AW haters

Might be so......but we have cold beer!

 

I don't know what it would entail on AW's part to reincarnate that process, or if it would even be worth it....but there might be a selling point here...and for the purchaser, some reassurance that the device had been thoroughly tested and burned in....to a minimum benchmark standard.....

 

I'm at a loss about what is so much pricier about AWs than about Sagers. I thought the chassis played a major role, but laptop chassis don't cost that much; then the warranty, but we get one year standard warranties; then the design, but it isn't so custom anymore... For the workstations, you can hand-wave it: three year standard warranty, ProSupport, spill-resistant keyboards, professional-grade GPUs, ISV certification for applications, more customization options, and (presumably) better design. But AWs cost as much as workstations for similarly-priced components. (It might be an economies-of-scale issue, but I'm not sure if Dell sells substantially more Precisions than AWs, and AW's prices are often so much higher for similar hardware and warranty coverage that Dell could buy a chassis with the difference.) Vendors like Mythlogic have more stringent QA and charge less.

 

I spoke with mythlogic, they are a bunch of nice guys. It was either them or AW. To be honest a company their size can offer those kind of personal touches. We all want one "our company of choice" to be better in one way or another. MYTH's price came out about the same or a little more than my similar specs 18. Ultimately in the end it is a clevo/sager. Not saying that's a bad thing, just not the quality and built for my taste. But for AW to implement those type of testing procedures would be very ineffective financially and time consuming adding atleast another week to build times that people already complain about. I mean when you have literally hundreds of orders per day for a gaming laptop vs the few a day some smaller companies get.... AW use to do this in their early days but I'm sure they didn't have the load then that they do now.

 

Dell sells a LOT more Precisions to corporate clients than you may think. At our company, we have a rather large fleet (200+) of 6400s and 6700s, and we're not huge.

The costs really come from the chassis (which is higher quality; around the rigidity of a Precision/EliteBook) and the R&D. Because they've left Clevo/Sager as their main developer and supplier (before Dell bought them), they've had to have their own component designs, from the motherboard to the bluetooth card.

 

For sure! Before I started my own technology firm I use to work for Corp. IT at Eaton Cutler-Hammer. We had a contract with Dell that was pretty amazing. We created images with different software loads (autocad engineers, Inventor 3D modelers, electrical guys etc etc). I ordered thousands of PC's through our partner page and i just put a check mark by the load and type PC for the department and it came imaged with all our custom settings and software installs. Even all our plotters etc. I easily ordered 5-8 million dollars a year in hardware from Dell.

 

Hmm, such a shame Clevo stopped producing the x8100 (18,4"). Would realy love to have it with an i7 Quad Core and an 780M.

 

One thing I hate from clevo is the god awful battery life, its like they cheap out on all the surface mount components and various Motherboard ICs to bring down the BOM. For a gaming laptop, Alienware seems to do a better job here. Plus touchpads and keboards on clevos are a total crapshoot.

 

It's funny, because they actually use some better components in their mobo designs than Alienware, nevermind completely trumping Alienware by offering an X79 LGA2011 chipset in their flagship product

The battery life issue is actually a selling point, because they offer true gaming laptops without the headaches of Optimus and Enduro. (The M18x series has always been without this issue, though, as they're manual mux switches. The 14 and 17 series' haven't been so lucky.) Besides, how often do you use your $2k-5k gaming laptop without being plugged in?

Have you tried one of their keyboards/touchpads in the last two-three years? They're brilliant. Mind you, I have mine modded to an MSI chiclet backlit keyboard, which is amazing. (Not to push Mythlogic again, but they're the only reseller that will install one for you.) If the AW had the option of a chiclet keyboard, I'd be much happier.

 

I believe that only the dual GPU Clevos lack Optimus, and the AW 14 and 17 have options to disable the Intel GPU.

Out of curiosity, which components of Clevo mobos are better?

 

Often the sound chipset, network chipset, and FireWire controller. Nevermind the fact that they have an LGA2011 mobo and AW doesn't.

 

What sound chipset do they use on the Clevo?

 

Still Realtek, but they typically use better sounding, better filtered, or higher model/newer chipsets. I can pull the model off my NP9150 later if you're interested in comparing model to model SNR and etc.

EDIT: I should mention that 'better sounding' is a completely subjective thing, and sound chipsets are hard to compare. I've found that with my M17x R3 and M18x R2 vs my D900f and NP9150, that the Clevos are fuller in sound, as if they cover a broader range of frequencies.

 

The sound in my 9370 SUCKED compared to my 18. I think my 14 even sounds a little better..

 

I remember seeing complaints about the clevo sound while I was shopping. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but anyone with a basic understanding of physics knows you really can't expect much from a laptop, even a giant 18inch one, just given its basic size limitations.

 

It's worthwhile to note that I'm NOT talking about the speakers in the machine. The AW speakers have always been better, which is kind of funny since Clevo advertises that they use Onyko speakers. If you use your laptops built-in speakers as your yardstick for quality, the AW will win hands down.

I'm talking about the inputs/outputs (Line/Mic/Headphone/SPIDF) and internal mechanics quality (SNR, bit depth, DSP, freq range), which matters a significant amount more for people like me who are audiophiles, and/or use their laptops to drive meeting spaces. (Projector/Sound)

 

And that right there comepletely negates your point on the better audio chipset. Clevo's always had inferior speakers. You can have the best sound card on the planet. It won't make cheap speakers sound any better.

 

Hybrys, I have visions of your sound room with 6 foot racks of bridged Brystons and Crowns pushing Infinity QLS or Ohm Fs . ( I know..I know....I'm a heretic for even suggesting solid state).....you would have tubes ( or valves, as Meaker would say)....

 

Why would it negate my point? My ENTIRE point of a better chipset is that the outputs are of higher quality, including the SPDIF output, which is what someone might use with a high end setup. (Though most would use a USB transport) I also use the outputs to drive headphones and speaker systems when I'm on the road, or in meeting spaces.

If you define quality by the laptops speaker, you're not the same as me.

Something like that. Bryston 4Bs w/ homemade speakers for the home setup, but I'm more of a can guy, with AKG K1000s, SRH-940s, etc.

If you want a good laugh, google an image of the AKG K1000s!

 

Wow!!...I can honestly say that I did not realize they even existed. That is quite the concept. I alternate between open and closed cans, as the mood strikes (mainstream stuff..Senns, etc)...but nothing so esoteric as those....I would suspect that you are the only character on the block with a set of those! Is there much bone conduction, if any?

 

Heard the AKG K1k. Rather interesting headphones. Very futuristic design in its time, but nowadays the orthodynamic and electrostatic stuff is getting ahead. I'm more of an electrostatic can guy. The SR-009 comes close to perfection in my book (haven't heard the Sennheiser HE90 aka Orpheus, but one can't really buy it anyway now).

If I could have the front left and front right headphones in this pic, I'd be satisfied.
(courtesy of Stax mafia)

Regarding the audio chipset, both the AW and Clevo will only have average quality stuff. It's Realtek level of chipset at best. You're not gonna see Wolfson DAC, and no way would any laptop manufacturer put stuff like the 32 bit ESS Sabre DAC into the laptop. And unless the maker of the chipset is some serious company like Wolfson, any measurements they provide are optimistic at best. Computer is inherently noisy. And whatever good SNR or low THD on the chipset is only to get worse when it reaches the output stage.

No bone conduction involved. The design was meant to simulate how speakers would sound, you can adjust the angle in which the drivers open, which creates a diffused sound. In principle, it's somewhat similar to the Stax SR-Σ, nowadays a relatively rare headphones.

Stax SR-

Another weird looking headphones is the Jecklin Float Model II.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Jec...AelzoGQAg&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=989&dpr=1

Sennheiser is good, very good indeed. Very good of matching in their drivers, as many measurements have shown. For Senn stuff, I'd say go for HD600/650 (or the HD 598, which is a bit cheaper but also good sounding), and if you want better stuff, skip the HD 700, go straight for the current flagship HD 800.

I really hope they make a successor to the Senn HE90 (currently the most expensive headphones, due to lack of availability).

 

If you added up the MSRP of all of those cans...you could probably buy a couple of decked out AW18s...

 

Dayum, those are some nice cans.

 

Ahhh...mmmmm.....errr...nah....fuggeddaboutit.....bite my tongue.....



Latest in cans?

 

I love my AKG K1000s, but you have to be in the mood for something that airy. They don't do rock/punk/electronica any justice, and that's been a bit of my wheelhouse lately. Lately I just stick to my portable setup of uDAC2 + SRH-840s. I'm unfortunately low end at the moment (I like to buy and sell on Head-Fi, usually, and I've got next to nothing at the moment), and your post just makes me want to change that.

I actually haven't even had a chance to listen to some Electrostats yet. A nice Stax setup will set you back a good $800-$2000. Orthos have been good to me, though. Tried the LCD2 for a month or so, and I made my own TP-1 (Fostex T50 w/ Thunderpants mod) which sound brilliant. I love a nicely warm mid, so the TP-1 paired with the low end Woo Audio amp... Amazing.

I get what you're saying about the chipsets, and they are indeed both woefully low end compared to a Wolfson or any Sabre-32 based DAC. But, for my non-audiophile uses, it works out fine, and I've had better luck with Clevos than AWs in that regard.

I'd also disagree with you about the mid end Senns. I'd recommend the Shure SRH series over them in a heartbeat, just for the value. Get an SRH-840 and compare it to the Senn 600s, or SRH-940 vs Senn 650s, and you'll be surprised. The Senns are open, so you'll get a more dynamic soundstage, and most likely better highs. but they're too clinical; not very fun.

 

I prefer the headphones to be as transparent as it could, which is why I like Stax over anything else. Speaking of transparency, you can actually see through the drivers on most electrostatic headphones. It's nothing much except 2 electrodes and a thin film diaphragm deposited with some gold on it. Sometimes there's a layer of thin sponge to keep the dust away. And if you wave your hand over the driver when you're listening to it, you can actually hear the backwave reflection of the sound off your hand. That's what I call true transparency. True to the source.

A proper Stax Omega Mk1 will cost at least 2500, and a proper SR 009 will cost at least 4000. I once had the Stax 507 and then Stax Omega Mk1, but now I have sold both of them, saving up for the SR 009. Haven't heard the Shure yet but maybe one day I will. Even then, nothing will win me over the Stax. It's that close to perfection, you have to go to one of those meet up and audition the 009.

Also what I love about electrostatic stuff, is the lack of choice of headphones and amps. Less stuff means easier to choose.

The CSD plot of the SRH 840 is not bad, except for the sharp ringing at 5kHz. Shure SRH840 Frequency Response and CSD Waterfall Plots. For the most part it doesn't affect people, unless one listen attentively for it, but I am rather sensitive to any ringing at 5kHz range. I am not inclined to spend more money on mid range stuff nowadays, as they are just different flavors. Oh wait it's a closed can. I don't like closed back headphones. If I want isolation, I go for my ER4-S with custom eartips. It isolates so much that if I have music on, I wouldn't hear a truck driving by me. I'd only know it from the vibration on the road. It's also very comfy, and I could wear it for 12 hrs without much problem. People, go get custom molded tips for your earphones!

At the price range of SRH 840, I think the Audio Technica M50 is a competition to it.

The Thunderpants is indeed a very good headphone. Very very good. It's quite a bit lighter than the LCD-2, but both being orthodynamic cans they have that flat powerful bass. The wub wub and thump thump become very satisfying listening to those.

The Sennheiser HE90 is the truly crazy one, with price upwards of 20k as of now. It's expensive because of its exclusivity, since only 300 were made. http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/01/dsc03458-1357769953.jpg

For something made in the 90s, it's ahead of its time. The response is one of the flattest and cleanest I have ever seen, better than Sennheiser's current flagship HD 800. Sennheiser Orpheus HE90 Frequency Response and CSD Waterfall Plot Measurements

The headphones situation is similar to Alienware. In my view, the current AW 18 is good, but it could actually be made to be much better. We need higher quality IPS screen that doesn't have image burn in issue, we need proper BIOS, and proper fan table for the fans, and we need more efficient use of space in the 18. It's possible to fit 4 2.5" drives inside, but there's no SATA connector for it. The cooling could have been better by linking all of the heatsinks with more copper pipes.

 

Wish I had an alienware laptop. The only prob is weight and portability.

 

Just suck it up and carry it. It's well worth it

 

With all due respect, and certainly;..... tongue in cheek.......that is like saying " I wish I had a Viper ACR; the only problem is the amount of luggage space and no room for a baby seat".......

Interestingly enough, I have a set of SRH440s that I use as "beaters" and carry with me in my travels....work reasonably well and won't break the bank if something untoward happens or I lose them. Feel considerably more solidly constructed than the Senns. The feed cord for the Senns hasn't survived traveling and handling very well....gone thru 3 of them....

 

I used to really like clinical and open headphones, but I've gotten out of the business more and more, and decided I want something fun. TP-1s w/ a tube amp = glorious bloated mids, gorgeous female vocals. SRH-840s with my Schiit Valhalla = bloated bass and low-mid for that good 'thump'. That's why I got away from my Bryston 4B rigged AKG K1000s. So airy and open, but clinical and 'dry'. Not much fun to it unless I'm listening to classical or binaural recordings.

That said, once I pick myself up out of debt, I might try some Stax. They're quite legendary, and to call myself a headphone lover and to have never tried them is nearly blasphemy.

The plot on the SRH-840 is actually a lot better than I thought. Oddly enough, I don't hear that 5k ring, at all, on a sweep or pink tone, or in any music I know hits those ranges hard. Mine are very well matched drivers, though. Not perfect, but a fair bit better than those.

The HE90 are legendary, and I've dreamt of having a pair of those with that DIY Blue Hawaii amp. ( http://www.headamp.com/electrostat_amps/bhse/images/bhse_gray_high.jpg) I do wish Senn would come out with another forward thinking headphone, instead of that weird HD700.

 

I really wish to have one! The only problem is that they are way overpriced in my country. I don't care about space, all my previous cars have been two seats.

 

I also would like to have one.....I don't have enough money!...by the time I saved enough money for a Viper ACR. I would be too old to drive it......or...the car would be too old to be driven.....either way...I lose.

 

With tech though you always get trickle down so even if you can't afford the highest end, down the line you will see benefits.

 

I'm QUITE pleased with my M17x-R4. Very well built, very well configured, included a Windows 7 DVD, was almost a clean install to begin with, Dell has the manuals for replacing parts online, it has serious cooling power, good quality screen and keyboard, love that the drive is slot loading, HDMI-in is a cool idea, being able to disable Optimus is cool, and unlike an HP I'm messing with an a Samsung I had to fix, Dell/Alienware seem to have actually implimented UEFI/BIOS mode well.

My only real complaint with them is they're no longer configurable enough. Hmm, and I for some reason have to unplug and replug my line-in every time I boot the system for it to be recognized, that's not great. But mostly I love it, and it's my favorite notebook ever.

 

If alienware had a plainer design I would have bought one over my sager. Can't carry one of those ugly things to meetings.

ttalk

 

This is why I now own a Sager. If they offered a plain lid on the AW 17/18, I might have gotten one myself.

 

Meh I had the same issue too, I was eyeing the AW14 for a long time, the only "small" gaming laptop sporting a DisplayPort. Then I saw the weight and the design, and went with the w230st. Guess you can't have everything

 

I cannot say that I see the point of things like the alien head, LED light strips and backlit touchpad. They add to cost and the sense of cheapness at once.

 

Guys, those are only your opinions and not everyone shares them. Many of us specifically appreciate those things about these machines and would be unhappy without them. Personally, I think they add value to the overall experience and distinguish them as being superior to cheap laptops that lack those extra features. I was unhappy about the new Alienware laptops appearance being toned down. I still like them a lot, but they lack some of the pizzazz that I loved about the previous Alienware look.

It is impossible to please everyone all of the time and if they were to try to do that it would backfire on them. They might win a few newbies and in the process "alienate" many of their most loyal long-term customers if they made them ordinary looking like a Clevo. In this soft market, doing things that might result in a loss of repeat business and harm brand loyalty is a greater risk than taking chances and experimentation on trying to drum up new business.

Let's face it. If you set aside the benefits to owning a Alienware product (superior build quality, service, warranty, etc) and look at the underlying hardware they are all Intel, NVIDIA, AMD components with like or similar internals. If you take away what makes them aesthetically unique, there is not much left to sell to the people that have always loved theirs or always wanted one. I think that would be a very unintelligent move on their part.

 

I'm not a fan of the alien head logo, but the styling probably isn't as bad as you think. You can turn off the light on the alien, turn off the alienware logo on the screen, turn off extraneous lights, and like I just have some mild blue lighting on the keyboard (and forget that you even can make it ridiculous).

The styling really isn't as ridiculous as it looks in picture at first. In person it just feels/looks like a solid well built notebook, at least the last gen M17x-R4. It's not REALLy any more ridiculous than anything else, I mean what is an Apple logo? Anyway at this point it just means "High-end Dell".

I really do get the sentiment, but that's not stopping me from using it and in practice I think it looks more "solid/high end" than silly....so long as you don't have disco pulsing lights going I suppose lol

EDIT: Oh, and the touchpad...I haven't seen the new models yet, but at least on the M17x--R4 it's just lighting to make it easy to see in the dark, and like all the lights can be changed/disabled.

Personally I'd rather ditch the lights save for maybe a soft single color backlight, if it would save money, but in terms of looking ridiculous you can make it look normal. Heck, my mechanical keyboard I'm typing on now is glowing green lol

 

I think you might have a point. They're not really a selling point for me, BUT the systems are...well it's like they're designed for me specifically. Everything now is focused on being cheap, and on being tiny. Cooling on notebooks is horrible. Blu Ray's being dropped to shave 0.03" off a chasis, screens are bad, BIOS' are poorly written, GPUs are non-existant or bad.

Alienware is like the exact opposite. They're well built and to me don't seem "big"-mine seems sleek to me if anything, even next to my Macbook Air, but it does feel solid and sturdy and well built. It's near-bloatware free out of the box, includes discs, has amazing cooling, has slot loading Blu Ray drives. Just everything about it seems premium and well designed, like a real PC for power users or people who just don't want to mess with junk.

Anandtech's been referring to them as the gold standard (if not in those words) and I totally agree, with or without the styling lol

Ugh, just wish I could add Blu Ray and a 780m to the base $1500 model lol (And I do wonder if the current 14" model's cooling holds up to the quality of the 17/18" models. I remember two generations back it wasn't supposed to be that great, seems like it only had a single fan system or something.)

 

Given that many (if not all) of the internal parts (CPU, GPU, RAM, SDD, HDD) of most laptops can be found in, or sourced for, most of the laptop manufacturers/resellers.....for me...it becomes a personal decision as to how I want to visually represent the power/speed capabilities of my laptop.

For my lappy....I wanna be in your face...hence the AW18........for my car, .....I don't want to let on until you realize that you've just been spanked...

 

I guess I'm sour because I've read too much about failure rates and AW hate. Now I associate all of the accoutrements with low quality. Eh. I would pay a bit more for peace of mind.

 

And if I may be so impertinent as to suggest.....that these forums (indeed any computer forum) are probably not representative of the true quality of the build/reliability of any laptop/computer. I would humbly suggest that these forums are representative, at best, of less than 20% of the total laptops/computers sold by any manufacturer.

Indeed, if you sit back, and dispassionately analyze the types of members/posters.....well, let us look at this forum (M18/AW18)......the hardcore benchers, hardcore gamers, technical gurus (all working together to help..) newbies, techopeasants (myself), and last, but not least, those with issues/problems with their machines.

How many individuals lurk, learn, purchase and live happily ever after...never having posted anywhere?....never having an issue?....We will never know. Nor will we know how many total lappys/computers have been sold by any manufacturer...we will never truly know the problem/failure rate for any machine.

I, by my own admission, don't know total numbers of anything, I'm just suggesting 20% as a ballpark...so please don't flame my derriere....but any problems/issues with any machine tend to be concentrated in a machine specific forum and (to my way of thinking) tend to be amplified beyond representative within that forum.

Just remember to have a few grains of salt around when reading about failure rates/hate in any forum.....

 

That's the thing. I really like the look of the Alienware, and if I was shopping for a desk only DTR, I would have a maxed AW 18 in a second. I went with Sager because I can pull it into a meeting room, and have it look like a regular laptop, instead of being recognized as a gaming beast.

They are really similar enough that the choice came to aesthetics. If I wanted something supreme and reliable, disregarding aesthetics, I would have been more than willing to spend the large amount more.

And I understand all that, but that's hours of extra work that I shouldn't have to put into it. I've even made mods before for other laptops to blend into the backing, but cover the logo, and I bet I could've done that with a couple hours, and a few more dollars. But why put that much effort into something that should be offered baseline?

I would love it if they offered a 'cap' that was basically a super thin adhesive product to fill over the alien head.


Regardless of all of this, I love Alienware, and I would own one quickly if I left this job. The failure rates aren't any higher than Sager, I'd think.

 

The internet and forums specifically in general are places for people to get help, complain or bash. I is a very rare occasion someone seeks out forums to praise a product. I found this place because I was googling for specific answers about sli notebooks before I purchased last year and googling reviews of resellers.
I have never been apart of a forum like this. I use to belong to notebookforums, guess my account is still there. 10 years ago when I bought my first AW thats the place I found when my machines was not working when i first got it. Met some good people there and some HARDCORE AW fans. AW could do no wrong, no matter what! Great place though.
NBR forums IMO are in a class its own. So many people willing to help, give advice and share (for the most part). Each brand having its own group of members that help tremendously. Its amazing the camaraderie of AW owners here. Dont see it as much with other brands IMO...
The new designs and performance and support AW has now is unmatched. Ive owned just about every make of laptop there is over the years, AW has done an outstanding job in keeping this niche going and helping revive the pc gaming market.

 

@pathfindercod: I agree with that sentiment, a lot.

I had this strangely freaky experience yesterday where I was thinking about the fact that I really want to carry my beast around with me more, but I really can't, not only does it get very heavy on the shoulders after about 30 minutes, but the backpack I'm using right now (a very nice case-logic birthday present), although It's holding up admirably, was clearly never designed with this kind of behemoth in mind, and every time I set it down I worry about either the straps snapping when I'll pick it up or me bashing the machine by letting it down too fast.
So I was considering the option of a somewhat lighter single-gpu machine... until it hit me, that I absolutely would not be able to tolerate (at least in the beginning) any drop in GPU performance. Yea, I'd be able to tolerate a slower CPU, though that isn't even a issue since I could get thinner machines with a more powerful CPU, but... my problem is that I already have a behemoth machine with dual-gpu's. In order to upgrade, I'd need to move onto m18x or AW18 (which are really TOO BIG for me), or a Clevo P37xxM machine (and god, do I find it fat and ugly in pictures... although I do wish I had somewhere I could see one live), or... downgrade to a single-GPU 780m.

And even doing that, I'd want to overclock the living daylights out of it, otherwise I wouldn't be able to tolerate the performance drop (I'm already dipping under 60fps in many of the games I play at the detail settings I play at - Crysis 3 1920x1200 Very High SMAA x2 even commits blasphemy by dipping to 47fps average ).
And then there's the problem of losing the screen... which is truly, truly a thing I find no compensation for.

So, right now I'm stuck I can't think of a single system I'd really want to move to until and unless some more powerful single-GPU's become available... and I can picture wanting to run them dual, hehe.

And the machine I'm stuck on, you can see in my sig

 

I can narrow that.
I work as a Computer Technician.

95% of ALL the laptops (regardless of who made them) i have in my workshop have their fans blocked with fluff

other 5% are problems of any kind you can imagine, HDD fails, cracked screens, and on the end of the list are 80yr old grannies who are cleaning laptops of their grand sons with a wet sponge...GG

 

I can believe the 95% with the fluff (hairballs, furballs, dust...) My machine gets trucked around daily to different clients.....some great environments.....some not so much.....I have intentions (really, I do ) to do a thorough cleaning (fans etc) on a weekly basis....but, life usually gets in the way..(the wyfe's honey do list...play time for me...you know the routine) and I usually do a reasonable cleaning once a month....because of some of the environments that I am in....it is not usual to see fluff/hair/fur balls the size of small rottweilers dislodged during cleaning....

After the Coca-Cola incident.. ....I do my best to keep liquids a healthy distance away from my lappys....

 

Starting from a clean laptop with no dust inside, how long does it take before fluffs start forming?
You never know if you are too meticulous or not enough