Question:
Just for Slappy: My Alienware 51m 7700 Review
[1] Area-51® m7700
Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 670 Desktop Processor w/ HT Technology 3.8GHz 800MHz FSB 2MB
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2
Warranty: 3-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service Bundle with AlienAutopsy and Respawn
Video Card: 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 6800 Ultra
LCD Display: 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD Clearview Display with Built-in Camera
Motherboard: Intel® 915P PCI-Express Chipset
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 533MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Hard Drive: Extreme Performance (RAID 0) - 120GB (60GB x 2) 5400 RPM ATA100
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 24x10x24 CD-RW / 8X DVD Combo w/Software MPEG2 Decoder
Sound Card: Intel® High-Definition Audio
Primary Battery: Alienware® m7700 12-cell Lithium-Ion Smart Battery Pack
Communications: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive
Alienware Exclusive Offers: Gamespot Complete - Free 90-day Trial (a $20.85 value)
Alienware Exclusive Offers: 10% off your next EB Games online purchase
Free Alienware T-Shirt: Free Alienware® T-Shirt - Black
Desktop Enhancements: Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager
Free Alienware Mousepad: Free Alienware® Mousepad
I searched the internet for almost a week looking at different forums for negative/positive postings and found MANY NEGATIVE posts for Alienware along with just as many NEGATIVE posts for Dell. Seager seemed to be somewhere in the middle. www.alienwareforums.com was my deciding factor in buying a machine from AW, I noticed that every thread that reported a problem was taken care of no more then 2 days after the OP posted it. Among alot of these posts were Official AW Reps that work for the company and took these matters into their own hands, I did not find any of this from Seager or Dell. Alot of AW machines were dieing 1 or 2 months after their purchase but were always taken care of by a warrenty, this I figured would happen with any Xtreme Gaming machine. I thought to myself this technology could not possibly work 100% efficiantly out of the box, it is too new and advanced. I would take the dive into buying an AW machine.
I configured machines from Voodoo, Seager, and AW. AW seemed to only be 200$US more then Seager, but 1,000$US less expensive then the equivillant Voodoo system.
I placed my order on www.alienware.com with everything I wanted in a machine, after I placed my order I called to conferm that all my selections had been placed properly. For this I called an AW rep in the sales dept. I placed my order on 9/28/05 and waited in the phase game patiently. Durring the Phase game I was only stuck in a phase for 1 day, then moved on accordingly each day. Before I knew it I had accually been stuck in phase 9. I was scared for a few hours after checking the AW site and being stuck, stuck, stuck. Fustraiting but feasable, AW changed their phases from 14 to 10, being the reason I was stuck on phase 9 for so long. 2 weeks to the date I placed my order the machine was being carried up the stairs to my apt. by a FedeX employee. I of course took pictures of his arrival and posted them on www.alienwareforums.com in the Reviews and Benchmarks section of the forum.
First thing I did to ensure that my machine was going to work properly was insert the Alienware Autopsy Respawn CD. Loaded the Image to my drive(s) and updated all my drivers from the manufactures site. All of these worked well except for the video drivers from NVidia, I rolled back these drivers to the AW approved NVidia drivers. The first program I made sure to install was my copy of GuildWars wich I got lost in the game after installation for almost 3 hours, while all this time was going by not a single problem from the machine.
Later I caught a bug with my keybaord BIOS and the FN Volume adjustment, a simple call to AW solved this (downloaded new driver with them on phone.)
All in all I have had this machine for over 2 months and I love it. No complaints about this machine whatsover. So their is my reiview love it or leave it.
Answer:
Re: Just for Slappy: My Alienware 51m 7700 Review
Ah, good, little review. I liked your descripton of the ordering process. That is one powerful notebook, I'll give you that much. :)
Answer:
Re: Just for Slappy: My Alienware 51m 7700 Review
thank you, I figured I could refer back to this post.