should I get an alienware?

[TJWhonley]

Hi guys,
I am a young adult on a fairly high budget (£900-1100)looking for a decent gaming laptop that I can run new games e.g BF3 Crysis 2 ect. on, needs to have good sound quality as music will hopefully be my eventual carrer, and needs to be portable enough to take to a mate's or on a local holiday ect.
I have been looking at an alienware m14x, with 2.2gh i7 processor, 8gb DDr3, 1.5 gb navida gpu, upgraded screen and better wifi tech, coming to around £1200. as you know this is a bit too much so if any of you could suggest any alternatives eg. different make, better website ect it would be mutch appreciated as I dont know where I am going to get £1.2grand from
any thaughts whatsoever welcome
thanks.

[Music Guy123]

I would recommend PCSpecialist have a look at their website here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

I would recommend them because their customer service is out of this world, their laptops are very well built and don't overheat the whole time like Alienwares. Also, they are much better value for money. Your gpu in that laptop is weak this guy bought one and regretted it: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums...highlight=m14x

This is a spec I would recommend, if you don't mind going higher price wise, let me know. Also, this is using a 17.3" screen, if this is too big to lug around, let me know, I can drop the screen but this laptop is very good value for money. Here it is:

Chassis & Display
SkyFire:17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080) Very good screen, don't really know how you are wanting to game on a 14" screen!
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2670QM (2.20GHz) 6MB V good cpu, same as your alienware one
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB) Plenty of RAM
Graphics Card
3.0GB nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 570M - DirectX® 11 This gpu is very, very good, it will leave the 555m in a trail of dust. The 555m isn't really great for gaming.
Memory - Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm) V fast drive with plenty of space
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 4 in 1 Card Reader (SDXC/MMC/MS/XD)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9) V good value for money
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & INTEL WIRELESS 802.11N CARD INC. BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 3 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
SkyFire Series 9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 0.72 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5) Essential, only a fiver but customer support from PCSpecialist is amazing.
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,106.00 including VAT and delivery. Less than your alienware and soooooooo much better!

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/skyFire/

Yes, you have posted on PCSpecialist's forum so you are thinking we are being biased towards this company. It isn't that, this is so much better value, if you are still unsure, I can prove it to you so much more, there are so many people who have had alienware's for a bit then have come here for an alternative or looking at alienware's and seen this site, believe me, it really is worth it!

[TJWhonley]

@musicguy123
thanks for the advice, but would it be good for me to upgrade the soundcard, seeing as this will have to probably last me through at least a-level music and also will the disk drive have support for blu-ray (not too mutch of an issue but it would be nice, i do already have a usb blu-ray player ect) and also how loong would the battery life last, as it is anoyying to worry about turning brightness down ect. also would the gpu be able to handle 3-D movies?
any comments appriciated thanks.

[Music Guy123]

The onboard sound should be good, don't forget the sound card is external. The internal speakers probably aren't great but the sound card should be fine. For your 3d movies, the gpu will cope, the screen won't be able to show it though I don't think. Yes, you can get an external blu-ray drive for it.

[ryafre496]

dont get alienware. they do you look great. but if your mainly gaming the gt555m will play them but requires some messing.
at this point in time im saving and selling my m14x to get a vortex 17inch with gt580m. i mainly game on laptop and desktop is out of the question.

[mantadog]

The spec posted by Music Guy is better than the alienware by quite some margin because of the GPU. It also works out cheaper which is also a boost. The reason Alienware is so much more is only because they need to pay for the advertising somehow, its just like any 'brand' the advertising makes you think it's better even though it's just not the case.

When i bought from PCS it was my first ever custom PC and i can understand whay you are a bit unsure. Everyone on here who has bough from PCS will say go with PCS. I could recount my experiance with 'brands' vs PCS but thats for another thread i think.

[A5ko]

As the current owner of an Alienware PC I DO NOT recommend them.

- The OS came pre-botched so I had to re-image it all from scratch. The laughable thing was the PC came with a 100 point inspection sheet which is your 'proof' the machine has met the high standards required. The second tick was "booting into windows". Quite how they managed to test anything past that was really... impressive.

- The GPU's fizzled out well before they should have.

- The cooling on the PS2 cases are shockingly bad. (Cases have altered but the cooling still looks poor).

- Very expensive for what you're getting.

On the plus side. It was a monster once I got it working but I regret spending so much on it for so little, when I could of gone elsewhere and got the same for a lot cheaper (like PCS).

[Wozza365]

Im afraid if you wanted 3D with a decent spec elsewhere you would be looking at £1500 minimum

it will play blu-ray fine though through your external drive as long as youve got software with the player

if you want improved HDD performance (ie bootup times) i recommend the 500GB Hybrid drive its much faster than a standard drive and is even faster than the velociraptors by a long way

[DeadEyeDuk]

In a word...



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[TJWhonley]

hi guys thanks for the comments.
can any of you give me a good idea of how easy it woul be for me to upgrade a skfire after purchase
any opinions from all skill levels welcome