I've been pricing up some replacement laptops and decided to have a fiddle around on the Alienware/Dell website.

If you follow this link: click, it shows five laptops, four of which are m17xR3 which are 17.3" laptops (the other is an 18+" laptop).

I've specced each of those four laptops as follows:

Alienware M17x Stealth Black
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 2720QM (2.20Ghz, 6MB, 4C)
English Genuine Windows®7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M w/ Optimus Technology
8192MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x4096]
750GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
17.3" 120Hz w/ 3D Bundle WideFHD (1920 x 1080) WLED LCD
Blu-Ray ROM Combo (Blu-ray read only, DVD, CD read and write) Drive
Dell Wireless 1501 wireless-N - EUR
Primary 9 cell Li-Ion Default Base Battery
No Antivirus Software
1Yr Next Day Hardware Support included with your PC
No Accidental Damage Protection

I got the following prices:
laptop 1 - £1,904
laptop 2 - £1,854
laptop 3 - £2,014
laptop 4 - £2,174

That's a difference of £320 for what amounts to me to be the same thing. It's almost 0100 so I may be a little deluded. Does anyone else get the same results? Can anyone tell me why (other than the fact that it's Dell!)?

The screens are different resolutions

I configured those laptops to have the same graphics card and screen - ie as posted above.

Ah sh*t! I get you.

I do get the same result but I'm damned if I can spot why.

17.3" 1600x900, Core i7-2720QM
17.3" 1920x1080, Core i7-2630QM, 9 cell battery
17.3" 1600x900, Core i7-2720QM, Radeon 6870M 1GB, 9 cell battery
18.4" 1920x1080, Core i7-2630QM, 12 cell battery, not "Stealth Black" coloured case
17.3" 1600x900 Core i7-2630QM, Radeon 6870M 1GB, 9 cell battery

Hope that helps...

Not really. As I stated, I customised the spec of all 17.3" laptops to the same specification as I posted. The same processor, memory, graphics card, screen etc.


Anyway, turns out it's a "quirk" of Dell. They will have the same base laptop at slightly different specs and prices. Apparently, a really expensive laptop will seem to be better even if a cheaper one is exactly the same spec. So most people would go for the expensive one and spec that up. Also, the same spec machine can be bought at different prices from the home/home office and small business sections of Dell. Down to the fact that they are independently controlled.

You might have thought you had, but there were 2 different processors, 2 different graphics chipsets (nVidia and AMD Radeon), different screen resolutions and different battery sizes still in the list..

Okay, I'm convinced that you've either misunderstood or misinterpreted the thread.

Go to the alienware website. Select laptops and select 17" and above. There will be five laptops, four 17" and one 18" laptop.
Open each of the four 17" laptop pages (either in different windows or in different tabs).
Customise each one to the spec posted in this thread.
Look at the price.

Once configured, they all have the same spec, down to the same battery, AC adaptor, built-in webcam etc. Yet they all have different prices. This is what I was driving at.

Because it's nearly always been cheaper to get the higher end one that is as close to the spec you want then adding as few extras as possible

They will have some off the shelf configurations that will need minimal modification so are cheaper than a lower end with all the bells and whistles

Yeah I think you're right. The cheapest one was the one that already had Full HD + 3D and 580M GTX graphics, whereas I had to upgrade it from baser specs.

The base prices for each of the machines are different. That’s probably why, regardless of the final configuration, it’s likely that’s affecting the final price.

This just gets crazier and crazier.

Went to the Dell website. Looked at XPS laptops but from the business and home sections.

XPS laptops from small business = £1158-1438
the same spec from home = £1699-1744

Didn't get to check what the level of support was but even with that price difference, you could get 3-year on-site warranty and accidental cover!

VAT difference + B2B costs are different to B2C in terms of warranty offered at the base spec?

Doesn't business purchases have differing rights than a home/consumer purchase?

Yep, we were picking up monitors as a small business with some buying power at about 25% off the list price on the site, it's all about how good (well bad actually) your account manager is for getting discounts