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

[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!