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Sometimes lessons in economics and the harsh reality of toiling away as one of many cogs in the great machine is enough to create that rare spark of entrepreneurship (even more rare when successful). This is exactly what happened to Richard Cary, Hector Penton and Kevin Wasielewski, three co-workers and friends who were working for Alienware, when it was bought out by Dell. They stuck around for two years, hopeful that perhaps Dell wouldn't ruin the company. This might have been helped by Michael Dell visiting the factory in Miami and telling the entire Alienware company that nothing was going to change and no jobs would be lost. A couple years later, the factory was shut down, the employees were laid off and Alienware manufacturing was moved to Mexico and China. By that time Richard, Hector and Kevin had already left, unhappy with what Dell was doing to the company. They didn't want to make PC's based on proprietary parts, that didn't come with the best support, technology and highest performance. So they started their own company.
At Origin PC, Kevin (now CEO of Origin PC) told me that he routinely interviews ex-Alienware (or Dellienware as he calls it) employees looking for a job. It's pretty clear that not everyone can just up and start their own PC company, but Origin just doesn't have the jobs at this point. They are a small shop, with a dedicated staff paying personal attention to every high quality computer that gets ordered. However, they are growing, so there is hope. In a market flooded with cheap computers, tablet PC's and other devices that are taking market share away from not-so-cheap gaming PC's it's tough to compete. However, after collecting over 15 awards in the past two years including CNET Editors’ Choice, Maximum PC Kick Ass, PCGamer Editors’c Choice, A- Better Business Bureau, and winning the CPU Dream PC competition two years straight Origin seems to be doing pretty well. But it's not all about awards, it's about delivering a quality product to the market.
Kevin emphasized that it's all about support and going back to the roots of gaming, "After each spending over 10 years helping build Alienware we decided to start over and go back to the roots of gaming PCs. Thus the name and theme of Origin PCs. Our opening tagline was: 'A decade of excellence….Reborn.' We wanted to go back to when gaming PCs were built on using the latest name brand components, giving customers all the options they want, overclocking to the highest performance levels, and providing the best service/support in the industry. Origin PC offers free technical support for life on all of our PCs. Origin PC has been growing at a great rate and we look forward to continuing to set the bar higher and higher for the best performance, most options, and best support in the industry."
The key has been not sticking in the cheapest and most suitable parts. They have partnered with Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, Microsoft, Corsair, ASUS, Kingston, Silverstone, OCZ, and many others to create the highest performance possible. Of course, this intimate selection of parts drives up the price a bit, as well as drives up the processing speed. So they overclocked everything. Right now I'm writing this on a Eon17-S Laptop (which I'm borrowing for the sake of this article.) It normally would be overclocked to 4.8ghz with some sort of turbo boost, but I have the NVIDA 3D Vision version so no overclocking due to the multiple rendering issues. Even without the overclocking, I can say that leaving it on for several days straight, there isn't even the slightest hint of heat coming off this thing. I feel like I could leave it sitting on my lap without worrying about becoming impotent. But at that point, I hadn't played any games yet.
So while it was not sitting on my lap (frankly, it's too heavy for that,) I plugged in the 3D glasses and logged into my steam account to play some Just Cause 2. Already a beautifully rendered game, 3D will improve that right? Well, I can say this, after slipping on the NVIDA 3D glasses over my Gunnars (no choice, they are prescription) I noticed that I forgot how to play PC games. Once I figured that bit out (considering I was under fire right away) I had a chance to fully appreciate the 3D. The 17.5 inch HD monitor helped me appreciate it even more. All the backgrounds are not 3D, but the characters, HUD and vehicles are all 3D. Plus, when the background becomes the foreground, such as a lush forest, it becomes 3D. Bullets don't fly out of the screen towards you like in a gimmicky 3D movie, but they do seem a bit more threatening. I couldn't play for very long, as 3D tends to give me a bit of a headache, so I turned it over to the ten year old. Apparently driving a motorcycle off a bridge into a river is pretty fun in 3D.
A paragraph ago I mentioned the heat, or lack thereof. After playing games for about an hour, the internal fan was running at high speed and the bottom of the laptop was quite hot to the touch. Not second degree burn hot, but definitely hot enough to warrant perhaps taking off the lap and putting on a laptop cooling fan thingy. I have no basis for comparison, but I'm guessing this thing is working pretty damn hard running the 3D graphics. I thought about flipping it over and cracking an egg on it to see exactly how hot, but then I was reminded I have to send it back.
The 3D is a huge selling point of some of these laptops, the partnership with NVIDA certainly is paying off. If you are a gamer, it does add (wait for it) another dimension to the game. For me though, I'd rather have the overclocking. The 3D isn't forced when you order a computer, which is good. I can say this, when you have the 3D glasses on (which plug into the computer via USB and have to be turned on) don't look at another monitor or screen. Unless you like feeling like you are falling.
"3D gaming is a great way to get immersed into your games and it provides an incredible experience depending on the game/movie," says Kevin. "Just like 3D movies, not every 3D game is great, however, when you do play a game that takes advantage of all the 3D effects then it is truly an awesome experience. It’s just super bad ass watching Batman’s cape fly out of the screen as you run down the bad guys. 3D gaming is still improving and 3D gaming next year will be even better than it is today." Clearly he's a huge fan of 3D.
Aside from the gaming, the Eon17-S proved to be a great all purpose work type laptop. It's got a full keyboard, killer surround sound and all the processing speed needed to say, process HD video. Which is exactly what I had to do for my day job this past week. Neither my laptop nor my work computer could handle playing, much less edit some HD video that I had shot for a promotional video. So I brought the Eon17-S in to work and it did the job. There was no lag in the video, no problem rendering at all. I felt a bit lucky that I happened to be reviewing the laptop, as there is no way I would have been able to edit the video otherwise. The point is that these types of high performance computers aren't just for gaming, they are for working and the normal day to day stuff as well. Too many people think that gaming computers are just for gaming. Well yeah, that's what they are built for, but gaming requires the highest possible specifications of any other computing task, so why wouldn't it be good for everything else?
The bottom line is, like other gaming PC companies that I've talked about in this space, Origin PC is growing and grabbing market share. This year at PAX Prime, Origin was the support PC for Ghost Recon Online setup at the Tom Clancy: Ghost Recon Future Solider display. Free lifetime support, PC's made completely in the United States with parts from only the best in each technical spec area are not only major selling points, but they are keys to good business. They have an amazing line of desktops, liquid cooled and award winning. Though I can easily see the Eon17-S or any of their other laptops easily replacing your desktop computer. Partly because of it's sheer size (this is a big laptop) and because of the specifications. Why would you need another computer?
Origin PC is just getting started though, they have a few plans for the future of the company and gaming. Says Kevin, "we are continuing with hand building custom high performance desktops and laptops and providing the best support in the industry while growing the company (both physically and geographically.) We are also growing our product lines to offer even more choices, more performance, and unique innovations that will only be possible with Origin PCs."
