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Hardware

The Alienware Area-51m's Upgradable Dream Has Failed in Just One Year (theverge.com) 76

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Alienware has announced the second generation of its flagship Area-51m gaming laptop, the Area-51m R2. It's largely similar on the outside to the original Area-51m, but the specs are almost completely overhauled on the inside, with 10th Gen Intel processors, new Nvidia GPUs, faster RAM, and better display options. From a report: All of those upgrades will be limited to the new R2 model, though. Despite Alienware's goals for future-proofed upgradable parts, the Area-51m has failed to live up to its potential. One of the biggest draws of the Area-51m was the option for user-replaceable parts. Most modern laptops have nearly all of their internal components sealed in place in an effort to cut down on size. But the Area-51m took a different approach. It was big, easy to disassemble, and made it simple to replace nearly every internal component, from RAM to the CPU to the GPU to even the thermal cooling components. The idea was to make something more portable than any other desktop but more customizable than any laptop. Alienware's parent company, Dell, even built its own system for replaceable GPUs in laptops, called DGFF (Dell Graphics Form Factor) to make it easier to upgrade in the future.
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The Alienware Area-51m's Upgradable Dream Has Failed in Just One Year More

The Alienware Area-51m's Upgradable Dream Has Failed in Just One Year

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  • Upgradability only works if supported. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @02:24PM (#60056916) Homepage Journal

    Why would a computer manufacturer build upgrades when it can sell you a new machine at a higher profit? In general, upgradability only works when there are enough third-party manufacturers willing to put in the effort to build the upgrades. And that typically happens only if a large number of machines built by a large number of companies can be upgraded with the same upgrade hardware.

    • Why would a computer manufacturer build upgrades when it can sell you a new machine at a higher profit?

      Competition.

    • Because some users want upgradability and it's a free market out there (PCs are the definition of a free market). The Alienware name was built on the reputation for easy upgradability, a reputation that started to grow thin when Alienware ditched the MXM slot for GPUs and started driving gamers who want upgradability to MSI and the various Clevo-based laptops (including Origin PC). The proprietary 51m slot was their attempt to recapture that crowd, but it appears they blew it.
      • the MXM slot for GPUs = the MXM slot that makes possible upgrades in GPUs

      • "PC). The proprietary 51m slot was their attempt to recapture that crowd, but it appears they blew it."

          Wow, this is a throwback to the 1980s when some PC-clone manufacturers were selling PCs that could be "upgraded forever" through modules/cartridges

          Unfortunately, these modules were proprietary, and the company who supplied them also made the PC (can you say lock in?). These companies seemed to have completely folded a short time after.

      • It's not upgradable if all the "upgradable" components are rare or custom bits that are single-sourced, and that source decides not to make new bits.

        At that point, it's just marketing, and it sounds like a lot of suckers got suckered.

    • I don't know, but if you read the article (or even the summary) apparently Dell did - only to find out upgradability wasn't a big selling point.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        They built it to be upgradable, but then they didn't build the upgrades, and that's the most important part....

      • The Area 51m was always a niche product compared to Alienware's more mainstream gaming laptops. The people who bought the Area 51m bought it for the upgradability. BTW how do you know that upgradability wasn't a big selling point exactly? As far as I remember, old Alienware laptops were upgraded all the time (you could see them been sold user-upgraded on eBay). And Dell didn't offer any upgradeability for the Area 51m beyond what was already available when it went sale. The people who buy such laptops typic

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      A related question : why would consumers pay extra for systems that are heavier/bulkier with worse performance in order to gain upgradability they are not going to use?

      Upgradiblity is a feature that comes with its own costs and benefits. It is a feature not many customers want, and even fewer are willing to absorb the additional cost relative to the perceived benefit.
      • Those "many customers" can do anything they want. This particular laptop, the Area 51m, was sold as a niche product to a niche subset of buyers because of its upgradeability, and Dell is screwing buyers over for not allowing any upgrades beyond what was offered when the laptop went on sale.

      • I will trade light weight and small size for toughness any day. So much money lost to destroyed laptops. All the thin light fetishism was about was the status when computers were coming down in size. Now they are small enough, and I value bulletproof metal shell rugged. Outside of a corporate setting thatâ(TM)s right for most people.

      • My laptop is a 5-1/2 year old Dell Precision m4800. Over the past 5.5 years, I...

        * Added a 500-gig mSATA SSD
        * replaced the original 500-gig SSHD with a 2TB HD
        * added another 8 gigs of RAM (total, 16gb)
        * replaced the optical drive with a second 2TB HD
        * upgraded the video card from the original k2100m to a k2200m. Not exactly groundbreaking, but it cost $70 (eBay) and took the original up a notch.
        * upgraded the original wifi card to Dell's 802.11ad "wigig" card. I still haven't gotten around to buying an 802.

        • Incidentally, I have another display idea that would be almost as good as Valerie's 3 full displays... possibly, even better, because it wouldn't require 4 feet of horizontal space: a central 3840x1440 display, flanked by a pair of double-hinged 1920x1440 displays that could fold out, forward (like window shutters) so you could close the lid, or backward (so they'd be facing the rear).

          This would give you a big 3:2 primary display for things like an IDE, flanked by a pair of 3:4 displays... say, the one on t

          • Incidentally, I have another display idea that would be almost as good as Valerie's 3 full displays... possibly, even better, because it wouldn't require 4 feet of horizontal space: a central 3840x1440 display, flanked by a pair of double-hinged 1920x1440 displays that could fold out, forward (like window shutters) so you could close the lid, or backward (so they'd be facing the rear).

            This would give you a big 3:2 primary display for things like an IDE, flanked by a pair of 3:4 displays... say, the one on the left for a pdf document or web page that's being referred to, and the one on the right for something like the Android emulator, a window for whatever is being tested/debugged, etc.

            When folded against the back of the middle display, you could either turn them off (say, if you're on a plane & don't have room to open them outward), or use them as a pair of 3:4 rear-facing displays (or, if a middle seam is tolerable, a rear-facing 3:2 display).

            This is a very Interesting concept!

        • There is a 7 screen (4x4KUHD and 3x7inch 1920x1200) laptop prototype called the Aurora 7 from a company in the UK called Expanscape that also features upgradeable graphics, CPU, RAM etc. The initial Aurora 7 prototype featured an i9900k but the new A7M3 prototype supports the 10 core Intel i10900k or the 16 core AMD 3950x. The interesting thing is that that the A7M3 prototype is available for purchase right now. They are making and selling prototypes during the development stage which is interesting. While

      • A related question : why would consumers pay extra for systems that are heavier/bulkier with worse performance in order to gain upgradability they are not going to use?

        I. ... errr. Let me quote a smart person: "Upgradiblity is a feature that comes with its own costs and benefits. "

    • Why would a computer manufacturer build upgrades when it can sell you a new machine at a higher profit? In general, upgradability only works when there are enough third-party manufacturers willing to put in the effort to build the upgrades. And that typically happens only if a large number of machines built by a large number of companies can be upgraded with the same upgrade hardware.

      So, all those people who continuously whine about Apple laptops not having upgrade-able internals have nicely proven themselves wrong.

      • Most laptops today are non-upgradeable, in the sense they have almost everything soldered-on (maybe except the storage) because of the industry-wide move to ultraportables. Apple laptops have the added disadvantage of being nigh-unrepairable (a different thing). But, how does this relate to the 51m? The 51m was sold on the premise of upgradability. It had only one job in life (compared to other Alienware laptops). Dell blew it, plain and simple.

    • Why would a computer manufacturer build upgrades when it can sell you a new machine at a higher profit?

      Because at the top end of computing you replace parts far more frequently than you replace systems. The point is not to let 3rd parties get in on the profit. You're going to be paying Mr Dell for the privilege of the upgrade.

    • "Why would a computer manufacturer build upgrades when it can sell you a new machine at a higher profit?" ... To build and protect their brand name and reputation and avoid permanently losing past and new customers?

  • Consumers don't care about upgradeability. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ludux ( 6308946 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @02:29PM (#60056938)
    Consumers (ie, regular people, people who think the internet is Netflix and Facebook and nothing else) don't care about upgradeability. Computers are already a magical black box to them, asking to open anything up to do anything on the inside is an automatic nope for the vast majority of people. Even for people willing to do that Alienware is a niche brand - so this product is a niche of a niche for a niche. It's no wonder it failed.

    • Re:Consumers don't care about upgradeability. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @02:36PM (#60056956)

      Consumers (ie, regular people, people who think the internet is Netflix and Facebook and nothing else) don't care about upgradeability. Computers are already a magical black box to them, asking to open anything up to do anything on the inside is an automatic nope for the vast majority of people. Even for people willing to do that Alienware is a niche brand - so this product is a niche of a niche for a niche. It's no wonder it failed.

      Most don't, but PC gamers, the market this was aimed at? Yea, most of them would actually care.

      • Serious gamers who care that much about hardware upgrades buy a mid or larger box PC. If they have a laptop for travel or something they're not doing serious gaming on hotel WiFi. I've tried. Tragedy ensued.

        • It's why I described it as mid-to-high end gamers earlier. People want to play an MMO perhaps with decent graphics at home or on the road, for example, and normal laptops with mobile GPUs just don't work that well much of the time. They've got to be serious enough to spend the extra cash, but not so serious that they have tower platform that sucks up more power than a washer/dryer.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          Stop conflating serious with wealthy. Plenty of people can afford high end but plenty serious about gaming and most idiots with high end gear could comprehend "serious" in any aspect of life because they've got a giant pile of money serving as a nice cushy net in their life to prevent ever needing to be or face anything serious.

          • Wtf are you talking about? At no point did I say money. And laptops cost more $ per unit of gpu/cpu power. So, you're an idiot.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Shaitan ( 22585 )

              "Wtf are you talking about? At no point did I say money."

              No, you said "high end," which means expensive, which means money. You are repeating common marketing which equates seriousness with how expensive your gear is.

              "And laptops cost more $ per unit of gpu/cpu power."

              That's true... not particularly relevant but true. Actually they don't just cost more but top out lower.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Calydor ( 739835 )

          Not all games are online, though. You could bring along a copy of Witcher 3 to play, but I don't think most laptops would love that idea.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          If it's an option sure. But it's not always, or they want a machine they can game on and also they need a laptop. Believe it or not, there is a market for gaming laptops.

        • Serious gamers who care that much about hardware upgrades buy a mid or larger box PC.

          The no true Scotsman fallacy would work far better if there weren't entire companies dedicated to making gaming laptops and selling them to the large gaming crowd.

          If they have a laptop for travel or something they're not doing serious gaming on hotel WiFi. I've tried. Tragedy ensued.

          Pfft amateur. Personally I don't have a gaming laptop. I built a luggable gaming machine in a pelican case. The reason your hotel WiFi sucks, is because we premium hotel guests are using up your bandwidth.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        Consumers (ie, regular people, people who think the internet is Netflix and Facebook and nothing else) don't care about upgradeability. Computers are already a magical black box to them, asking to open anything up to do anything on the inside is an automatic nope for the vast majority of people. Even for people willing to do that Alienware is a niche brand - so this product is a niche of a niche for a niche. It's no wonder it failed.

        Most don't, but PC gamers, the market this was aimed at? Yea, most of them would actually care.

        How many PC gamers willing to spend as much as an Alienware costs would do so for a laptop? Alienware is overpriced and lack customization options(and I mean horribly lacking). Can get so much more for the price from smaller custom builders (or by building your own). I went with a small builder for mine and literally had 40-50 options just in graphics cards (on a budget build). Alienware gives you like 3 options.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

          How many PC gamers willing to spend as much as an Alienware costs would do so for a laptop? Alienware is overpriced and lack customization options(and I mean horribly lacking). Can get so much more for the price from smaller custom builders (or by building your own). I went with a small builder for mine and literally had 40-50 options just in graphics cards (on a budget build). Alienware gives you like 3 options.

          I think that you're confusing desktops and laptops after the first few sentences. Every laptop

          • My first point was that no serious gamer is going to do serious gaming on a laptop. At least not at the prices Alienwate charges. My second was that in general Alienware is overpriced and there are much better sources that offer much more customization.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

              My first point was that no serious gamer is going to do serious gaming on a laptop.

              Ah, so your point was merely a No True Scotsman argument. I guess I'll be retiring my Clevo now. Someone on Slashdot might think that I'm a casual gamer.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by Retron ( 577778 )

                Clevo all the way for me too! Yes, playing Overwatch on hotel wifi can be a bit dodgy sometimes (less so games like WoW), but there's always mobile tethering or, in the likes of Japan, the option of a wired Ethernet link instead.

                My particular Clevo has a desktop CPU in it, too, but of course upgrading is limited to what the chipset and socket supports. I can't upgrade from my 9900K to a 10900K without throwing the whole thing away, but if I'd bought it with an i5 (to save money) I could have upgraded to an

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          "How many PC gamers willing to spend as much as an Alienware costs would do so for a laptop?"

          Most. Entire new generations who don't understand a laptop is just a seriously crippled system with a poor interface and that phones and tablets are the same to additional orders of magnitude in both cases is born every day.

          That said why the hell can't you play the latest MMO on every system by now... hardware that performs well enough to do so is DECADES old.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          Quite a few, otherwise they wouldn't be selling them. Have you priced gaming laptops lately? Also build your own? Laptop? Yea, no one is doing that except for a few die-hards who just want to do it to do it.

      • Not a surprise there. I bought a laptop in 2004 with the laptop MXM standard graphics that could theoretically be upgraded to another card at a later date. Only problem? Later never came. I couldn't even get reasonable driver updates without going through a third party, much less an entire graphics card update. The kicker? The MXM slot proved troublesome. Eventually, the graphics card heat warped the card ever so slightly, such that the machine wouldn't power up reliably anymore. It was an expensive

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          Yea, I had a similar laptop at one time back in the day. "Upgrade your graphics later!" and never made a new card for it ever. Laptops have always been hampered by being proprietary in their hardware. Thank Christ IBM decided on a more modular design for desktops, and we got clones that had to follow it or die.

      • Consumers (ie, regular people, people who think the internet is Netflix and Facebook and nothing else) don't care about upgradeability. Computers are already a magical black box to them, asking to open anything up to do anything on the inside is an automatic nope for the vast majority of people. Even for people willing to do that Alienware is a niche brand - so this product is a niche of a niche for a niche. It's no wonder it failed.

        Most don't, but PC gamers, the market this was aimed at? Yea, most of them would actually care.

        Then why didn't they flock to this machine?

        You have already been proven wrong by the market; so give it a rest, willya?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jezwel ( 2451108 )
        Based on the Alienware laptops I've fished out of bins in my old apartment complex, I think the market was 'wealthy and occasionally plays PC games'. All that was typically needed was a new power supply - the thing worked fine, but at 3 years old it was time for a new one.

        • Based upon the ones that I have come across, if you actually use it for what it's marketed for, it's pretty much done after three years due to thermal failures from cooking itself to death.

          I've never really understood these kind of machines. Besides the cost and the short lifespan (both in terms of failures as well as obsolescence), who wants to game for hours hunched over a laptop?

    • people I know who like the idea found that the cost of upgrading was more than a newer, faster laptop. CPUs aren't so bad, since folks scavenge them from dead laptops if they're socketed. But a GPU for a $1200 laptop will sell for $800 from the manufacturer, and that's the same model.

      Meanwhile I upgraded from a GTX 760 to an RX580 for $100 bucks.

    • This is Alienware though, not your average consumer. Oriented to mid-to-high end gamers who want a laptop that can play the games they want without melting. They're expensive enough that people want them to be like desktops where you can upgrade parts over time. *Especially* if the laptop was originally advertised as being fully upgradeable and customers probably bought this based upon this claim, they're pretty damned disappointed to find out the Alienware lies just as much as any other company.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        they're pretty damned disappointed to find out the Alienware lies just as much as any other company.

        You build up a good reputation, then sooner or later you get a CEO that finds he wants to increase short-term profit by burning through the goodwill then exit before the downturn sets in. And because he's already hired by the next company and seemingly do a good job there he can keep it up leaping from pillar to pillar as they crumble behind him. The best of the best spin it as if they were the only thing holding the place together and their successor tore it up. Some of them probably even believe it themse

    • Alienware users DO care about upgrades, as evidenced by the number of upgraded used laptops on eBay, so it's clear you don't know what you are talking about. But then something happened and the standard MXM slot disappeared, to be replaced by a proprietary Dell thing.

      • Alienware users DO care about upgrades, as evidenced by the number of upgraded used laptops on eBay

        Pray tell how the fuck you're able to determine what percentage of [gullible] Alienware laptop buyers care about upgrading, from how many used, upgraded laptops you've spotted on eBay? Just curious.

        • I *think* he's saying *as evidenced on ebay, some % of people are interested in upgrading laptops, therefore: some % of alienware users also care about upgrading laptops, as alienware users are a subset of *people.

          But I'm not totally sure either.

          • Just because people are unloading upgraded laptops on ebay doesn't mean that any meaningful % of laptop purchasers give a damn about the extra cost and bulk of socketed components that allow for upgrading.

            After all, they're *selling* them. Presence on ebay is not indicative of a thriving market.

        • I don't think the poster specified an percentage. So if any upgraded laptops were seen on ebay, it would imply that some number of Alienware owners upgraded their products. If you are seriously concerned about figuring out the numbers I would suggest you look for Alienware and comparable laptops, and compare the numbers that had been upgraded. Dividing those by the sales figures for the models you could get an idea whether Alienware customers were more or less likely to use upgrades.

    • It's a niche market and they should have known that going in.

      I suspect they could have made a long-term moderate-risk profit by establishing themselves as a name and building trust, but management decided instead to just cancel the project after buy-in; it may even have been the right decision for all I know. Maybe this was all a cynical exercise just to estimate market demand, roflmao; this has happened before.

      And if anyone bought into this scheme launched by "Alienware"/Dell, you deserve it lol.

  • Not surprising. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @03:08PM (#60057042)

    I have an alienware M17xR3 which was also modular (CPU, GPU, Memory and even wifi card) The GPU required a custom card type that got 1 upgrade at best and was stupidly overpriced. The CPU was a standard intel CPU but, again, had an intel specific socket that was only good for a year or two and in limited quantities.

    That said, I've managed to upgrade the wifi card from the awesomely fast and modern 802.11g to 802.11ac and increased the memory modules amount and speed (although these are buffer limited by the CPU unless I upgrade) and can run Windows 10 on it. It won't play top of the line games obviously and NVidia dropped driver support just after Windows 8 BUT it still runs, still handles many games and photo editing with ease. Not bad for a 10 year old laptop.

    • My M17XR3 got me from High School graduation in 2011, till 2 years after graduation in 2017. Despite the $1600 initial cost, the laptop really did last the test of time, even if the battery didn't. That was right after Dell bought them too I'm pretty sure. People were worried about build quality, but it still stayed on par back then.

      • If you've still got it you can find replacement batteries on the internet/amazon.

        I've also replaced the keyboard (love this keyboard - both the style and the feel) once.

        The fun part is, compared to all the newer laptops out there, this thing's a tank! :)

        • Eh, I ended up selling it after the 6990M took a dump. Still got $50 out of it! But you're right. I *dropped* mine a couple times and it just kept kicking.

  • Why would anyone upgrade an intel based system?

  • The primary purpose of these devices is to separate the gullible from tons of money. There never was any chance of something that would lessen this longer-term, because it is contrary to their whole business model.

    • Old Alienware laptops weren't like that. There were Alienware GTX580M laptops that went all the way to GTX780M (or even GTX880M which is a beefed-up GTX780M). But current Alienware laptops are pretty much what you describe, leeching off the once-revered Alienware name to sell to the gullible a laptop with no upgradability and meh thermals. The smart money has long gone to MSI and Clevo-based laptops. I object however to the idea that desktop-replacement laptops are all devices whose purpose is to separate

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I object however to the idea that desktop-replacement laptops are all devices whose purpose is to separate the gullible from tons of money. You can get a good desktop-replacement laptop from other sources, and unlike desktops, it can be taken with you as a cabin bag in airplanes.

        And I did not say that either, in particular as these are gaming laptops, not general desktop replacement ones. My personal choice is light-weight for Laptop, reduced mobile capability and the thing is essentially a terminal to the real infrastructure I have when Internet connectivity is available. Even something as low-end as an x250 does run Win10 with office in a VM reasonably fast. But that is a matter of taste.

  • If you want a usable upgrade path, submit to the horror of not having your device crippled for portability and build a high performance desktop.

    If you genuinely need portable high performance to make money the cost of ANY notebook is a trifle. Mere mechanics routinely spend twenty or thirty or more thousand dollars on tools so if you're making tech money a few grand for a loaded notebook is background noise and you can afford to give it away (or shred it if hdd isn't removable and security matters) in a few

    • Why is it that on every discussion about desktop replacement laptops there is always someone who "helpfully" tells us we can have a desktop for less money as long as we are willing to completely sacrifice portability and compactness? Do they think we don't know? Do they they think there is a secret cabal out there who targets specific users and devotes a large amount of resources to prevent them from discovering the price of desktops on the web and on high street shops? Or do they think they know our needs

      • I'm also a Thinkpad enthusiast for their ease of maintenance and modest upgradeability, but I don't pretend that's remotely close to a STANDARD FORM FACTOR which does not exist for notebooks nor will it ever.

        Notebooks are disposable consumer goods like all computers. Their real upgrade path is replacement. You can't have a standard form factor notebook in the current reality because the pace of technical change plus limited room dooms the idea to unprofitability. It doesn't work with phones either. Fortunat

  • So you tried to ignore the standard MXM slot format and make your own shit which could easily have its acronym expanded to read Dumb Goofy Fucking Failure, which this non-starter of a proprietary mobile GPU slot is in reality.

    No wonder this laptop fucking failed. Nobody wanted to shell out the guaranteed extra money for a non-standard GPU upgrade, and they walked away from the garbage, as they rightfully should.

  • Replacable parts in a laptop, that is some special in todays world.
    It shouldn't be, this should be normal.

    So now even though Dell has released a new model, you can still rest assure that you can upgrade your ram/hdd/...

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