Alienware does a solid job of delivering high-end specs and components in its gaming rigs. However, like many manufacturers, its base models tend to come with traditional hard drives instead of SSDs and the premium the company charges for an SSD can make or break a deal for most shoppers. That's about to change.
Through September 21, Alienware is offering free SSD upgrades on select laptops. This includes the base models of the Alienware 13, 15, and 17.
The base Alienware 13 and 15 now feature a 256GB SSD — upgraded from a 180GB SSD and 1TB HDD, respectively — for $1,099.99 and $1,249.99. Some mid-tier models are being upgraded to a 512GB SSD from a 256GB configuration.
There are many benefits to configuring your gaming rig with an SSD, but the main reason is simple: speed. SSDs deliver blistering file-transfer speeds. For gamers, that translates into faster game load times and reduced hitching. Hitching is that annoying pause you experience when your hard drive can't produce assets fast enough to keep up with your gaming.
In addition to gaming, an SSD can also speed up your laptop's boot time. Battery life and durability are also directly impacted by SSDs. Our benchmarks show that the average SSD-enabled laptop we benchmarked lasted just over 7 hours, whereas laptops with traditional HDDs averaged about 5 hours and 43 minutes.
Alienware's SSD sale is applied automatically during checkout. The offers expires on September 21.
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