my mother has a nasty habit of bringing up issues precisely when i don't have time to deal with them - she ALWAYS does that - it's some kind of a sick fetish so she brought up the need for a new laptop precisely when i was busy packing ... knowing full well that i have Attention Deficit and will not be able to control myself and will start researching laptops instead of doing what needs to be done ... but on the upside i did catch a Black Friday sale on this laptop ... their current laptop actually turned 7 years old today - it is my old Dell Precision Mobile Workstation and it just keeps getting more and more flakey and considering they use it for work they kind of can't afford that flakiness ... basically their laptop flips a coin when deciding whether to boot or not - it is seemingly random - and as such it can't be fixed because it does actually work 90% of the time but 90% of the time is not enough ... my delusional mother asked me to buy a laptop for about $300 but insisted that it must be new because it has to have warranty ... well mom, the good news is the laptop i ordered was $500 off for Black Friday but i am afraid Alienware doesn't make $300 laptops ... LOL