale + tax.

The only place I've seen is Tiger direct - and no one I know has used them, so I'm leary. If anyone on this board has experience with these guys, please let me know.

Don't go alienware, you're paying for the name, always!
Best gaming laptops hands down are those made my Sager (Clevo).
Check out www.pctorque.com.

I've acutally heard a lot of bad stuff about alienware machines, to be honest. Co-worker of mine two summers ago got one of their gaming machines, games crashed the computer, heh.
Really, alienware is a big fancy name. That's a pretty crummy machine for 800, and would take another $300-$400 to bring it up to acceptable levels (p-m, 512 ram, sizeable HD). And if you are interested in gaming... you don't want that laptop; something with even an x600 can be had for hardly a bit more.
No no, that is not a good machine to buy.

If you don't want to put it together yourself, iBuyPower's markup is a fraction of Alienware's, and I've heard good things about them. Personally, I hate setting up and troubleshooting computers, and am more than willing to pay an extra couple hundred not to have to.

If you're going to do it yourself, avoid Tigerdirect. Good prices are a smoke screen for terrible support and a high tendency to ship the wrong product and refuse to make restitution, etc.

You should also consider purchasing a dell should you find a good coupon. I recently had to make such a purchase once, and the motivating factor in favor of dell turned out to be a coupon which saved me over $750. The site I found it on was techbargains.com.

ya, if you watch www.slickdeals.org like a hawk, you can find a pretty sweet deal on a dell machine. However the gossip over there is that such deals are sort of on their way out...

Another thing to consider is the cooling system. Alienware has an excellent, extremely efficient water-cooling system that never even needs to be changed. And from what I've heard from friends that do the DIY thing, cooling systems are not easy.

You're thinking of their uber $5000 desktop I think...

Natorgator wrote:If you build it yourself using the same specs you can get it much cheaper.

Ninja edit: Newegg.com is the best bet if you're going to do something like that.

Originally I was going to buy an Alienware this go around, but I built my own instead. I wish I had gone with the Alienware. First of all, finding the parts for this rig, and doing research to make sure everything was going place nice together, cost me a ton of time (60 to 80 hours over two months). Using the rate that my employer pays me as the cost of my time, plus the cost of the parts, I could have gotten the super duper Alienware water cooled rig. If I use the rate my employer charges the government/prime contractor for the projects I work on, I could had thrown in another monitor (of the 24"+ size).

And then the machine cost a me weekend to set up, and then another day total in debugging it, swapping cases (because my first case didn't cool like the reviews said it would) and replacing a bad motherboard.

And now my nVidia driver seems to like to play hide and seek with my second video card! This sucks! (yeah, I would had have this problem with a computer built by anyone, but stacked on top of the other issues I've had to resolve, I'm seriously pissed off).

And next time, I'm either getting an Alienware or a Dell XPS, because time is too valuable to be wasted on shit like this.

Also, if you want overpriced, check out Falcon Northwest or Voodoo PC. If a $10k gaming rig, Voodoo has/had it.

One of the better reviews THG has done recently is look at Alienware, Voodoo and the like, the results from Alienware were dissapointing, bad water block work, too much OCing.

Death, I checked for a friend a year back, Alienware.co.uk does ship here...for alot extra.

Totally ignoring whatever anyone has previously said in this thread:

Alienware isnt "Bad" they are just way overpriced...
Alienware is actually a very good company...Very pretty
On the other hand, you can build something yourself, and it would be MUCH cheaper than buying ANY prebuilt computer....

Your best bet, if you dont know what you are doing, is to buy the parts seperately, and go to somewhere like best buy or comp usa and have them build the computer for you.

Nothing against anyone in this thread, but it always kind of irks me when people ask for recommendations on a prebuilt system and there's a clamor of voices saying "build it yourself!" Not everyone wants to make that kind of time investment to save one or two hundred dollars, and not everyone wants to have to learn a new skill when they could pay a modest markup to have someone else worry about it. Not to mention that it's essentially a thread hijack.

Look, buying an alienware is like trying to solve a problem by throwing money at it. Computers break, shit happens, no matter how much money you put into them. So, I would perfer to buy from www.cyberpowerinc.com, expect a dead powersupply in the first year (heard the bad power supply story from some, and experienced it myself), but get pretty much the best deal on the internet, with insurance, with some level of support (look, everyone's tech support sucks, okay?), and have money to spare.

My dream machine is currently configured at $1000 bucks over there, it's got an x2 3800, a gig of ram, a 7800gt, an Asus or Gigabyte sli motherboard, and when I do get it, I'll buy myself a power supply and swap it out first day.
Alienware's comparable setup is 2grand. I don't need things like an optical drive or a hardrive, or software, but for argument's sake, if I did, add, maybe $100 bucks to the mix (maybe $150 if you need winXP).
It's nearly twice the money for the same machine, it's a little more perfessionally done, it's got a lower % chance to give you a problem, but the price difference, for me, is just too great. If the machine breaks, I'll fall back on another computer till the new one is fixed, sucks but that's there over $800 went.

Of course if you have loads of money why are you skimping, everyone knows voodoo and falcon-nw make much more expensive computers, geeze

Thank you all for your opinions. I have decided to hold off on a laptop system for now. However, this one I can get for about $800 because of the rebate. Would that change any opinions?

I'd say $800 is a real good deal, considering my stepdad's bottom of the barrel Dell laptop cost over $600.

Also, recent experence has taught me that more you pay for a computer, the more of a headache it will become.