For a lab top. 1280 x 100, 1680 x 1050 or 1920 x 1200? Big Diff? Thanks!

**Proletariat** · 12-22-2005, 05:51

Why did you choose Alienware? Everything I've read on them seems to agree that while they are good computers, they cost about two to three times what anyone else would charge for the exact same specs.

Anyway, just keep enough change to take the rest of us plebs out for a drink afterwards, Rockefeller.

**KukriKhan** · 12-25-2005, 14:33

2 to 3 times is a bit exaggerated.

Their attraction was:
portability
compatibility
upgrade-ability

Portability, of course, is intrinsic to laptops.

Compatibility, meaning: able to meet all specs (especially game specs) right out of the box, and for a significant time (2 years) thereafter. Agreed, other manufacturers meet that criteria too, for a price.

Upgrade-ability: the big selling point. Most laptops don't upgrade like desktops do (except, sometimes, for RAM). Alienware makes (or rather, works with the component manufacturers, to make) the vid card, processor, and RAM upgradeable, so that when the original hardware no longer meets the "compatibility" test (about 2 years), that/those components can be swapped/upgraded for much less than the price of a whole new rig, which the way laptops were upgraded before Alienware.

Made economic sense to me. But, we'll see when upgrade time comes about a year from now. I may have been wrong.

They have great customer service (equivilent to Dell's of 2002-2003 fame).

They could have 'kept' the illuminated alien eyeballs on the lid, for my taste.

My only problem with the machine, over the past year, has been heat...but I've learned to compensate.

**Krypta** · 12-25-2005, 18:41

Although, I recently just bought a Powerbook G4 laptop for myself, I was considering buying an Alienware laptop. For PC's, Alienware machines have a reputation for making excellent gaming machines.

OT @ Kukrikhan:
Just out of curiosity Kukri, my G4 laptop runs about 45-50 C/113-120 F while doing normal work and maybe pushes 55 C while running proc intensive apps. How hot does your Alienware get, why was it running hot and what did you do to compensate/resolve it ?

**KukriKhan** · 12-27-2005, 15:53

About 120F, under 'normal' load, and up to about 135F on graphics-intensive strain. Above 139F, windows commits suicide, rather than let the hardware suffer (that is: it crashes itself and does an emergency/abbreviated shut-down).

It was happening with annoying frequency last summer, when the ambient temp was already in the high 90's. But the real problem was: air circulation. I learned to weekly pull out the battery & DVD player module (to expose more of the inside), carefully blow compressed air thru the inside; and to daily check the intake fan grating, to clear off dust & hair debris (we have cats). Finally, bought an after-market dual-fan, forward-tilting platform for under the laptop at its "home" location (where I do most game-playing).

I looked at water-cooled under-laptop platforms too, but they cooled the center of laptops, not the outside corners, where my vid-card & proc live.

Link to the product I bought:http://www.hardwarecooling.com/produ...tebook_Cooler? $40 when I got it in July, $25 now, $100 originally. There are better (more fans, side exhaust, etc) now.

I anticipate gaming laptops will run faster, cooler, and longer soon with advances in cooling, battery & threading technology. After years of lugging desktop towers, monitors, keyboards & mice (+all those cables) to LAN parties/living room frag fests, I think the industry is begining to 'get it': if we'll schlep 80 pounds of desktop, we'll put up with up to about 15 pounds of laptop, too, that we can un-hook from power & 'net, pack in 2 minutes, and 'move out'.. The 3-pound airport-friendly (but super-delicate) laptop for the travelling salesman will get replaced by a Blackberry-type product, that relies more on communications ability, than graphics & app processing.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. :)

**Fragony** · 12-27-2005, 16:45

Originally Posted by Krypta

Just out of curiosity Kukri, my G4 laptop runs about 45-50 C/113-120 F while doing normal work and maybe pushes 55 C while running proc intensive apps. How hot does your Alienware get, why was it running hot and what did you do to compensate/resolve it ?

Well we all know how much sexier apple is, except the onces that don't