We've got some news that'll make a PC gamer or two weep: the Wall St. Journal is reporting that as of next month Dell will be dropping four models of XPS performance PCs to focus solely on pushing Alienware. Certainly no surprise though, we've been waiting for this move since they
picked the company up back in 2006. Of course, there will be certain challenges, namely how Dell will keep its Alienware brand separate (read: pristine) -- as its done since the acquisition -- yet be able to offer performance PCs on its site alongside the rest of its machines. It's also unclear what will happen to is XPS line of laptops, since those are big sellers as well, but we'll all have to wait patiently for the bomb to drop before knowing for sure what Dell's cutting and what they're not. [Warning: subscription required]
Update: Not true
says Dell -- XPS systems and gaming rigs will live on.
posted May 12th 2008 10:02PM
Why drop the laptop line - those look so much classier than the plastic-y alienware junk. Sorry - not all of us want a laptop that looks like a glossy alien s***. Besides - the XPS laptops were some of the few dell's with any style at all... Not to mention they were pretty thin compared to the huge alienwares...
agree alienware's are ugly and the smug little alien head is lame i would rather see them drop alienware and focus on xps...
my poor m1710 isn't going to have another xps 17incher to replace it in a couple years *tear*
When I order an Alienware, I'm going to pry that alien head off. It looks so annoying.
I Agree, not only gamers wanna look cool will purchase high performance computer Alienware. Computer programmers, graphic designer will carry those as well.
It would look suck seeing a glowing green alien head in the office. It just doesn't make the employee look professional.
Plus, not all people like Alien anyway, it creeps me out.
I believe it should work out this way:
Alienware: Performance Desktops.
DELL: Performance Laptops and the usual DELL fare.
The difference between a XPS laptop and an alienware one is that the XPS has style and look far more professional then a stupid looking alien logo
May I be the first to say "I like how the AlienWare laptops look" (except for some of the newest ones)
Classy? No, but I don't like classy things.. I prefer sporty/informal
Tired? Yes, it's definitely a tired design... But for those of us who have never had one it still works :-P
-As for AW's quality vs. XPS quality I can't speak because I've never used one of either, will take your word for it..
I have nothing against Alienware's look (god awful freaking hideous pile of plastic crap so what), I do however take issue with their extreme lack of durability, crappy build quality, poor design/usability, and unfrakking believable pricing.
Alienware's weigh a ton, are bloody huge, and cost astronomical amounts. I forgot to tack these on to my other complains: bad durability, poor usability. I suggest trying to customize yourself a decent gaming laptop here, just so you can laugh at the insane price:
http://www.alienware.com/Configurator_Pages/area-51_m15x_ai1.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51M15X-AI1&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT
$1500 base
$300 display upgrade
$500 for a video card upgrade ( !!!!!! )
$250 for a real CPU
$150 to meet Assassin's Creeds minimum RAM requirements
$300 blu-ray
I realize gaming laptops arent going to be cheap, but literally $3000 for an OK gaming laptop that weighs half as much and looks half as good as a cinderblock is really pushing it. The XPS laptops were cheaper, lighter, smaller, better usability, more durable, equally performant, looked better, and had far better support.
hate me, but i actually love that alien head
i love my xps m1330 too
I've had an XPS 1210 lappy for almost 2 years now. Small, powerful, stylish and reliable. They better not scrap this one, I am perfectly happy buying the 1330 and future upgrades of this laptop indefinitely.
@rektide:
You have obviously never owned an Alienware. I on the other hand have two of them, both laptops. I believe the build quality is amazing...well, I won't even go into the rest of your comments but say, I disagree.
XPS, I hardly knew ye, oh well Dell blows and forget their shitty Indian customer service "How is english" "Um, I'm sorry was that supposed to be english,because I didn't understand anything you said."
To be fair, a lot of companies outsource their tech departments to Indian now a days.
Dell's XPS and business system support is North American based. Only the consumer lines of business are based overseas.
Maybe you should start calling the XPS support number. XPS has a seperate number for only english speaking reps. Usually if you call support for another brand they tell you, "you've reached x, i'll transfer you to the premium xps support line."
low ranked for expressing distaste in outsourcing? you're all monsters, and please read, I said Dell, not their XPS lines, because I was referring only to their consumer lines, which I had a few unfortunate experiences with long ago.
outsourcing ftw! to you fools anyways
theres more people in India that speak English than English speaking Canadians.... it would make more sense as a business to have tech support in India .... but who cares about other countries right?
You don't understand what "How is English" means yet at the same time complain about outsourcing? Now _that_ is irony.
I am used to this protectionist Bullcrap from where I grew up, Europe. But in America, it's a new and rather disturbing phenomenon. What ever happened to free markets?
Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've never had any trouble when I've called dell customer support. Sure they had accents, but they were still easy to understand and they were all pretty helpful. Just treat them with respect and they usually come through.
Perhaps this is why the new Inspiron laptops are re-styled to look more upscale like the XPS laptops... they'll be replacing the XPS laptops!
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/08/dell-inspiron-1435-1535-and-1735-leaked/
You got a point.But still,it's not a Real xps laptop.
But maybe this will mean clearance sales for us.That would be good.
I dont think they make those with top of the line Geforce mobiles.
It really was overkill to have Alienware and XPS.
Dell's core business comes from producing business/ educational use laptops and desktops. For them to have a special marquee for high performance gaming while simultaneously owning a company that caters to high performance gaming is just redundant.
I'm glad, on a side note, to see HP focusing on capturing the High Performance gaming market from Dell/Alienware. HP machines are designed better so I have no doubt they will succeed.
The XPS machines were probably the best Dell will ever build. I personally don't like the Alienware case designs but, if you are selling me a $3000, liquid cooled, gaming rig which CAN play Crysis in VERY HIGH without shuddering, I'll take the best case design you can come up with.
A lot of university researchers use Dell XPS desktops. I work at a university as a computing consultant and I probably put together a quote for 3/4 XPS desktops a semester. As of this point, my university doesn't have a buying contract with Alienware and I wouldn't recommend it anyway. The pricetag of a Dell XPS is a lot more affordable than Alienware systems.
I would've killed off the piece of crap alienware systems before I went near XPS. All the XPS machines are INCREDIBLY well done, and come at only a marginal cost added. The Alienware machines are almost universally a bit on the junky plastic side, breakage prone (just search for alienware), badly designed, heavy, and astronomically priced. If anything got axes it should definitely have been Alienwares.
I too fail to see how this will work, unless the machines will be branded as Dells, which is not what I'm reading in the article. They mention that HP subsumed Voodoo, but Dell decided to go a different route, leaving Alienware intact.
I own an XPS720 and it is solidly built with all the bells and whistles. I would not buy an Alienware machine, unless they proved to me beyond a doubt that the build quality is identical and the support is of the same caliber.
The only alternative I see is to switch to the Precision line of desktops and laptops. I didn't like the XPS laptop (fugly) and I switched to a Precision 6300 for my laptop needs. It's held up so far, but I do concede it looks more like a research laptop running games, rather than a gaming laptop used for research.
@Flashpoint
I think you've hit the mark quite well on this one. Dell doesn't need XPS and Alienware. But personally I do not like the Alienware cases. I find them to be gaudy in appearance. Regardless, performance is where it's at and however they serve it up it's important. I'm not a gamer so I don't need it, but there is most certainly a need in the market for high performance for those who do use it.
I think they should go for a more simple yet elegant design and (God I hate to say this...) they could take a few tips from Apple. I'm not saying they should try to mimic Apple design, but there is a lot to be said for an understatedly elegant design. It would be an opportunity to "one up" Apple on the appearance.
First!
if by first, you mean first at failing, then yes
If you are going to be the idiot who does "First!", at least don't suck at your job.
please jump off a bridge, now!
You were first but we pushed you down. The senior members of this forum have the power to do things like that. Check the next article you try being first on.
If you can be first on the next three articles, I promise to send you a 3G iPhone with Steve Jobs fingerprints on it.
That is the lowest first ive seen in a while... it takes some skill to be this bad at commenting
If Dell is dropping XPS, I damn well expect the prices of Alienware PCs to drop dramatically. You can buy a similarly equipped XPS hundreds of dollars cheaper than an Alienware of the same class.
My thoughts exactly. The XPS brand has come to mean premium (yes, premium - at least relative to the rest of the Dell lineup) quality for the cheap gamer. The prices on the 420 and 630 and unbeatable after discounts.
I've always been a fan of XPS, and I'm really sad to see it die :(
I really liked the XPS M1210 notebook myself. Very compact and so full of power.
Overall, that was probably the best notebook I've ever owned. I wish I never sold that computer.
I really miss my m1210 too. The m1330 is nice and all, but vista and horrible heat management be damned!
so, will they launch Alienware in Brazil? (even with the absurd price tag, since higher-priced PCs don't have some tax reductions or exemptions that sub-3000BRL-or-so PCs have)
Finally. The PC as a game device is dead anyways - so why not dropping the whole XPS series? Dell should focus on energy effiecient PCs, Laptops, Nettops and Servers. That's not the future - that's where the present focus is on, whether you look at company or private interests.
What planet are you from? PC gaming is as strong as it ever has been.
WTF?
Crysis sold over 1 million copies. Thats over 1 million people that at least spent 1500 dollars on their PC to play games on (considering what the game needs to be enjoyable). Thats over 1 million possible custom builders. Were not even counting the pirates.
I think PC gaming is doing just fine. 1 million at 50 bucks is still 50 million dollars. Sure, that isnt GTA numbers, but its still decent, considering the added money spent by people just to get that game running on their PC.
Why would companies like Nvidia even bother if they werent making amazing profits?
Console gamers can enjoy their 720P games, and ill enjoy vertical resolution equal to their horizontal.
Damn straight Ruben!!!
Wow.
1 million Crysis sold. That's impressive.
How many Call of Duty 4s have been sold for the 360 & PS3? And how many for the PC?
And didn't Cevat Yerli (Crytek CEO, maker of Crysis) recently stated, that due to pirating-issues the Crysis successor won't be PC-only? And that piracy will eventualy destroy the whole PC-Gaming sector?
Yeah, you're right, he didn't.
http://www.pcplay.hr/modules.php?r=23
"We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy. To the degree PC Gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we wont have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore."
EA also said that they were impressed with the 1 million mark....
soo............. EA was happy with the numbers. Crytek wasnt.... sounds like Crytek just wants more money and less work so theyre going the console route. Fine by me, but i warn you that Crysis will look much better than their next release and theyre going backwards .
Anycrap, i still dont see why Dell hasnt changed the Alienware cases... things are awful
My "Impressive" statement was blank irony. 1m units for a AAA titel like Crysis ist crap. Total crap.
And if they're going backwards graphic-wise - why not? Optimise it for one or a max. of two hardware sets, and A LOT OF PEOPLE will buy it. It's simple math.
Why do you think GTA IV is first published on consoles? Exactly, 'cause it costed 100m bucks to get developed. And TakeTwo, as every publisher who spends horrendous amounts of money, wants to get their investments back and even earn some money.
I'll promise you - if the whole industry doesn't get rid of the piracy issue - bye bye Gaming-PCs. NVIDIA & ATI still earn enough with their console departments.
NOOO!!!!
I thought the XPS 1530 looked so awesome, and if I were to get a new laptop, that would definately be the one I would get, but now they're replacing it with the overpriced, clunky, un-stylish alienware laptops that you look like a total nerd if you have. Seriously, for a 14-year-old, if your friends see you have an alienware laptop, it looks much more nerdy than a stylish Dell XPS.
useragent
Googlebot/2.1
is fail.
Man, those read links don't care if you're google or not anymore, do they ;)
Good riddance to search result litter.
Well if they want their sales to plummit fine. I would only get rid of the desktop line just because they sell less now of days but I would like to keep the midrange stuff since I think the 720 chassis is a nice design. The 420 is simply ugly and the 210 already looks like an Inspiron 510s
What I want to know is what will become of this:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1330?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&~oid=us~en~29~linux_4~~
My XPS Gen4 is still rocking for me. Can't complain much. The tech service in India doesn't bother me much. I went to engineering school with many Indians, not a big deal and DELL has always fixed any problems I've had.
Many companies are out-sourcing their tech service overseas. Sh** happens.
BUT, CAN YOU PLAY CRYSIS.
And if so...how well can you play CRYSIS.
i dont understand the market for consumer gamer pc. It seems to me like its way cheaper (and looks more badass) especially in a desktop to get a barebone kit or even just build your own computer. I suppose the only thing you dont get when you build is customer support and the brand name.
i hope they don't drop the m1530 im really lookind forward to buy one this summer.
yeah the XPS laptops are far superior than their now junky and underpowered Inspiron line.
I hope they just scrap the current Inspiron line and just rebrand the now dead XPS laptop line as Inspiron so we can still enjoy good style and power.
Alienware has always been about over the top extremely expensive rigs, Dell has been about budget.. I hope they are able to find a middle ground.
There is a middle ground, it's called "every other computer manufacturer out there"...
I think they're good as they are, we don't need more crowds on the already crowded mid-end computer market
The middle ground unfortunately uses intel integrated videos.
That is all that matters. :/
I forgot to add, the Dell XPS was the only manufacturer-built gaming rig that wasn't super expensive yet offered good performance.. Its sad that it's going the way of the dodo.. Oh well, self-built comps FTW!
Interesting... It kinda makes sense to drop the XPS line, considering they are just creating competition for themselves, but the Alienware brand and the XPS line are quite distinguishably different. It'll be interesting to see what Dell does. It does seem as if they already started making some Alienware PCs more affordable, but I totally agree: Alienware and Dell should remain a separate brand (despite the fact that Dell owns Alienware).
Really? That's too bad. XPS has always been noted for very good performance, and relatively nice industrial design. Alienware seems more targeted to gamers that just want it all. Unfortunately, most people aren't necessarily gamers and don't want the Alienware-styled stuff.
I think most people would agree that XPS is one of Dell's more sleeker lines, while Alienware is just well, more for anyone that likes aliens and lots of plastic.
I hope they don't take the XPS One and some of those monitors down.
Yah I'm kinda interested in this as well since the discrepancy between Dell's bottom of the barrel Inspiron desktops and their uber tops of the line XPS 700's is a sweet spot for many. Hell even I was thinking of forgoing building a new PC and just get their midrange XPS system. I'm starting to get lazy in my old age. Either that or having to deal with PC repairs day in and out the concept of tinkering is growing old.
At any rate Alienware's designs == Fugly. Please guys...why the hell do I want gills on my computer? I love the XPS designs including the side cover that could stop a depleted uranium burst from a tank. Seriously. Have you guys see the XPS 700 series. The cover is like .5" of an inch thick.
I will tell you that Dell is making a HUGE mistake. I've had to deal with Alienware for years, and I will tell you that they have the absolute worst customer service in the business, their machines are absolute junk, and Dell should sever this line from their good name!
That's to bad, the XPS cases are so much classier than the Alienware ones. I can only hope I can still get my hands on one of those.
Perhaps a new line is coming from Dell. Perhaps it starts with an "S."
That's All.
I would hardly call the Alienware name pristine. It definitely is anything but that from my experience, now granted this was from 2 years ago.
My best friends experience with them landed him paying the shipping for the newly delivered Alienware laptop to Florida from Canada to fix a fried motherboard. Upon its return he found that in the process of refitting it with a new motherboard the repair center folks had fried the wireless card. Making it worse the tech support persons were more than happy to offer the option of him paying more money to ship it to Florida to have it fixed again. He happily declined the offer a second time, but sadly those were the last of his troubles with that computer. It culminated in him finding out that the root reason it sounded like a hair dried 90% of the time was because they lopped on a fatty coating of thermal grease.
So given past experience with this so called awesome company I can't say I much care for them regardless of if they are under new management or not.
SO why introduce the new XPS 630 what a couple of weeks ago and now completely discontinue it? Seems a like a big waste of R&D to implement a product for such a short time.
Hoping they keep the laptop line alive....
because dell doesn't make smart choices.Besides, all of the xps support was moving over seas out of america anyway, so i'm thinking dropping xps was in the works for a while...
that and all the 420's and 1330's that have been having so many problems. I swear, the xps 420 was the WORST system i've ever seen problem wise.
That is BS. I own a XPS 420 fully loaded (512mb Nvidia8800), 4GB and I own a M1330 fully loaded as well and have had ZERO, count it, ZERO problems with either.
The XPS line is the best Dell selection line period. Discontinuing the XPS line is complete stupidity. I just hope that my warranty/tech support is not affected because of this.
I love my Gen2 XPS, sad to see em go, never cared for the Alienwares, too ugly and too expensive.
You know having that alien logo somehow automatically doubles the cost of the machine you are building. Dell should focus on value, not aliens.
Will we suddenly start seeing Alien Ware Laptops on Stargate Atlantis?
My guess is the 1710, 210, 420 and the 2010 will be toast.
- 1710 was replaced by the 1730 and the 1710 is 2 generations of GPU and 1 of CPU behind and can't be easily updated.
- 210 isn't an XPS anyways as you can't upgrade it to anything decent.
- 420 will be gone because the 630 is here and is likely cheaper to produce because of the more standard parts and it has the same price point as the 420.
- 2010 is just a mess and never should have been released, calling it an XPS is a joke.
So it looks like they are just cleaning up the old stuff and culling the non-XPS spec machines.
I used to work for XPS support but they are closing my call center next month, all support will be non-NA based soon. :(
I tried to buy one for a client the other day, but no way no how were they selling it with anything but Vista. Had to get a Precision instead. Wonder if there's any correlation...
This is a travesty! I choose dell over alienware 2 years ago when I got my laptop. Alienware support and quality just plain sucks! I was hoping to buy a gaming desktop in the next few months. If the XPS option is removed, I will not buy an Alienware. Perhaps the next generation of the Blackbird, or I'll just have to build my own. The Dell and Alienware desktops never seemed perfectly in sync. They never seem to be the same product, one always has a little difference in hardware from the other, sometimes making one the better machine. In terms of appearence....dell wins, I don't like the plastic overshell of Alienware desktops. I do like the XPS Titanium Ablative Plate Armor design on the XPS 720 and new 730.
Besides, they literally just released the 730 with a redone H2C system....why dump it when there are supposed to be more updates and features coming to it?
I wouldn't object to dumping the 200 series XPS, that was just a sad machine. The 2010....not an XPS, just a very strange niche laptop thing. At the very least keep the 630 and 730 XPS desktops..... and the 17 inch and possibly 15 inch gaming laptops. Only 4 models to maintain. That would cover the market without a problem. Leave alienware to people who want hideous cases and have an extra 500-800 bucks to blow on a system.
No!!!!!
I just got a XPS 420 ...I think a couple months a go for $800 something...
Now I get hosed?!?
I don't see how you people could possibly say that Dell is more affordable..
I just bought a new machine (Alienware M15X), I looked at the dells and anything with the Santa Rosa and 8800GTX was overly priced. Specifically the M1730 or whatever, it would have cost me $4000 to get into one with 8800's. where I got into the M15x for $2300 shipped.
The internet is awesome for uninformed blabber I tell ya.
I have very mixed feelings about this.
On one hand, Dell has really screwed up lately. A few years back you could get everything in a Dimension that you could in the XPS, outside of things like liquid cooling and fancy case lights. Then, with the $750 off $2000 coupons, you could get a Dell cheaper than you could build a computer, or around the same price (at least if you were willing to sell the included monitor on ebay.)
Then, about a year ago, Dell stopped doing that. Top of the line processors (and, for a long time, any quad-core) were only available on XPS computers.
Now, decent graphics cards are exclusive to XPS. Coupons for XPS systems always suck, and the $750 off $2000 has mostly disappeared, anyway. So it's impossible to get a Dell within the same price as building. It's nowhere near.
If Dell were to go back to decent desktops in their main lines, I'd be happy. But odds are they'll just make it so good processors and graphics cards are limited to Alienware, which doesn't get any coupons. So, if you want to game on a Dell, you need to pay through the nose.
Back to building I go.
THis is ridiculous! I am a huge fan of my XPS laptop, Alienware is overpriced and childish!
What is this going to mean for XPS exclusive support? How long will it be until that is taken away?
I guess they might be getting rid of the XPS line.
I was browsing the Dell outlet site last night at about 2AM and they had about 30 M1730 machines there.
I went to another called Slickdeals and someone had posted a coupon or link to a sale for $549 off XPS systems only for last night.
I then went back to the site because I am in the market for one of these lappys and as I clicked on the different groups to sort the categories... the remaining laptops started to disappear one by one.
I dunno if people were buying them or Dell was removing them from the refurbished section so people wouldn't buy one but those suckers were priced pretty low.
Starting at a little over $1300 with that coupon you could pull one of those out of there for a little over $800.
People are moving these laptops for $3500 or more on Ebay!
I LOVE my Dell XPS M1330, though I wouldn't mind stealing the back-lit keyboard from an Alien Ware laptop...
I bet more than 50% the whiners here have never have an Alienware system.
Lemme see:
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Alienware -> 8.4
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Dell -> 1.9
Mmm, some Internet trolls thnk they are the voice of the majority...
But it is NOT.
Have to say it, no balance in this post
First thing I should say is a dont care about Dell at all, everytime I bought a computer from them all I got was cheap crap in a fancy box. Maybe things have changed but I find building my own gamming rig to be more powerful and less expensive. Granted, XPS could be a very nice computer but honestly, gamming rigs that pwn dont come out of a factory, they come out of a garage or a small store that people put together, not an assembly line.
Alienware, you used to be good, until Dell bought you
IT says 4 comps getting the axe. I think the 13 and 15 inch xps laptops are fine it sounds like all the xps desktops and prob the 17inch xps laptop that are going away.
I have an XPS Gen 2 Laptop. It's heavy as hell but it still beats most other laptops even though I got it in July 2005.
WTH?!
Do you people know how to read?
Dell will be dropping FOUR models. FOUR. How many XPS PCs does Dell have?
Of course they'll never drop their laptop line. The m1330 and m1530 are selling like hotcakes.
No more XPS? So what will Leonard and Sheldon use on "The Big Bang Theory?"
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/03/screen-grabs-nokias-n95-appears-to-appear-on-big-bang-theory/
Dell has responded
http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/05/13/what-s-happening-to-xps.aspx
Hope they keep the XPS line of laptops, I am sorry but the Alienware logo reminds me of oh so many early 90's raves, aliens everywhere LOL.
Was hoping to pickup a M1330 to replace my M1210. If you are buying a laptop why does performance have to come with a big screen and heavy weight like Alienware seems to think it should?