i feel bad for anyone buying a alienware, it would cost almost 2x buying an alienware pc with the same specs as mine.
6950 crossfired
i7 2600k
8GB 1800hz ram
liquid cooled cpu
Asus p8z68 v pro
1000w power supply

Really valuable responses guys and I really appreciate them all.

My number 1 concern with gaming laptops was possible overheating issues since they aren't as well ventilated compared to desktops. But when I asked my friend's inputs on these fears he simply recommended Alienware since they have a very well built cooling system and spoke of additional accessories for more cooling.

As much as I would love to build my own desktop (I am a computer engineering major after all), I just can't because I tend to move locations frequently thanks to work. For me this "gaming laptop" business is scary new territory for me and there are just way too many alternatives in the market that it gives me a headache trying to figure out the most optimal machine. If it means taking a hit on costs for a reliable AW machine I am willing to take that hit if the machine lasts me a long time without breaking down.

The M11x won't let you down, in my opinion. Its what I use right now, its very powerful, has a great battery life, and its only 11 inches wide so its great to take along when you are on the move. For 1,200 bucks I don't think you can go wrong.

Awesome. I will add this model to my list of considerations for sure. Cutting down on costs would be nice if I get the same performance. The high end models seems like it would cost an arm and a leg to purchase lol.

I had three Alienware computers prior to my current system. The first two were flawless and worked amazing, the last one did until the motherboard gave out 2 years in. The system I have now is an HP only because I simply couldn't afford another Alienware.

I am currently running my first AW desktop and after a year I am still very happy with it and it has run all of my games extremely well. I haven't had to deal with their customer support so I don't know about that but I used Dell for many years and in the past their customer suport was excellent. May be worse now but I don't know. When I was shopping for my current pc I had heard all the comments about how AW was grossly overpriced but when I compared online with Cyberpower and IBuypower there was only about a $100 premium for a similar AW so I went with the AW and have never regreted it. I wouldn't even consider physically building my own pc because I don't have the patience for that and my attention to technical details is lacking.

Twigster,

I've been gaming on laptops for over ten years, and I much prefer it. Sure it's expensive, but it's your money, so do what you want.

I highly recommend you look at versions built on the top-of-the line Clevo chassis since these seem to be the best at controlling heat. Check out the Sager or Xotic (Xotic is a reseller with the same prices but better service) web sites for details.

I had bad luck with an alienware desktop. It was expensive and it slowly fell apart. After two years there wasn't anything left of the original except the case. Unfortunately this happened while I was stationed overseas in the military, so I didn't get very much support either (although they did send me a power supply for free because the one it was initially shipped with wasn't working when it arrived).

I did note that someone here mentioned Asus gaming laptops. I stumbled across them on amazon yesterday and it appears they're on sale on amazon. Might be worth looking into (no experience with them myself, but the specs looked good).

WAY overpriced.

Build or buy a stripped down HP and add a videocard bought on Newegg

Don't get a laptop for gaming, they have overheating issues.
You will pay a premium price for the name akin to apple.
Alienware is owned by Dell now so they are even more expensive, an example being putting in 16gigs of ram into a pc and sell it near $500 higher (you don't need more than 8gigs, and the majority of games just need 4gig)

Alienware use to be great back before it got bought out, now you get expensive hardware that, like Dell is actually the cheapest quality they can get.

I recently purchased an M18x Alienware laptop, so I can share my thoughts and offer my recommendation to you.

If you are looking for desktop, I would suggest building one yourself, as you can most likely find the part significantly cheaper online and assemble them yourself.

If you are looking for a laptop system, then I would say pull the trigger, if you have the funds to do so, with the following suggestions:

1) Call and speak to a sales rep. I saved over $700 by calling up and speaking to Dell. A sales rep has the most flexibility on the pricing for the ram and the hard drive. You can save $300-$400 by selecting upgrades there. Then have them add on the extended 3 year in home warranty for free, which will save you another $300.

2) Go to delloutlet.com, and wait for your system to pop up. You can save 20% or more immediately, and check the delloutlet twitter feeds for discount codes, each week or so (usually midweek) they will offer a 20% discount code. If you time things correctly you can get a returned unit for almost half the cost you would normally pay.

As for quality, I have had no problems with my M18x thus far. It runs Battlefield 3 and Skyrim like butter. If you are looking for a laptop, I highly recommend the M18x, for a desktop replacement gaming laptop, it comes comes with Crossfire/SLI (2 video cards) standard, a very nice frame, and the opportunity to upgrade yourself, if you are so inclined.

Everybody has already listed the disadvantages of a gaming laptop.

That said, Asus is also pretty good quality and they provide better warranty support than anybody else.
It's worth taking a look at Lenovo laptops, as they are very reliable and don't suffer from as many overheating issues.
By all that is holy never buy HP.

Agree Desktop over laptop for cooling and even more importantly, upgradability.

Obviously building your own is the best way to go financially if you have the aptitude.

I personally would NOT recommend Alienware. I considered them myself a few years back but they just seemed too pricey considering the value and service offered. Every time I called them to ask questions I ended up talking to a Latin-American I could barely understand, and when I could, got inconsistent advice /info. On top of that I've read several posts on several forums by disgruntled Alienware customers. I think for the service and price you get, you're better off going with ibuypower or Cyberpower. Or even better still, http://www.digitalstormonline.com/gamingdesktops.asp. For those where cost is of no concern, http://www.falcon-nw.com/ is possibly the best.

Really solid advice here and thank you very much!! I will note this down asap.

Thanks again to everyone for their inputs. I will narrow my choices down to Alienware, Asus, and Clevo based on feedback I've gotten. Its also good to know heating might not be that much of an issue unless I'm unlucky. I will research this some more on the side.

ummm I am pretty sure the OP is referring to a LAPTOP....so this argument is irrelevant....but anyways...

I bought an Alienware M17xR2 back in August of 2010 (see specs below). This machine smokes everything. However I bought it mainly to be able to program and render graphics while I am not at home (currently teaching myself video game design) as I am a homebody and my wife likes to drag me places...so the laptop is a good fit for taking with me AND a side benefit is it does GREAT with games. However, the downside is it is more pricey than other laptops, and their Customer Support svckS!...I had heard they used to be great before Dell bought them out, which is why I decided to go with Alienware to begin with...pshhh, Dell has ruined everything as far as I can tell...my next desktop will definitely be self-built. But anyways, should I go with another laptop, Alienware is still a viable option as the machine is great (as long as you don't need to deal with their CS and have the $$ to spend)

don't belive who say that playing on laptop it's the same it's not... laptop are never equal to a desktop never even when u spend 3 times more

if u like to play in different rooms there is M-atx case or even ITX case that are very very small (easy to move around with no effort) they cost still half the price of a laptop and u can move them very easily around

not only with a laptop u end up playing with a small size screen (and it deosn't make any sense if u are home)... and once u plug it to a 1080P u feel the difference between a REAL graphic card and a "Mobile"

honestly i do have a laptop a MSI GX640 with 5850M(obile) 1gb i even open the laptop and modified the cooler in order to be able to OC the gpu a bit... but because I have to travel from time to time and laptop IS THE ONLY WAY....

but I would never ever ever ever advice for a loptop if there is a chance to use a desktop.

Alienware are decent (a little pricy but not terrible pricy) on the other hand there are other brand that are good too without beeing so extreeme like MSI or ASUS

but dont buy a laptop unless is really really the only way.

I got an alienware m17 back in March after doing a ton of research. I highly recommend going to notebook review.com . The people there are very informed and for The most part very mature.

For me a laptop made sense. I work a lot of hours and I have a family so being able to game while chilling with my wife on the couch was valuable. All the people ranting about how useless gaming laptops are have no idea what they are talking about. They have come a long way over the last few years. Upgradeability and cooling aren't the issue they used to be. I paid 1900 for mine but I have yet to meet a game that I can't play at ultra.

After doing my research I narrowed it down to xoticpc, malibal, mythological, and alienware. I would recommend any of them but I choose AW for the slot loading optical drive and the back lit keyboard. It was a little more expensive but I made up for it by doing a couple of upgrades myself. Also you can haggle on the price and get discounts free shipping etc.

I say do the research yourself. Like I said I highly recommend going to notebookreview.com. they have forum dedicated to helping people pick the comp they need and individual forums for each model. Plus loads of other useful forums.

Make the decision that is right for you. All I can say is I love mine. It runs cool and I have had no issues.

So you have had the machine with minimal to no problems for a year? Amazing. For a laptop (and a gaming laptop no less) I would consider that pretty damn good.

I guess I will start saving up as I'm in no hurry to purchase one off the bat. For me I have always being more of a "quality for more cost" kind of person anyway. I am really hoping for an earlier release for the newer M19x model just so the m18x drops down in price drastically because that's the machine I have my eye on (with the m11/14x on the side).

Good to know.

You made an important note of features which is what drew me into Alienware even more. The M18X model even has an HDMI-IN option meaning I can plug in my PS3 and play games through its screen. I find this very very cool and have never seen such features on a laptop before. I just checked out notebookreview.com and plan to make an account on there. Lots of valuable info from the forum just by browsing through. Thanks.

I have had nothing but horrible experience with Alienware. They had to replace the motherboard twice and the junk still ran like a dog. I now have a MacBook Pro with Windows 7 installed and Skyrim runs like a charm. Yes, you also pay a premium for Apple products but I have nothing but good things to say about their products and warranty.

PowerPC is also a good alternative. I build all my desktops but I refer all my friends (that want a PC out of the box) to buy from them. Dell and Alienware can diaf. :flamethrower:

In my opinion the laptops are worth it for he most part, especially the M11X, since its a massive pain to build your own and they do make some of the most powerful notebooks computers on the market with a nice form factor and visual flares. However, most of the upgrades and extra's are insanely over priced, for example, last time i checked how much they wanted for a upgrade to 16 gigs of ram from 8 on the M11X R3, i about fell out of my chair, they wanted over 800 bucks. They have increased their prices recently, and this was the worst possible case of it that i found, and i really hope it was a mistake because that is 4 times the price of how much it would cost to go buy two 8 gig DDR3 sticks and its not like they are hard to install or anything.

The desktops are a waste, simply because the value is just not there. I could build a system from parts that would pulverize theirs in specs and performance for that kind of money. And computers are not so hard to build that many people should ignore the build it yourself route. And Dell support is a crapshoot, but from my experience its not as bad as people make it out to be.

I can play Skyrim on Ultra on my tiny 11 inch M11X R2, with just the typical minor frame rate issues most people have been reporting. I run most the time at over 40 FPS, often going into the 70+ range, even in cities, and on very rare occasions i hit the mid 20's. I really do not understand whats causing the issues but the shadows seem to be one of the culprits along side AI. Plus this little power house uses a quad core processor that is only 1.6GHz, and sadly its only using 2 of the cores while the other two do nothing.

Check out an equivalent ASUS branded laptop for considerably LESS money and generally BETTER results including Better support and Better warranty too not to mention better parts where available.

I can't recommend anything with Dell as it's owner.

Overpriced garbage. And this is coming from an aliensixual.

I'd personally never got for an Alienware. They look pretty to some, but over priced.

If you go with a laptop atleast consider AMD range. I know Intel has dominated here and not every place has a large stock or even carries AMD.
But I can vouch that AMD's Llano based laptops with a seperate dedicated graphics card pack a punch, even if the game doesn't support cross-fire.
At the least the intergrated graphics you get with the APU smokes anything intel intergrated graphics and Llano's over clock really well for a laptop.

I've been very happy with mine and runs skyrim well on High. I've added in some nice High detail textures and it's just beautiful.

HP does a good range of AMD's depending on your price range you are going for.

I have to agree if you don't have a desktop and are thinking about getting a laptop that is one thing, but I have my desktop using Eyefinity across 3x 27in monitors. I need something to travel with, take to work etc that plays games as well. I originally bought a 17in Dell XPS from the "Dell Outlet", worked great it had 2x 9800 cards in it, dual core extreme processor, BluRay DVD burner, basically all the bells and whistles for $3k had I built it on Dell's website it would have cost me $5500. I bought the warranty, so 2 years into the three years warranty I complained about some problems I was having with over heating. They gave me an Alienware 17 R2 2x 5870s, 8GB DDR3, i7 940 Extreme processor so on to replace it only extra charge was buying a new 3 year warranty "optional" as the first one worked out pretty good... You may have to battle with them a little, but if you play your cards right they will hook you up. I love my computer and have had no problems with it over the last year. I can max everything I throw at it still, it is heavy, it is a portable desktop in that you need to plug it in or burn the battery fast.

So sharing my secrets here what do you think this is running price wise?

Alienware M18X
Processor: Intel Quad Core Extreme i7 2960XM (2.7GHz(3.7GHz w/Turbo Boost, 8MB Cache)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
Alienware M18x Laptop
750 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
16 GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz (4X4GB)
6X Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6990M AMD CrossFireX

$2500...

Look up some stuff here: http://www.dell.com/us/dfh/p/alienware-laptops?~ck=anav

Over all I cannot complain, that is my experience.

EvolovE