Alienware SUCKS???

[adnohrepus]

I know somebody with an Alienware laptop and when I asked him about it, he had plenty of good things to say. I was already planning on getting a new laptop and I liked the stuff Alienware had to offer, so I bought one (Aurora m9700 in case anybody cares).

That was almost 2 months ago. First, I had to submit to their identity verification interrogation several times over the course of the last ~60 days. If anybody has purchased from Alienware before you know what a pain this is. Doing it once or twice is no big deal, after 4 times, I was getting annoyed.
Next, they got my addresses screwed up. I had different billing and shipping addresses. Since nobody is at home during the day, I wanted the computer sent to my workplace. So I did an address change over the phone with them. Turns out, the address was corrected incorrectly (not really sure what happened) so I had to get the address changed back, going through the identity verification process each time. Finally, about a week ago, that mess was finally sorted out and my new laptop was shipped.

Got it yesterday. Plugged it in, turned it on and...
NOTHING! Absolutely nothing. It was dead. It wouldn't even turn on. It was getting power from both the AC and the battery, but it wouldn't power up. I tried everything I could think of but nothing worked. So I called their tech support number. After 30 minutes on the phone with the tech, trying everything he told me to try, he said that I would have to send it back because he had no idea what the problem was. Awesome.
So now my brand new, broken Alienware notebook, that I purchased 2 months ago is on its way back to the company. They are supposed to email me once they decide what they're going to do.

So here's what I was wondering:

• Is this typical of Alienware or was I just really unlucky?
• Has anyone else had bad experiences with Alienware?
• Do I need to punch my friend in the eye the next time I see him for misleading me about this crappy company?

[dom yo]

well alienware was good until dell bought them out

[AznImports602]

I feel sorry for ya man. I bought a laptop online this summer and I got wonderful service, I got mine at www.rawpowerpc.com and its used for gaming. But you should have done more research on your purchase because on source is not enough.

Check out this link:
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1650.html

Its people having experience buying from Alienware and many of them are dissatisfy. Also, since Dell now owns Alienware their support might not be good, because dell suck in customer service.

But if you have any other issues check these people out:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/

I got on there often, but those are the people that can help you with laptop issues.


On a side note, Alien I think are over price and I'm currently using Firefox 2.0 and this built in spell check is great!

[dom yo]

Originally Posted by AznImports602

I'm currently using Firefox 2.0 and this built in spell check is great!

hahaha same here dude.. i love it!!!! IE can suck a fat one

[gurusan]

I would try to get a refund.....great laptops but they are overpriced and I will never deal with Dell again...ever.

[dom yo]

Originally Posted by gurusan

I would try to get a refund.....great laptops but they are overpriced and I will never deal with Dell again...ever.

x2

[rnstein69]

i was checking out dell and alienware when i was laptop shopping. waywayway over priced. i went with the sony viao sz230. to get the alienware with the same specs as the sony would have cost me twice as much easily.

[adnohrepus]

Originally Posted by AznImports602

I feel sorry for ya man. I bought a laptop online this summer and I got wonderful service, I got mine at www.rawpowerpc.com and its used for gaming. But you should have done more research on your purchase because on source is not enough.

Check out this link:
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1650.html

Its people having experience buying from Alienware and many of them are dissatisfy. Also, since Dell now owns Alienware their support might not be good, because dell suck in customer service.

But if you have any other issues check these people out:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/

I got on there often, but those are the people that can help you with laptop issues.

On a side note, Alien I think are over price and I'm currently using Firefox 2.0 and this built in spell check is great!

Thanks for the info and links. And you're right, I should have done more research before I made a decision.

Originally Posted by gurusan

I would try to get a refund.....great laptops but they are overpriced and I will never deal with Dell again...ever.

I'm getting to that point. This experience has left me with a bad first impression. I did deal with Dell a few years ago at my last job where I purchased several PCs from them for the company (which is interesting since I don't know much about computers ) and I don't remember having any trouble with their products or service...

[dom yo]

Originally Posted by adnohrepus

Thanks for the info and links. And you're right, I should have done more research before I made a decision.



I'm getting to that point. This experience has left me with a bad first impression. I did deal with Dell a few years ago at my last job where I purchased several PCs from them for the company (which is interesting since I don't know much about computers ) and I don't remember having any trouble with their products or service...

that was before they help desk was outsourced

[tegra90LS]

Originally Posted by domscivic

that was before they help desk was outsourced

No, that was a business purchase. Dell's small business/enterprise help >>>>>>>> many other companies.

Their personal support is in fact terrible though.

[5gencivic]

No doubt that alienware is overpriced but just because you had a bad experience and you've checked resellerratings.com doesn't mean that they're nessisarily bad.
With computers you have to remember 2 things.
1. People are more likely to post feedback about a company/individual if they have a bad experience.
2. People are fucking stupid when it comes to problems with pc's.
Let me justify this by saying that most of the people who post bad feed back don't have a justifiable problem like you do. It'll be something like they can't get the pc to work with their comcast account or they can't get email so they blame it on the manufacturor and then send the pc back.
I'm not saying that your problem isn't a problem, honestly to me it sounds like you got a bad egg, but I am saying that just because you have had a problem doesn't mean that the entire company sucks.
I preach HP to everyone of my customers and sometimes HP screws up. A pc is bad a screen is faulty directly from the factory. It's how HP, Alienware, Dell (ughh) or any others handle the problem after it's been deemed a problem. Just think, if that were a Dell in your hands (Alienware isn't quite Dell yet) and you had called them but didn't have gold support, you'd have been on the phone for about 3 hours attempting to get them to replace it. (I've had that happen more than a few times)

[AlSi]

their 30 day policy says for unopened boxes & software; & even then there's a 15% restocking fee. it makes no mention of a DoA computer, though that may be covered; you'd have to ask.

tell them you want your money back. maybe they'll offer you an upgrade for your troubles. especially since your order was prolonged so much. check online to see if you could get anything more for what you paid now. if you can, tell them you want at least the equivalent in the laptop they replace it with. act irate yet polite & it should get you farthest. GL

if you get one thats built right it should be fine. theyre made on a production line which favors speed over precision. some are DoA, some will break after a year, some will run fine forever; it's really a crapshoot. you could have configed a dell M90 for dell small business to the same specs and gotten better build quality, but it would have cost ±30% more $.

[IHIPrelude94]

Originally Posted by gurusan

I would try to get a refund.....great laptops but they are overpriced and I will never deal with Dell again...ever.

I've owned 3 Dell XPS's and have never had a single problem with customer service or support. When you buy an XPS, customer service is handled from their Texas office, so you don't have to deal with the shitty Indian customer service anymore. When I owned my XPS Gen 2 Laptop, my 128mb vid card burned out after about 6 months... sent it back and BAM, 12 days later it's on my front doorstep with a FREE UPGRADE to a 256mb video card. Dell kicks ass if you own an XPS... if not, you're shit outta luck...

Moral of the story... buy an XPS from Dell or build your own... lol

~Peace

[5gencivic]

Originally Posted by IHIPrelude94

I've owned 3 Dell XPS's and have never had a single problem with customer service or support. When you buy an XPS, customer service is handled from their Texas office, so you don't have to deal with the shitty Indian customer service anymore. When I owned my XPS Gen 2 Laptop, my 128mb vid card burned out after about 6 months... sent it back and BAM, 12 days later it's on my front doorstep with a FREE UPGRADE to a 256mb video card. Dell kicks ass if you own an XPS... if not, you're shit outta luck...

Moral of the story... buy an XPS from Dell or build your own... lol
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