I have a 3 year old alienware laptop sitting next to a new XPS laptop. The XPS system just isn't as well built and sturdy as the Alienware system, it still performs well even though its fairly old.

I was hoping that after dell's purchase, the XPS range would inherit some of the good features from the alienware range; or perhaps even drop the XPs range altogether and rebrand the alienware laptops. Dell do make good laptops, but their super wonderful laptops aren't as super and as wonderful as one would expect.

the market position for mutual benfit between dell and alienware should be apparent to both companies, alienware would benfit from the backing of a big company whilst dell should be taking examples from alienware to improve their own products.

I have an XPS, and it's a piece of crap. Apart from CompleteCare taking over six months to replace the bloody thing after its predecessor was stolen, the replacement M1330 has to date had the following replaced:

- motherboard

- bluetooth module

- hard drive

- internal speakers

- internal microphone

- mother board again

And now it's complaining that the AC adapter is faulty.

I've never had a worse laptop, but at least the build quality is backed up by comparable support. Bonus point for consistency, I guess.

Think "Posh brand" / "Tesco Finest" / "Tesco" / "Value"

-Alienware = Straight up gaming

-XPS = Non-fugly Sony/Apple competitors, but sensibly priced.

-Inspiron = General consumer & Mid-market

-Vostro = Budget no-frills

My consultancy invoice is on it's way.

PS: I love my XPS M1330 to bits. Invokes coos from those that see it. Not a hint of a fault from it.

We use laptops as devleopment stations and deliver them with systems as the operator interface. We render large amounts of data in 3D so we use gaming laptops. Our experience with alienware and Dell are such. Alienware was poorly engineered, created too much heat, too heavy, and broke down too often. Our XPS and Vostro systems are perfectly balanced between performance and usability; and we have not had any of the reliablity problems that plagued the alienwares. Maybe we're lucky.

Had no major problem with XPS here.

Well built, thought out design.

Naff Speakers... but apart from that quite happy.

This thing is basically an inspiron 1500 with better build quality, sturdier case and they try and get you to buy the 3 year warranty with it. It's marketed as a "small business" laptop but for whatever reason they've stuck the 8600M GT gaming graphics chip in it, and it's great for HL2:Ep2 and the like. Don't overlook the Vostro, unlike the seeming flippancy with which the XPS are built, the Vostro is put together with care.

Love mine, never a hint of trouble, runs games well, runs apps well, travels round the world with me. Not failed me yet. I did upgrade from Vista to XP to enjoy it's power to the full but that's a well trodden stroy path.

I recently purchased a laptop and considered Dell and Alienware. The price was reasonable but I couldn't get the combination of features I wanted. I also did my research and found out about the huge number of users that have problems with the build quality.

My XPS 420 (gotta love it for the model number alone) is friggin bullet proof.