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
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?