Alienware Alpha ASM100-1580 Console
Features
Features & Design
With Windows 8.1 — for a smooth, versatile PC experience.
Dawn of a new era
The Alienware Alpha combines the freedom of PC gaming with the ease of a
console. The exclusive Alienware-developed user interface allows you to
navigate all of Alpha’s core functions without ever needing a keyboard
and mouse. With the power of Steam Big Picture, the global online
community for downloading and playing games, you can have quick and easy
access to thousands of your favorite Steam games, plus other
entertainment, all on your big screen TV. Welcome to a new era of fun.
The ease and experience of a console
Alienware exclusive console interface: The Alienware Alpha boots
directly into an exclusive user interface that provides easy streamlined
controller-based navigation - no mouse or keyboard needed. You can
choose to launch Steam Big Picture, adjust core system and AlienFX
settings and access your media.
PC gaming in the living room: Put PC gaming on the big screen in 1080P
Full HD beauty with a small, quiet and powerful console — without the
need for a keyboard or mouse.
Gaming, simplified: Quickly download games straight to your Alpha
Console with the click of a few buttons, or remotely from your phone.
All your games stay up to date and ready to play, all the time.
Multiple accounts, one system: Merge everything you love about PC gaming
with the sociability of your living room. Steam Big Picture supports
multiple Steam accounts and libraries on one system, so you can have fun
with your Steam friends whether they’re sitting right next to you or
gaming from afar.
A true 'next-gen' system
Powered by Steam Big Picture: Valve brings the benefits of Steam —
millions of users to play with, thousands of games across multiple
platforms, user modifications and more — to the living room via Steam
Big Picture on the Alienware Alpha. Better yet, you can kick back on
your sofa with just your controller – no keyboard and mouse required.
The Next Generation of Graphics: Based on NVIDIA’s newest ‘Maxwell’
architecture, with 2GB of GDDR5 memory at its disposal, the Alienware
Alpha’s custom-built GPU ensures you get plenty of performance to crank
up your settings on your big screen TV.
The Alienware Alpha is packed with plenty of power to run the latest
games with Intel Core processors, DDR3L RAM, and large hard drives to
store your Steam library. It also comes with a dual-band AC wireless
card for prioritized wireless network connectivity and increased range.
Upgrades welcome: The Alienware Alpha is user-accessible, so you can
feel free to upgrade the CPU and RAM for better in-game performance and
background application multitasking and add hard drive space to store
more games.
A full entertainment package
An arsenal of games: Access over 3,000 downloadable games from the
comfort of your couch, ranging from the most popular blockbusters to the
most hardcore independent and mainstream titles. You can play your
entire Steam library directly on the Alienware Alpha, or stream all your
Steam games and content over your local network — all without the
online-play subscription fees, down-resolutioned textures and smaller
multi-player maps that you might experience on other consoles.
An army of gamers: The Steam community is 75+ million strong and
growing, with up to seven million players are online at any given time.
When you’re ready to game, they’ll be waiting for you.
Family Sharing: Family sharing remembers familiar users on your console,
and lets you create kids' accounts that feature custom parental
settings.
Your Alienware comes with Alienware Basic Support.
Alienware comes standard with a 1-year return for repair with
non-accidental damage, or fail-on-arrival policy. All fail-on-arrival
comes with Dell’s standard Limited Hardware Warranty*.
A full entertainment package
An arsenal of games: Access over 3,000 downloadable games from the
comfort of your couch, ranging from the most popular blockbusters to the
most hardcore independent and mainstream titles. You can play your
entire Steam library directly on the Alienware Alpha, or stream all your
Steam games and content over your local network — all without the
online-play subscription fees, down-resolutioned textures and smaller
multi-player maps that you might experience on other consoles.
An army of gamers: The Steam community is 75+ million strong and
growing, with up to seven million players are online at any given time.
When you’re ready to game, they’ll be waiting for you.
Family Sharing: Family sharing remembers familiar users on your console,
and lets you create kids' accounts that feature custom parental
settings.
Customer Reviews
A weird console computer thing that is awesome
By
Peter Scannell
Style Name: Console
Model: lowest end i3 version
Upgraded: I swapped out the hard drive for 240GB SSD for $80. I recommend you do too.
Product Explanation:
Many
people viewing this product may be confused as to what it is since it
defies traditional labeling. Is it a console or a computer? To
effectively answer that question one must understand a level of
technical jargon that could deter many non tech-savvy buyers.
The
Alpha falls between two categories of devices that are closely related
enough that explaining exactly where in the middle it falls leads many
people to question it's overall usefullness as a device if they happen
to already have a computer or console.
Reason for Purchase:
I
bought this device because I had neither a windows computer nor a
dedicated gaming machine, so the Alpha perfectly took care of both
issues for me. The combination of small form factor, hardware specs, and
price were the main factors that swayed me toward the Alpha.
REVIEW:
Upon
opening the box it first hit me how small the Alpha was. After booting
up the Alpha I had to set up a bunch of accounts which could be a hassle
if you don't have a mouse/keyboard lying around. After initial usage I
realized the hard drive was too slow and switched it out for an SSD
which I would highly reccomend to anyone getting this product. After the
hard drive swap the Alpha seems blazingly fast not just for boot up but
for game loading times as well.
As for performance the Alpha
does well. Really well considering it's size, and whisper quiet too!
Most steam games I've tried have run above 60 frames per second with
graphics quality on high. Console gamers may be unfamiliar with tweaking
the graphical settings of a game but generally the games will
automatically choose settings that are appropriate for the hardware so
even some more demanding games that can't run with quality settings set
to max will still run without any appreciable difference.
The
most demanding game I've tested was Metro Last Light which seemed fine
at first but then suffered from slow frame rates and jaggies after a few
minutes of play, after some tweaking in the setting I found a "Physx"
checkbox in the settings that when turned off made all the frame rate
problems dissappear. Other than Metro all the games I've played have
performed with no tweaking required.
It should be noted, that
most games I play are less graphically demanding indie games, so if you
want to play all the latest and greatest most uber graphically demanding
games I would not suggest getting this product. However, if you can get
by with only maxing out graphics quality 75% of the time then you'll
certainly find the Alpha to be respectable performance wise.
When
it comes to price the Alpha is actually a steal. You can do you're best
to compete with the Alpha on the price/preformance scale by building
you're own computer but you will probably fail and you will certainly
fail at getting it at the form factor it is. As for console price
comparisons I'd argue the Alpha is cheaper in the long run. You don't
have to pay for online services on the Alpha and games are always on
sale on steam. After 2 years you've already made your money back for
sure.
Final Words:
If you're in the market for a small form
factor windows computer that is powerful, well priced, and can play some
games, look no further, this is your clear winner.
Update:
After using the Alpha for about 3 months now I can confirm that I still love it, it has performed flawlessly.
I love this thing!
By
Aaron
Style Name: Console
Everyone keeps saying how bad this little steam machine is, but I love
it! I bought the Alienware alpha i3 for a few games that weren't really
that demanding, games like CS:GO and fallout3/NV. First things first the
Alienware alpha is a small, sleek gaming machine that gets the job done
and gets it done well. I've upgraded the ram to 8 gigs and was able to
play BF4 on high setting 64 man server with about 40-50 fps. It may not
be a next generation killer but it will keep you entertained for hours
on end with thousands of games to play on the web and on steam.
Alienware alpha is a great entry level gaming PC/"console" for people
that don't have the know how to build one themselves, like myself. If
you do decide to pick one up please know that it's not going to run
everything perfectly. Upgrading it over time or buying the i5 or i7
model would be more ideal for someone who is looking for power.
Otherwise amazing product.
Excellent for under $450
By
J. B. Guzman
Style Name: Console
I didn't get the Alienware
Alpha PC through Amazon but did order a few items mentioned below for it
through them. Overall the PC is a good value if you can get the base i3
4GB model for less then $450. Dell actually had this model for $399
this past week so I ordered a 2nd Alpha through them. I bought these
mainly since it can serve dual purpose as a gaming console and regular
PC with Win 8.1. I figured it's time to get the kids involved in actual
PC hardware/ software and away from dedicated gaming consoles in order
for them to begin learning more about PC software/hardware/ networking
and real world PC use other than just gaming.
The Alpha performs
well with the base model specifications however, I would highly
recommend removing the hard disk and installing a Samsung 850 EVO SSD
250GB (~$100). Take the original 500GB hard drive out and put it in an
Inatech $15 usb hard disk enclosure to use for non game file storage.
Upgrade the RAM by adding another 8GB of Kingston Hyper 1600Mhz DDR3L
(~$50). Place the 8GB into the #1 slot which is located under the OEM
4GB stick and you'll then have 12GB RAM which is more than enough for
this system. After these modifications you will have a nice and speedy
little pc that isn't much bigger than a stack of 4 DVD cases. The SSD
and additional RAM really makes for noticeable performance gains. I will
try to run some comparison test between the base and base with the
mentioned upgrades.
Also if you encounter software or booting
issues and need to wipe the disk clean like I had to. Don't bother
getting the image USB from Dell or pay for anything as others had
mentioned in these reviews. Go to Microsofts website and download a Win
8.1 copy using the online Windows media creation tool. Find a 32GB usb
drive, format it and download the Win 8.1 64bit to the drive and install
a fresh copy onto the disk (Preferably onto a new SSD). Then using
another pc or perhaps phone, download the WiFi driver from the Alienware
Alpha support site. Install the Wifi driver onto your freshly installed
8.1 Alpha. You can now setup you WiFi on the Alpha and install the
remaining drivers and Alienware software on your pc/console. Dell wanted
to charge me $200 to essentially do what I just described here and no
they didn't tell me what I needed to do either, your forced to figure it
out which is good sometimes. Just remember you'll lose everything if it
wasn't backed up externally.
