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Dell fights Alien Invasion
Asakawa writes "With manufacturers like Alienware and Voodoo sucking up the low-volume/high-margin high-end gaming market, it looks like Dell wants a piece of the action. The machine that these guys have reviewed looks pretty awesome, but they reckon it's overpriced. It will be interesting to see if Dell can shake off its grey box image and entice the more fussy gamers and enthusias."
You mean Voodoo and Alienware are the Apples of the PC world?
It's just not the same if its not a clone. The only good gaming rig is pimped out, with glowing-thingimabobers and cooling fit for space shuttle components on re-entry.
...do we really want enthusias?
(FP!)
Dell has too much work ahead of them for this really to be a feasible switch. Further, this isn't really that large of a market. I'll be surprised if they've got that much to gain by controlling another market.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
Isn't high price rather an advantage when marketing toys for people with too much money? It works for the people who sell high-end hi-fi equipment...
Dell's had a competent gaming laptop for a while now, why not a competent desktop? Inspiron XPS, now there's a laptop you can bring home to mom. According to their site, it starts at 9.06 lbs. Don't move it around too much.
If the max resolution is 1280x1024.
Dell can want to sell me a machine all they want, but they won't get my business because:
* The quality of their support has fallen through the floor due to offshore outsourcing it (the non-business support, at least).
* They don't give me the option of buying computers built on AMD CPUs, which have a better price/performance ratio than Intel CPUs.
* In most cases, they still force me to buy their systems bundled with Microsoft software, whether I want it or not.
Sorry, Dell. No sale here.
Gamers want the best - and right now that's AMD Athlon 64 (FX). Until Dell has that, they're stuff looks rather Dull. ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
...Dell will have to start selling Powerbooks or hope the aliens haven't developed immunity to Earth bacteria and die off naturally.
'Nuff said.
Unfortunately for Dell, the market for the gamer revolves around the potential for business from the uninformed gamer. Every gamer I know (and indeed, myself) builds their own system for the fraction of the cost of buying an Alienware or a Dell that has the same specs. Indeed, as often as hardcore gamers upgrade their systems, none of these manufacturers can hope to provide the kind of support I'd need to make it worth my while. Perhaps if they offered free hardware upgrades for two years, I could see spending an extra 500-1500 dollars for the same exact system that I could build by surfing Pricewatch.com.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
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go to the apple store, go to store UK (since the article is in £ instead of $) pick the dual 1.8, add 512MB ram to get to 1GB, upgrde video card to 9800XT the upgrade to 250GB harddisk, add a 20inch flatscreen and hit 'update total'. Voila 3288£ compared to £3176 for the dell (with a 17inch monitor only, but 40GB. Okay, the dell has a 800X video card, but that's a mere 100£ difference)
and now you have a decent OS.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Seriously - what the hell is up with Computer equipment prices in England? Is their economy so strong that $5519.37 is a reasonable price for a 3.6 ghz P4 with a Radeon X800?
This isn't the first time I've noticed this absurdity - I've read reviews of English kit before, and it's always ludicriously overpriced. Hardware sellers are making a killing off of the lot of you.
English slashdotters, is there some sort of law or something that says you HAVE to buy computer stuff in the UK? Seriously, just buy all your computer stuff from the US, but buy an English AC adapter and an English keyboard that actually has the pound key on it. You'll save a ton of money.
What everyone has failed to mention is that the Dimension XPS is old. Been out for awhile. The only thing new about this is the review. But I guess since everyone has a hate for Dell, you just didn't notice and this is "news" to you.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes CmdrTaco to learn to spell "its".
... Headline I've read today.
.. then this one ...
...
First was this one on CNN.
And now another here on slashdot.
Someone would say there must be some sort of psy-ops going on, to soften us up for the headlines
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
How many people seriously play games over this res?
For one thing, computers that can play Doom III and the like at higher than 1280x1024 are not expected to exist until sometime in the 24th century.
For another, there are several things that make serious gaming waaay more enjoyable than straight-out resolution, including graphics card quality settings and refresh rate. Most decent monitors will still start to lose refresh rate above 1024x768... if you want anything close to 85-100Hz at higher than 1280x1024 you are talking about insanely expensive equipement.
IMHO most modern games are best played at 1024x768 on a decent gaming rig. You get beautifully high frame rates, and with a decent video card you can have all the quality settings absolutely cranked, whilst running at 100Hz or higher on your monitor to go extra easy on the eyes.
Anyone who claims they 'need' much higher resolutions is full of it.
Read Pynchon.
Yeah, kinda like how Apple moved into the music biz with the iPod and ITMS, 'cause they've been dying for, what, 10 years now?
And how exactly is Dells' attempts to break into a niche market a sign that their consumer products are going the way of the dinosaurs? Didn't they dominate the market last quarter?
Now, to be sure, your comment is true for certain businesses, like Gateway, but I doubt that it applies to Dell. MS is also going after 'other business'. Are they 'on the way down', references to Hell aside?
(tig)
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
It looks like Dell is simply trying to offer up a games oriented PC on the cheap without upsetting their system too much. This would be sort of like building sports cars on the same assembly line as compact economy cars. The sports cars would get a different body and a few performance tweaks, but would essentially be the same old economy cars underneath with a significantly higher price. This sort of thing would garner some casual driving enthusiasts, but the hardcore enthusiasts who actually look carefully under the covers, would not be fooled by this.
It isn't really clear who they plan to sell XPS systems to. The hardcore market, as others here have commented, would likely build their own machines with higher performance for the same or less cost than the XPS. That leaves what I'll call the Mom and Pop market buying computers for their kids. This market might buy the XPS, but would be scared off by such a pricey machine that would probably be used to play games rather than doing homework. The kids would have to push them to buy this, and well, Dell just isn't cool right now (Apple is!). So I guess Dell needs to bring back that stoner dude to rev up those back to school sales!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
That is why dell is so looked down upon. If you ever have to work with them you just know you are dealing wich a "company/piece of hardware" were everything was done by the lowest bidder. Such tricks as finding out a 128mb machine had all its memories slots full (wich as you say makes it harder and more expensive to upgrade). Finding out that for some unspeakable reason yes this PC comes with only 1 IDE slot. That the case size means no expansion card fits.
It is not that Dell actually makes bad stuff. Just that if you are used to make your own cages or worse IBM style hardware Dell feels cheap. The biggest problem is that they feel cheap but often really aren't. If you buy your dell as is and never ever touch its insides then it is a decent enough deal. Else just don't. Friends don't let friends dell.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Dell has been making these XPS systems for well over half a year...
We have one of these at work (a new professor speced it out as his workstation when he arrived; no doubt he plays games in his office sometimes) and it's surprisingly quiet when not too busy.
Dell uses nice and quiet temperature controlled fans in most of its systems. When the system isn't too busy, they spin slowly; when things start getting hot they spin up and can get rather loud, but still not annoyingly so.
Dells prices may be a bit high, but I love their cooling systems. Top notch efficient design. You can't do this easily in home built boxes because case fan and CPU placement differs on different cases and motherboards.
-Z
As I write this on a Dell Inspiron 7500 (redhat 9) let me tell you. First I really like this machine. But I really hate companies that phase out the people who recommend them, a lot more.
Like they phased out linux service. I bought this in the U.S. and came to Japan, they wouldn't fix it here. Can't easily get a Japanese windows unless you go through the Japan office. Fine. Wiped most of windows, linux on here. Had to figure out all the hardware crap myself. Haven't got enough memory on this and don't want to send it in for a month, find that too. Broken battery (probably due to lugging it through town on wheels), little help. Now if Dell can give me top products at a reasonable price (and this *was* pc of the year some years ago), I'll buy it. But when the only part of their online service I find interesting is the refurbished parts catalog. Oh yeah, if you want to look for parts on line forget it, you end up wading through refurbished instead. When I bought this I was told to wait for a big HD to come out, well I never got it for the second bay because it was never in stock, then got dumped apparently. Now I am looking at new computers. I need a desktop pc and I want a system with high performance opengl (I'm not a gamer, I want to make displays). I'm thinking seriously about getting a G5, though it may soon be supplemented with an Alienware laptop which I've been drooling over. Before I buy those two though I'll 90% likely be building a linux box for myself. For me Dell has to seriously shake off an old bad service image and a new bad quality image. It's not like they don't have competition.
So I guess Coca-Cola was "on the way down" when they tried that crazy "Dasani" idea.
Pleeeze....
Quick little story:
;)
My girlfriend moved in (shocking, i know) with a hobbled together PC, same way i do mine - buy mobo-proc combo, case with decent psu, some video card that works with the mobo and some ram from crucial.
i normally repeat this cycle about meh, once every 2 years (recently graduated computer engineering student) and it worked out okay, but both of our machines always suffered from the old, *something* has gone wrong and died all the sudden.
With just one real workstation at any time to mess with for many years, i didn't mind all that much. Well, with two of them in house pulling that crap - it seemed like every month, i was buying some new component for either her pc or mine. It was getting old.
She scored a few contracts for her art (the Papa Roach cd and a slew of Brit albums from various artists that will hit soon have her stuff on them). Well, it was time to get a real machine. i wanted her to get a dual g5, but she wanted to stick with windows for all of her art software and plugins (well over $4k of x86 only stuff). Soooooo, we got her one of these...and here is the point of this post:
Blah, blah, blah as you will about Dell-this and Dell-that - i've not had *one* problem with that machine. i'll remind you, she is not doing light weight work. Not one problem. Er, and it kicks some serious ass with ut2k4 i might add
Uhh, the cheap looks are horrible.
Crappy cabling all over the place in spite of clips & belts (uh, but perhaps it's UV ready right!?).
Breathing power switch done wrong (they understood it backwards, it's distracting... ask the Apple designers)
A lot of fans! Hmm, helicopter or whisper? They look like off the mill beigebox fan, one can only hope the motherboard supports speed scaling like that other PeeCee would-(rather not)-be ;-)
Oh well, I'll continue lusting for that G5... wake me up when a PC manufacturer finally gets to properly copy Apple's designs
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
The case looks cheap. The guts look cheap and messy. The style of the outside is reminiscent of Alienware and the positioning of the PSU is reminiscent of G5's.
It seems like some clueless executive has seen an opportunity to reap big profits and has quickly slapped some crap together to cash in.
Summary: Has all the class and style of one of those people you see walking around with the no-name cheap asian iPod-styled flash-based MP3 players with white headphones.
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First, they say the graphics card I selected which guaranteed an August 6th ship date became limited availability which would delay my order. So since time is of the essence (I need it at home before I go to school to transfer a LOT of files) I switched cards to a better one, which was NOT limited now (it had been when I first configured my system) and now they're saying it MAY ship on the 9th or 10th.
On top of that Alienware had offered us a $150 rebate. Then, on the order confirmation they say its only $75. We bitch and complain, and they finally get us the $75 rebate, and a $75 coupon for Amazon, which, while we use it extensively and will have no problem with that....is STILL a very bad business practice.
Its at the point where if it doesn't ship via next day ground service at their expense, we just may well cancel the order and tell them we're getting a Dell instead.
And a tip for buying from Alienware: If you don't care about a flashy case, check out their small business computers. They're just about the same specs, and a LOT less expensive.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I've been a Mac user for years and currently use an old dual-processor 450 MHz G4. I realized that Macs are generally better designed inside, but didn't realize that current PCs were this cobbled-together. Compare these two shots:
Dell XPS
PowerMac G4
Dell is different. You usually see them coming in organisations with HP or IBM (and 7 years ago Apple) on their way out. This is done on price. Usually with a big 'contractual discount', so you'll forget checking in with HP once in a while.
But the trouble is then, the competition has vanished. There's no way you can ask someone else for an offer on Dell than your Dell account manager.
So, as an IT manager you really need to stay in check with technical developments, realism and pricing in the rest of the market since Dell will try to upsell you all kinds of crap for a premium when you don't really need it.
Dell, not a cheap as you'd think!