Clevo or Alienware?

[zizicool1]

I have a clevo P150sm its a good laptop for the price i paid for it. Not to mention almost all hardware problem can be fixed by the user .

[tgeo]

Bang for the buck the Clevo, but that being said the Alienware laptop is a tank and built to perform. If money was no object I would choose the Alienware

[ruggb]

When I was in the market for a new LT I researched Clevo and all others and decided that the Clevo was a solid, value product - it was also superior in performance and features to all others - except the ones that were rebadged Clevos like Sager and Asus, etc. Alienware was good and had a few features Clevo did not have but mostly in the windows dressing area and not performance.

As for Dell support - it appears to have gotten better recently.

As for refurb units, I have purchased 2 HPs and an LG monitor. ALL 3 have had problems that were not caught on the new unit or the re certification.

If u r not technical enough to completely test the unit when u get it, AND be able to convey the problem to TS, I would caution against refurb on complex items.

One HP LT's problem was VERY obscure - fortunately the problem finally killed the BT function and they replaced the motherboard - both problem were fixed.

Warranty on refurb is typically 90 days so the clock is ticking on testing it fully.

I would assume the analysis still holds

[pan0phobik]

I don't have experience with Clevo/Sager but I can vouch for Alienware. I just got my Alienware 18 this past weekend and I'm loving it. It's worked nearly flawlessly, feels SOLID and well-crafted. My only complaint, and this has to deal with Nvidia more than Alienware, is that there are issues with my 880m SLI setup. Apparently there are some throttling problems that need to be fixed in the vBIOS. Considering you aren't even getting 880's, however, you won't have this problem. Since the price isn't much different, I'd go with Alienware.

[alex_123_fra]

I bought a refurbed Alienware M17x R3 for around £500 (2670QM and GTX560M) a year ago. Then recently separately bought a 2960XM and GTX780M and plonked them in. Upgrade cost around £650. It now has around 3 times the frame rates in games. The alienwares are good quality pieces of kit. Working in the M17x was fairly easy.

[Hyperboost671]

I might be bringing this post back from the dead, but I would say Clevo. I might be biased since I've never owned a Dell or Alienware. Personally I'm not into the flashy cool factor exterior. Owning two Branded Clevos (Sager) 8790 and the NP9570, I can say the build quality has come a long way. I opted for a real desktop replacement solution. As for customer's support they always replied to all my concerns in prompt fashion. I've used my models typically for gaming and video/photo editing.

I would say from where I live, when people think of Alienware they think of premium hardware the crème dela crème of gaming devices more of a "status" item. I love it when I whip out my non flashy Clevo/Sager and they ask me, "what kind of Notebook is that?" I would have a big grin on my face knowingly how more powerful my machine is compared to the "celebrity". Enough with my stories.. You can definitely see the price difference between the refurbished and new between the Alienware. I would always buy new. That's just me.. I read you prefer the exterior aesthetics (looks) so the Alienware definitely has an edge for you. If the price is within your budget then Alienware would be great for you.

[detox]

Personally I go with alienware and you can't beat dells warenties. I highly recommend getting one. It has saved me more than once.

[yuyuhasuko]

I think if you have much money,you should chose alienware.In my opinion, build quality of alienware is better than clevo

[IceBounds]

if you say that the dell has one more gpu for almost the same price, go for it

[pwnage]

I would say MSI, their warranty is amazing. The build quality is great, and the performance is awesome if you choose something like an 880m (I'm currently on 680m and still satisfied).

[NvidiaOverclockFlock]

Clevo are IMHO always the better choice over alienware. My clevo p170sm is great much better than aleinware. I have the money to purchase alienware but im not that deluded to get one just because they have a daft logo on them and a few extra lights.

[cammac66]

I would have to say Alienware. I just like the build and support you can get and the fact you can really haggle them down price wise. I was able to get my Alienware 17 for about £500 under the RRP just by waiting for a sale, and then talking to a sales rep for around an hour it came in cheaper than the Clevo equivalent in the end.

[xenjoi85]

Id ONLY go alienware if the price is right. I have a M11X R2 and i like it a lot. its now comboed with a guitar amp running software. but unless you get a top spec (like that SLI) unit, its price over performace. i just bought a Sager with a 880m, 256 SSd, 1 TB, 16 gig RAM, 6x bluray burner for a fraction of an alienware

[Bigspin]

I used to have a Alienware M17 R3 and I recently brought Clevo P150SM. Personally I think AW's build quality is bit better, but not huge margin. However you pay extra $$$ for that. In UK we always have to pay around £250+ extra compared to Clevo.

[Deathstar27]

I would go with Alienware but my opinion is biased as I am using one right now.

[irfanwikaputra]

To be honest, Alienware laptop came from Clevo/Sager/Schenker in the old days

It was part of their gaming laptop lines but not for long ago dell has bought it and they got separated

so if you talk about quality build, Clevo is like the mother/father of alienware, that is why their essence when building a gaming machine is always similar or even identical

but normally the child could get better than their predecessor because it is more flashy, nicer looks, fancy lights, fancy price too of course

and when both clevo and alienware have exactly the same spec with each other, alienware is the premium, while clevo is a better value and they have same performance

there is no magic inside alienware regarding the components quality or whatsoever that might be better than clevo, they are the same, it's a branding for the richer to buy

[Thorburn]

Tend to find Clevos systems tend to lack the polish of full on OEM systems - great if you want something to tweak and customise, but they can frustrate a little and the ability to strip them down and change components with relative ease means they often lose out in terms of form factor and style.

[harrylinyiran]

Alienware is also a little bit more expensive comparing to other same level laptops. In your case the Alienware is refurbished so it seems to be more worthy to get it. But I suggest you get a brand new CLEVO since it's brand new. Also, if you are looking for a stealth looking, CLEVO got to be the better choice over Alienware. About the Asus G series, I really like its design but its price is way too high and incapable for upgrading.

[Caliban]

I'd suggest the Alienware. Yeah, overhyped, overrated, and overpriced, but they have had solid long term support, parts are plentiful and generally compatible across multiple variations without too much work. I have worked on a lot of Alienwares, Sagers, MSI whitebooks, Clevos, and other gaming laptops in the shop I work at. The old Clevos/Sagers to me were clunky and kludgy, lots of weird problems like being unable to start them without a good battery because of initial power draw being so ridiculously high. I've seen some bad design calls in the earlier Alienwares, but the current few generations have seemed really solid, including the m15x r3 that I have. I like the cast metal chassis, easy access to the video card, fans, CPU, and other components under a single hatch.

Most importantly to me it's the support... I've found Alienware is easy to work with, even the old ones. Dell still has those drivers up, and there is a ton of 3rd party support for them. I can't say the same for other gaming laptop makes. I've had a nightmare with a customer's MSI GT70 with a simple fried video card. Simple on an Alienware, but not on that MSI/Cyberpower thing because of the lack of official support for the MSI. I won't bash on the internal design of the MSI GT70, I found it had a good layout inside and was physically easy to work on. MSI and Cyperpower's completely braindead support has made it a pain on the software/firmware side of it. Also, like just about anything MSI, it's a cheap plastic machine, it looks cool though, a lot less flashy than the Alienwares.

I would never consider an ASUS G series laptop, I work on too many of these, the most common issue being the center leg of the power jack burns through at the point the solder stops on it. It's a metallurgy problem, the gold in the pin's coating reacts with a metal (possibly tin or zinc, but I've been unable to verify the exact solder formula ASUS uses) and the galvanic reaction destroys the pin. Replacement jacks which have gold pins in them also suffer the same fate within a year or so. It's also a real pain replacing the jacks on these because of the p-on LED location, it's almost always destroyed in the process. At my work, we get 1-2 of the G series machines in every week. So far it's been a pretty even split of spill damage and those jacks, to the point when we open up the G series machines for a cleanup, we usually end up having to do the jack too since it's somewhere along the fail process. Given the cost and lack of upgradability of the plastic machines, they really don't seem worth it with the chronic jack issue.

Give me a metal chassis and LCD lid any day. My m15x has survived being sat on by a particularly large guest of mine before, totally unharmed. Not many laptops will survive a 300# guy sitting on it.

My complaint on the Alienwares so far has been related to the thermal compound used. I've found several that came into the shop with black screen issues and artifacts under load to actually have either voids in the stock thermal compound, or even labels on top of the silicon itself. I've seen this even more in Toshibas, but that's not really relevant here. In general if you like your machine and want it to run the best it can, you need to redo the heatsink compound, and shim as necessary when there's too much of a gap.

[Ripman]

As a Alienware x17 R3 owner, I can say that build is high quality. The feel of system is awesome. The downside is price....I really dont like this part as it is really expensive. Also I had a lot of problems with this system, mostly regarding GTX 580M with lots of BSOD. The keyboard feel on alienware is a bit cheap compared with others laptops, for that price I was expecting something different, in the past had a benq laptop who had a awesome keyboard compared to x17 r3 one.

Heatsink was a mess after I first time open it spilled all around CPU and GPU. Big minus for a top hardware like this.

I dont know how is Clevo, but with little work, Alienware is a awesome piece of hardware, still to expensive......lots of lights, blink blink etc.

If price for Clevo is way cheaper with same hardware and same performance I would go for Clevo.

If you like the look and feel of Alienware, blink blink and exclusivity go for it, is awesome. Think at Alienware as a Lamborghini of laptops.

[elweegie]

I'm on my fifth Clevo machine now... Every time I buy another (have tried sager, Avadirect and PCspecialist) I look longingly at the Alienware site.... But in the end.... I can't stomach paying the extra for what is essentially DELL tech support I won't use and the aesthetic so I always end up with a rebranded Clevo... I travel a lot and in the millions of miles my laptops have been wheeled around the world there has never been a failure. Sure they are ugly but who cares. You pay a shedload more for a lot less IMO with an Alienware.

[PJko66]

I have a Alienware M17x R3 for 3 years now. Very happy owner, I love the idea of a laptop, that can be upgraded.

However...

I would consider eurocom now, because, at least in Europe, you get better support (Dell has great support in service, but not in upgrading, community and so on) even with upgrades.

I changed my GPU from ATI to nVidia and it was a pain to get it running. It was bought from eurocom, but they did not want to support me here in Europe - had to contact only online support in Canada (from where I bought the GPU... support via e-mail kinda sucks..).

To sum up:

- I have been considering also a third option to go back to desktop

- if the GPU could not have been upgraded I would definitely do so

- main reason: with 5+ kilograms, most of the time it is a desktop... so really consider if you will be attending many gaming events where you take your laptop with you

Cheers

[juanakus]

I have an alienware m14x r2 and the truth is that I have a little small to play is good but somewhat expensive machine

[milqfxp]

alienware.. this is good choice in my opinion. I sold some pcs this model and any one dont send from client to me for repair .. this is good and very speed model

[g75vw]

go with a clevo system for better future proofing and easier maintenance.