The Tom's Guide 'Ask Me Anything' with Alienware

[Lutfij]

That answers quite a lot actually, thank you!

Another question.
A lot of our viewers/readers and our member base often tend to modify or do their own form of tinkering with their laptop/notebooks/mobile computing devices. Be it adding higher storage or more ram. One of the main criteria's I try and touch up on, while offering advice, is that if the device is within warranty period any form of modification should be held off until the warranty period expires, to prevent the warranty being void. Am I wrong to suggest this in 2018?

What sort of an advice would you have for folks who don't have the funds to spec their Alienware laptop off your site, to the brim, and would like to gradually add-on components/hardware or if there is actually a budget friendly Alienware laptop lurking?

 

[dmukasjr]

Are you guys thinking about putting the new Threadripper with 32 cores into a Area 51, if so, how soon should we expect it, I am saving up money and want to know if i should wait a bit longer for the new area 51 rather than get the New R2.

 

[joeolmsted]

Hey Joe

My question that I have is when people are preferring smaller, more portable systems, why would someone choose to buy a laptop like the R4 that weighs more and has a large AC adapter? Is it because you trade power for portability or would people choose to buy a larger system because that sort of thing is not required? Or do people in the market for this kind of system not care about portability or aesthetics?

Great question and something I get asked often. We know from speaking to our customers that the primary purchasing reason is performance. Our 15 and 17 notebooks are not typically "daily drivers" they are "desk queens" that don't leave the house very often. In fact we worked on specific battery technology to ensure that our batteries don't get overcharged for being plugged in all the time.

Again, in speaking with them, the purchase of a laptop that has a 10lb bag weight is driven by the desire to move from location to location occasionally and still have all of their gaming performance. Prior to NVIDIA's MQ technology you couldn't get 1060 type performance under ~10lbs, today some are offering it, but we build our notebooks so you can have the same performance at hour 1 and hour 6 of gaming of a long night session of Overwatch.

Lastly, no one wants to go back to the days of carrying gear grip bags moving their desktop and display (remember moving that 20" Sony Trinitron?) to your buddies garage for a lan party.

 

[Lutfij]

Turning things around a bit, what sort of games do you play?

 

[joeolmsted]

Are you guys thinking about putting the new Threadripper with 32 cores into a Area 51, if so, how soon should we expect it, I am saving up money and want to know if i should wait a bit longer for the new area 51 rather than get the New R2.

"Our goal is to be time to market with all gaming relevant technologies. If these new products provide benefits to gamers, we'll launch them both." I stand by my earlier comment. If the TR 32 core has benefits to gamers, we will launch it.

 

[joeolmsted]

Hi there!

Quick question: If Human Civilization makes it to space, will Alienware try to make their technology accessible and usable in space and sub-space environments?

This question is from my grand-son. He's too young for the forums but thinks that Alienware is, in his words. "super duper ultra cool".

I can not confirm nor deny if we are involved in any NASA or SpaceX related space excursions. Nor can I say that on August 31st 2023 that we will or won't be involved with Blue Origin.

 

[joeolmsted]

Turning things around a bit, what sort of games do you play?

As said as it sounds, I spend most of my time playing PowerPoint, but when I get a free moment or on the 2nd hour of a global conference call I play Cities: Skylines.

 

[joeolmsted]

That answers quite a lot actually, thank you!

Another question.
A lot of our viewers/readers and our member base often tend to modify or do their own form of tinkering with their laptop/notebooks/mobile computing devices. Be it adding higher storage or more ram. One of the main criteria's I try and touch up on, while offering advice, is that if the device is within warranty period any form of modification should be held off until the warranty period expires, to prevent the warranty being void. Am I wrong to suggest this in 2018?

What sort of an advice would you have for folks who don't have the funds to spec their Alienware laptop off your site, to the brim, and would like to gradually add-on components/hardware or if there is actually a budget friendly Alienware laptop lurking?

Unlike some OEMs who void your warranty when you open your system and do your own mods, we want, encourage and support you through the process. Tech support may ask you to remove the memory you bought at Newegg just to verify that's the issue, we will still support you. We also provide most customers a WW warranty (some countries have laws against this). So if you purchase your system in the US, move to Australia, we'll still honor the warranty. If I'm not mistaken we've done videos on our YouTube channel showing this - if not, its in the funnel.

Regarding the purchase from our site - or any other for that matter, focus your purchase on all of things that can't be upgraded. If the CPU is soldered down, put your money into it vs. memory or storage. For LCDs, focus your dollars on if you use it or not. If your going to use an external display 95% of the time, get a good FHD display, not the more costly UHD. If you are going to have the LCD in the notebook be your primary, invest in it upfront.

 

[joeolmsted]

Hello!

Is your Alienware Graphics Amplifier supported with notebooks outside of Dell?

No, it has its own hi-bandwidth port. Not thunderbolt

Thanks for the answer, and that is correct. It's a raw/unabridged 4x lane PCIe port. Today, it will support 4 lanes of PCIe Gen 3. We believe right now (and I know I shouldn't say this), that it will support 4 lanes of PCIe Gen 4 when that happens.

Regarding Thunderbolt vs. our port. Yes, thunderbolt has a larger ecosystem for sure. But here's the dooms day scenario, you are using an external graphics card and you also have an HDD plugged into the USB port on your thunderbolt dock. The thunderbolt dock shares bandwidth. Do you want to drop frames because of some unknown HDD call to your drive via thunderbolt? We don't share USB and Graphics lanes.

And the great news, the Alienware 17r3 that was based on Haswell CPU technology and a GTX965, today you can add a 1080 and be running just great - on that system you purchased in 2015. If we'd prioritized Thunderbolt, that group of customers who be purchasing a new system.

We also offer our dock for a normal price of $199, but today, June 8 2018 it's running at $161. While thunderbolt docks offer you a LAN port and a few more lights, is that worth $200 or $300 [says the guy who adds lighting to everyone, just trolling a little]. But @ $161, it's a great deal.

 

[Lutfij]

Hey I play on PowerPoint pretty much all the time! Perhaps we should team up...?


Jokes aside, your answer to my follow up question has hit all the nails in my coffin of doubt. It's a warm welcoming change to see how you folks stand by your product. Oh FYI, I'm in Bangladesh, I have a good number of my friends and client's who purchase goods/laptops from USA. Would I/my friends/my client base be able to avail the same warranty scheme as you've stated?

 

[Graybush]

Thanks to everyone for participating in our Q&A! Special thanks to Joe for taking time out of his day to converse with our Tom's Guide members.

You still have until the 14th to enter our Alienware giveaway, so don't miss out!

Edit: We've announced a winner! Congratulations to Patricia!