If you’re really into your gaming, there’s a good chance you will have heard the name Alienware before. They’re one of the most well known brands for producing gaming PCs, laptops and accessories.
They’ve become a household name in the gaming world largely because of their high quality PCs which can deliver super fast performance, even with the most CPU intensive games.
However, just because they run really well, doesn’t mean they’ll run for a really long time. You’d expect that a gaming laptop with such high specs must be difficult to keep running for more than a couple of years, right?
Well, in this article we’re going to be looking at how long you can expect your Alienware laptop to last after you’ve bought it. We’ll also examine what factors affect how long a laptop will last and answer some of the most commonly asked questions on the subject.
What causes laptops to break?
The first thing we need to ask ourselves to find out how long a laptop will last is why it eventually breaks. There are a number of factors relating to users and manufacturers that can influence this. These are some of the most common reasons:
Excess heat
If you didn’t already know, laptops have a fan inside them that is designed to keep the internal components cool and prevent them from overheating and resultantly breaking.
If the fan is unable to circulate the cool air in and the warm air out properly, the interior components will wear out and eventually stop working.
The best way to avoid this is to always make sure the air vents on your laptop are clear and unobstructed. They’re usually on the bottom or sides of the laptop, and are the only ways that the fan can expel hot air from inside the laptop.
For that reason, you always want to make sure it can do its job properly and keep those airways clear.
Mishandling
This is another really common reason laptops eventually stop working. Too many people are picking up their laptops by one corner, on the screen or with just one hand when the laptop is open.
The screen and the hinges are two of the most vulnerable exterior parts of the laptop and picking it up improperly can cause real damage to them.
The best way to pick up your laptop is with two hands, one on each side. Alternatively, if you can only use one hand, pick it up by the front or back of the laptop while it’s closed.
Damaging the hard disk drive
Many newer laptops use a solid state drive (SSD) for storage, because they are much more efficient and less susceptible to damage. However, older ones use a hard disk drive (HDD), which has moving parts in the interior of the laptop.
These moving parts are naturally more vulnerable and can be damaged if the laptop is moved around too much while in use.
You can often hear an HDD spinning inside your laptop when running a particularly intensive program, so to avoid damaging it you should try not to move the laptop at all when you hear it working.
Quick movements and shaking can cause other parts to come into contact with the spinning disk and damage all kinds of components. Instead, make small adjustments and keep the laptop still while it’s whirring away.
How do Alienware laptops avoid these issues?
Now that we know what causes a laptop to stop working, let’s take a look at what Alienware does to combat these faults.
Excess heat
Unfortunately for Alienware, this is a pretty unavoidable issue as it’s almost always caused by user error.
Being the best gaming laptops on the market, Alienware products will of course have a top tier fan cooling system but due to the limitations of size in laptops, there will still only be one or two vents, at most, to expel hot air.
Mishandling
This is an aspect of laptop damage that Alienware can actually do something about, though it’s not their main priority. Again, this issue is caused by user error so a laptop breaking this way isn’t really the fault of the manufacturer.
However, to make it easier to avoid this issue, Alienware uses extra strong and durable hinges on its laptops. This not only prevents them from being damaged easily, but it also means the laptop will stay open at the angle you want moving around too freely.
Hard disk drives
For Alienware, the solution to this problem is simple. You’ll find that all good laptops these days (not just Alienware ones) will be made with an SSD rather than an HDD.
As the name suggests, the solid state drives are… well… more solid! This means no moving parts that can accidentally make contact with other components or the laptop’s casing.
Alienware has done a good job of keeping up with their competition in developing their compact computer technology and SSDs are definitely a good way to go about doing that.
Component wear down
One issue we didn’t look at earlier is when the internal components of the laptop simply wear out over time and stop working. This is often the result of overheating but it will happen to pretty much any laptop, no matter how well you treat it.
Thankfully, Alienware puts so much effort into developing and improving each component in their laptops that they also make them super durable and long lasting.
Even excluding user error, you’ll find that Alienware laptops will last way longer than a regular laptop and it even stacks up against other gaming PCs pretty well.
Conclusion
Of course, there’s no single answer to the question of how long Alienware laptops last because, as we’ve established, it’s largely down to the user’s responsibility.
As an estimate, you could expect some of the lower end Alienware laptops to last around 3-4 years as long as you treat them well and perform occasional maintenance on them.
However, some of Alienware’s most expensive and powerful laptops are built to last and could survive for up to 8 years before completely dying on you.
A good indicator for a laptop’s durability is its price tag. Obviously, this won’t always be the case as some less powerful, less expensive gaming laptops might have a longer lifespan.
Though when it comes to judging the overall quality and working out how long a gaming laptop might last, price is almost always a good indication.
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