Shots fired. Hot on the heels of Alienware’s new 13-inch laptop announcement last week, Origin is launching a trade-in program that specifically targets its UFO-friendly competitor. Or, as Origin terms it, a “trade-up” program.
If you own an Alienware 14 (which is, even by Alienware’s own admission, a chunky machine) you can now trade it in and put the value toward one of Origin’s EVO15-S machines or any other Origin computer. All you have to do is fill out a form and mail your Alienware laptop to Origin.
“At this time, ORIGIN PC is accepting trade-ins for Alienware branded Dell laptops only and ORIGIN PC reserves the right to deny any trade-in. ORIGIN PC does not accept any Desktops, PC components, or any non-Alienware branded laptops,” claims the Origin trade-up page. You also have to apply the trade-in credit toward an Origin machine—no cash is exchanged.
I have no idea what your Alienware 14 is worth to Origin, having not received a trade-in offer myself. Origin’s take on the matter is, “Depending on the overall quality of your Alienware branded laptop, we will guarantee a fair market value for your trade-in,” but your guess is as good as mine when it comes to “fair market value,” especially given the wide range of Alienware 14 prices.
It’s also hard to say whether this would net you as much money as selling your laptop on your own. At least if you sold it yourself, you could use the money as you wished.
There’s no denying the EVO15-S is, specs-wise, a more powerful system and packed into a much smaller case—the EVO15-S come with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M with 3GB of DDR5 RAM, and is only 0.75 inches thin, compared to the Alienware 14’s 765M card and 1.58-inch thick chassis.
I’m also unsure whether other Alienware models (including the newly announced Alienware 13) will be included in the deal, or whether this is specifically applicable to the Alienware 14. I’ve reached out to Origin for more details.
UPDATE: All Alienware laptops are included in the program, though obviously you’ll earn more for a recent laptop model than you will for a three-year-old piece of hardware.