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Originally Posted by Hammerhead
I'd have to agree with Craig here.
Alienware is known for having the latest components as soon as possible, and they're also known for adjusting their prices to reflect thier cost to keep their pricing well below their competitors like Falcon Northwest and Voodoo. I'm sure the margins on this card will be the same as with any other hardware they offer.
AW also tests everything thoroughly to try to avoid issues. It hurts their reputation if customers have issues with hardware. And with the laptop, they have partners and aren't in control of the hardware as much as they are with desktops, so they have to be extra careful.
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not sure if i completely agree with you there hammer, AW used to offer a wireless card with the 51m but it did not seem to work for a lot of 51m users out there due to whatever reason, so AW pulled that option from the configuration while they go in "search" of a better card from a different vendor (i've heard people speculate it's not the card itself but the design of where the antenna is placed internally and the magnesium alloy case blocking signals, who knows.........) However, I'm sure if AW did their due diligence in testing that particular component the problems would have come to light way before the first unit was shipped off to a customer. Instead the forums are littered with complaints about crappy wifi reception or no wifi reception for those units
In addition, this concept about AW using the latest greatest components/technology in their machines, i half agree, i think their desktops are top notch, taking advantage of the latest technology out there (well on paper at least, i.e. the new nvidia "beast"
), however their laptops are a leg behind most of their competitors, and for the life of me i cannot figure out why that is. AW's current top of the line laptops do not have dual channel ram like most if not all of their competitors, best video offered by AW at the moment is the ati 9600 (everyone else has 9700), no dvi out, no wuxga screen, also AW doesn't even offer 2 gb ram in their configuration (even though you can upgrade yourself). One big plus to the 51m is the user upgradeable graphics, however, in a sense their competitor's lappies can have their gpu's upgraded as well, probably not as easily, but still easy enough if you're not some drunk with shaking hands. It just seems to me that AW has made their laptop a "second class citizen" within their organization and that is unfortunate, because i believe that the future trend is for more and more people to go the "mobile" route than the desktop route.
I'm sure AW will eventually "get it" and begin to bring their laptops current. I sure hope so because from what i've heard about their machines, desktops and laptops, they are very very fine machines, but AW has given their competition (sager, dell-yes dell, hypersonic, voodoo) an opening to gain some new customers at AW's expense). I think it's safe to say that when most serious gamers (AW's target market) begin to look for a new machine, a laptop, they look at the AW first, and then get turned off to the fact that AW's laptops are a leg behind their competition's in using the latest technology.
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