Mountain Biking - Which is better for a economical-all moutain bike?

I was wondering, which bike will make a better all mountain-value,
Kona Dawg-USD1399
Giant Reign 3- USD1800

The advice, as always, is get out and test ride them if you at all can. Even just pedaling each around the block will help. Both are good bikes with upgrade potential later on, but Giant and Kona take a different approach to design, so you may find yourself liking the way one feels over the other.

Kona has a reputation for solidly built frames. The Giant is a newer design and will probably pedal a little more efficiently, but using a stable platform valve (SPV) rear shock on the Kona can bring it closer to the Giant's level in that department.

Ok im a bit of a who cares about bikes weight so which is better? Frame only

Giant Reign 3

Kona dawg.

it's your choice. the giant looks like it can pedal faster and is probably lighter too. the kona looks like it can take a lot of abuse and ride well on dh sections. So for better all around i guess it would be the giant, but if more than 65% of your riding is on nasty trails get the kona

in the sept issue of mb action, the giant reign blew all others out of the water, kona came in 4th i think, marin rocksprings second, prophet 3rd, gary fisher cake 2 4th, and Gt i-drive 5.0 6th...however, if you want , more travel, more big hit capabilities...reign, climbing, xc, some fr, dawg. both are solid idk i really cant give any hands on advice, ive never ridden either, i was thinking of a kona dawg frame myself though....but i dont see any problems with either

The Kona is a stronger frame, the Giant is more efficient pedaling.

Personally, I've been leaning towards a Dawg for myself, hopefully before the weather turns nice, but I see plenty of options out there and I'm not going to make my heart ache by test riding all of them until I've got the money in the account to do something about it. I'd be interested to hear which you get and what you think about it.

hmm, yeah i always had that problem. It looks like Dawg has a stronger frame but Reign has the maestro technology which makes everything soooo harddd