Should You Buy A Used Alienware? My CEX Grade B Laptop

Posted by GameRoomOne on August 2nd, 2020

Should You Buy A Used Alienware Laptop? My CEX Grade B Laptop Experience

18 months ago I was in the market for a gaming laptop but had a limited budget, in fact my budget only stretched to £650 which left me with very few options. I looked at the options that were available to me new but concluded that I couldn’t get much of a new gaming laptop for £650 so instead turned my attention to the used market.

After shopping around I found a used Alienware 15 R2 gaming laptop for under £650. But the big question was whether it’s a good idea to buy a used Alienware laptop, especially one that I wasn’t able to view in person prior to purchasing. I have to admit that I was somewhat apprehensive at the thought of buying a used Alienware but this particular machine seemed to tick all of the right boxes, it was packing an i7-6700hq processor and GTX980M graphics card so would be able to run modern games at good framerates and settings.

After careful consideration, I decided to take the plunge and ordered my first Alienware laptop from CEX in the UK. This particular laptop was a listed as a grade B which CEX’s own grading system describes as “Product in good condition with all essential accessories. No box required.”. So I wasn’t expecting an absolutely mint system but I was expecting a laptop that was in good, fully working condition. This posed another question, are CEX grade B laptops actually any good?

In the above video I attempt to answer these two questions, firstly should you buy a used Alienware laptop and secondly are CEX grade B laptops any good?

I run through my first impressions of the laptop when it arrived and any problems it had on arrival, I also detail any additional problems I’ve had over the last 18 months before advising on whether I think it’s a good idea to buy a used Alienware now that I’ve had the experience of doing just that.

The following products were used in the video above:-

Scotch Super 33 Tape
Arctic MX4 Thermal Paste
Isopropyl Alcohol 99%