Actually, comparing the Alienware that I bought vs a very similar one at System 76:

Alienware: 16G RAM, 4K display, 1T rotating drive, 128G SSD, I7-7700: List $2066, paid $1536

System76: 16G RAM, 1080P, 2T rotating drive, 512G SSD, I7-7700: list under $1500.

So, double the rotator size, 4x the SSD size, and remove the 4K display – and save around $500. I’d say 76 isn’t bad, price-wise. The primary reason I got the alien was because of the 4K and similar price (I did a side-by-side comparison at the store. 4K really is better, and when I got home and booted Linux on it – whoa!). (Don’t know which video card they each had – I’m not going to be doing gaming (much?) so don’t care that much… I think)

Unfortunately, live booting the Mint 17.3 DVD resulted in no Ethernet or WiFi. I’m downloading 18.2 now to see if that’s better, as a google search seems to imply it is. But the display! Oh, my goodness!

Oh, by the way – the alienware has only ONE ‘standard’ disk slot, but 3, yes THREE M.2 slots – one very short, the other 2 full-length. And only 2 RAM slots. Which is too bad – my Lenovo for work (17” also) has 2 standard slots and 2 M.2 slots (and 4 RAM slots) – I mean, its not like they don’t have ROOM, for goodness sake! But then, the Lenovo was almost $3000. Of course, it had a 1TB SSD as well as 16G of ram and the TOP video card…

From: PLUG-discuss [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.phxlinux.org] On Behalf Of Michael
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2017 7:15 PM
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: Warranty!!?!?!?!?!

system76 is expensive too

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 8:27 PM, Phil Waclawski <phil.waclawski@mesacc.edu> wrote:

I have a laptop from zareason that I've used for several years. It was a touch pricey, but still powerful enough to do a lot. They also will install different flavors of linux for you.

Phil Waclawski

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 5:25 PM, Mark Phillips <mark@phillipsmarketing.biz> wrote:

Rusty,

Did you check out System 76 laptops? They come with Ubuntu installed, but I think you can ask for any distro. I have been using their hardware for a couple of years, and it is flawless.

Mark

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 5:18 PM, Michael Butash <michael@butash.net> wrote:

I just went through this with a new dell, where I used the local windoze tools to make a usb backup imagine with their software to a 16gb drive, and just tossed it in a drawer if I ever need to restore things. That supposedly restores their recovery partitions and windoze itself, which should be everything...

I'd not put faith in some tier 1 rep telling you linux voids the warranty. It was probably one of those "What is linux? Yeah, don't do that." sort of comments ignorant agents might spew, but otherwise shouldn't matter. If you restore the disk and bios to prior function, they should be none the wiser anyways.

-mb

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 10:37 AM, irb <irb_plug-d@maleficarum.org> wrote:

* Carruth, Rusty (aka Rusty.Carruth@smartm.com) used 15K on Tue, 05 Sep 2017 at 17:21 +0000 to say:
>
> (By the way – does anyone remember the ‘windows refund day’ many years back?
> System vendors refused to honor the refund clause stated in the EULA (or
> whatever it was), claiming that Microsoft had to honor it, and Micro$oft
> claimed that it was the responsibility of the system vendors (which, indeed,
> it was). But as far as I know, NOBODY got their refund…. Again, where’s
> the lawyers????)

I remember that, as part of BALUG many years ago. I never got a refund and
Microsoft tried to turn it to their advantage by setting up a booth. I think
there's a documentary out there somewhere.

When dealing with warranty crap from laptop vendors I just take an image of
the drive. If I have to send it in I don't include the drive anyway, and I've
never been given grief over it. Still, having an original hardware backup
like that is kinda cool.

/i.
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