Alienware 7700m has anybody tried it? I want to know if it is worth buying.

[johnnyis42]

you've been lucky with dell then, because i have had more horror stories about their complete lack of support than anything else.

also, if you had a problem that a technician could fix on the spot, then it wasn't a big problem. replaing modular laptop hardware is often times easier than replacing desktop hardware, and bios updates for most laptops are also usually easier than updating a desktop.

i was curious about this, so i hit up alienware's chat support:

DONALD: does alienware offer an on-site support option when purchasing a new desktop or laptop?
Juan Carlos Nunez: We only offer onsite for issues on system that can be fixed on the spot and not depoted.
DONALD: right, that's what i understood, which requires a call first to a phone technician, who then determines whether or not it is a depot repair or not, correct?
Juan Carlos Nunez: Correct

so, i mean, alienware COULD have sent someone out and then they might have verified, again, it needed to be sent off, waste of both your time and the technician's time had the telephone support person done their job in isolating the problem. but to say they "lie" to you i, well, really presumptuous.

if you beleived that a technician could have fixed the problem on-site, then all you had to do was call them back, get another technician on the phone and demand that they send someone out. then you might have found out it still had a problem that required a new screen or motherboard, etc.

point being, you're leaving out a great deal of detail about your problem, other than it was "dead". that sounds like a power supply/motherboard problem. question is, did any of the dell techs fix a laptop when it was completely "dead"? or did they fix other issues on site?

if your only problem was no network, or blue screen of death, i bet they would have sent someone. you can only do so much to a laptop without being in a shop with all the tools you need, as hotel rooms are not known for their quality work benches and adequate work lighting when you're dealing with tiny screws and very tightly compacted parts.

you might not want to give up as soon as you hear an answer you don't like, and instead try again. it usually gets better results in most situations in life.

[Dwasler]

johnnyis42, for some reason I not sure of your focus is.

Please answer me is 2-4 weeks plus ground shipping acceptable for Award Winning support.

I have had my problems with Dell also, they are prefect, but I can say one thing and stand on it I never had to wait 2-4 weeks plus shipping to get a computer back.

I had the complete mother board replace LCD case, keyboard several time.

I wondering now what your focus is.

Please answer my question is 2-4 weeks plus ground shipping Award Winning support.

I put a lot of time into talking to the AW support team about there support before I made my purchase. Reason I make a living from my computer.

It very ov you don't and can be with out your computer for 2-4 weeks plus shipping.

I'm very happy you never had to ship back your computer and wait 2-4 weeks plus ground shipping other wise I feel your focus would chance.

Please don't tell me how great AW support is I been using computers to long and use many difference BR of computers.

Most if not all company loss $$$ with their support contracts, AW is the same. So, the less they can put in the more the Pres. $$$$ is, all company are same. The problem here with AW they can care less.

End of Info.

Cheers
DLWasler

[johnnyis42]

the focus is, did any of your dell on-site support require an LCD or motherboard replacement? and if you ever required that service from dell, did it take less time?

the other thing to consider is that fact that when you're dealing with alienware, you're dealing with the most rare laptop hardware available. the only apples-to-apples comparisson of dell and alienware hardware is the dell XPS exuipment. anything else that you deal with dell on in laptops, they have ample excess inventory.

my focus is when you say they "lied" about their onsite support, and i'm calling you on that, because maybe you did not read the actual service agreement of what their on site support meant. as far as i could tell with the way you described your experience, as someone who works in the technical support field and has for some time in both government, retail and customer service markets, your scenerio sounds like a typical situation.

the "award winning support" comes from customer ratings and polls, and what your situation sounds like is that you discovered that alienware is not the ideal total business solution, which doesn't surprise me in the least since that is not their target market.

the difference with the replacement of parts also reflects: dell will use refurbished parts, alienware will not, only new parts. this reflects int he numerous high ratings alienware has received.

another thing a buyer needs to consider: alienware is, essentially, a small business trying to provide a quality product to a niche market, versus dell that is the enterprise solution of choise for those who can afford it, as well as those on a budget. in other words, dell is perfect for your solution, because you cannot afford to be without a laptop for more than a day. you can pay for this service with dell, and dell can provide that, if you expect that kind of service from alienware, falcon NW, vodoo, or even buying directly from Sager, you will be dissapointed.

so essentially, that is my focus: alienware did not lie about their onsite support, but instead your expectations of their online support were out of range of the service agreement alienware signed you up for.

beleive me, i have had my issues with alienware, and i am a hard customer for them to deal with. but i also understand how their system works, and understand what rights i have any what rights i don't have when i signed my agreements with the purchase of their products. for example, i know i can be charged for my RMA warranty replacements if i don't return the bad part on time, and i don't acuse them of lying if they charge my credit card for it. i also know that they will reverse the charges if i do get the part to them eventually, but i need to say something to that effect if i really expect them to do that. they are a business, not a charity, as is dell.

honestly, your oppinion stands, you say alienware's service sucks as to your standards, fine, i completely agree with that assesment, because your standards are greater, and for a very good reason too. me, well, i just have time on my hands and wish to point out to anyone else who may be paying attention that, hey, alienware is not what you want to buy if you need to run a business on the road, but if you wanna run Half Life 2 on the road, you're alot better off with alienware than something from best buy, and in some cases you could very well be better off than if you went with dell, sinply for the hardware options vs pricing you can get with alienware.

my last comment is my experince with dell: i had a dell inspiron 8100 with one of the first high end video chips for gaming. i dropped it, generlal agused it numerous times, and the thing never have me a problem. my alienware has had the burning function of the cd rom doe on me after a year, and i could say i abues it equally as much. my experience with both companies have been good, but i have seen more people bash alienware than any other company, and yet i have perosnally whitnessed more people never receieve one iota of support from dell when they deserved it.

my focus is you get what you pay for, and nothing more.

[Dwasler]

Is 2-4 weeks pluse ground shipping Award Winning support YES or NO

johnnyis42
I went thru a week maybe longer with AW and made it very very clear to them I'm not a gamer and make a living of my computer I was assured da,da,da.

They told me they have many customers in the proffessional line of products who have the same business model.

On my Dell's I have 6 mother replaces, 4 LCD, 5 cases, ? HD, 5 keyboards and 8 power supplies, in 4 years on 4 laptops to me that not very good. But I can say one thing the lost any of them were down were 2 business days.

johnnyis42
You have not answer my question have ever had to send your laptop, YES or NO.

Next what would say if you were told it would take 2-4 weeks plues ground shipping after repair.


You never answer any of Questions, why not

johnnyis42
Would you want to buy of their Servers they just release and they fine out you have wait 2-4 weeks plus ground shipping time before you get back up YES or NO.

johnnyis42
Please answer my question, if you do want to answer my question please state why.

I am not trying to be hard on you, for some reason you willn't answer my questions.

[Dwasler]

so essentially, that is my focus: alienware did not lie about their onsite support, but instead your expectations of their online support were out of range of the service agreement alienware signed you up for.


I ask them very pointed does on site support replace mother boards and LCD, YES.

That my point, I ask them does AW on-site the following ...

As we know after the purchase NO.

END of this BS.

Just answer my questions

[Dwasler]

I wonder what all this mean.

Can some help me

Please go AW URL
http://www.alienware.com/Configurato...de=SKU-DEFAULT

Review the new server Services/Warranty cost Listed below or go to the AW URL above.

I think users of laptops are paying more for Services/Warranty them users of their new server, with what every 4-8 hrs on site mean. They should offer this with the laptops also.

SV 1ST-5th Yr Parts, Tech Support & 4-hr On-site [+$98 or $3/mo.]
SV 1ST-4th Yr Parts, Tech Support & 4-hr On-site [+$126 or $4/mo.]
SV 1ST-4th Yr Parts, Tech Support & 8 Hour On-site [+$153 or $5/mo.]
SV 1ST-5th Yr Parts, Tech Support & 4-hr On-site [+$162 or $5/mo.]


I'm lost to what all of this mean and what the cost compaire to the same time for a laptop.

[aaronpeacock]

I don't think any amount of defensive support for Alienware can clean the taste from the mouth of one who has tasted the bitter fruit of their horrible customer service and support.

I have a personal horror story with Alienware regarding this model. It has to do with Quality Control, poor Customer Service, and wasted time and money. I will post the link as soon as I've put my story online in website form. I do not think Clevo did a good job engineering this machine- no matter WHO accessorizes it, however my issues relate to getting ONE bad computer- a Lemon if you will, and getting the RUNAROUND when trying to resolve this with Alienware. I have never been so ill-used by an OEM in my LIFE. My latest correspondance goes UN-ANSWERED after nearly a month.

FACT: the warranty is NON-TRANSFERRABLE no matter if you have a 6 month warranty or a 3 year warranty. It is not possible to purchase further warranty if you are not the original purchaser.

you can't even SELL the peice of crap!!!

LOOK on EBay man! Look for 7700M! look at the prices!!! look at how long they sit there unsold!!!

what a shady operation.
Buy something else. ANYTHING else...
IBM, Dell (corporate support preferred for SURE) Toshiba...

This thing has 4 fans and sounds like an aircraft taking off with even a properly functioning model... (unlike MINE where the CPU fan sqeals like a pig...)

just say NO to the stupid alien-eyes and plastic molded bits...
thats about all you get for your money...

or at least thats just my experience with the 7700M.
Oh my friend bought the same model and lost about 2 months sending it back for repairs and motherboard replacements before they finally got him a working one. Now his optical and hard disks have both failed within the first year of purchase- probably due to poor engineering- this things just runs TOO DAMN HOT...

sorry. its true.

[CrazyMan2007]

Well, just a quick comment about Alienware, first of all johnny you lied about Alienware using new parts because they dont. My graphics card went bad and when I finally received my replacement, no screws and thermal paste all over it and missing thermal pads. Hmmm, that does not look like a new product. But they do have onsite support, Ill give you that. There customer support does suck and you have to literally email the president of the company and send him pics of the video card to get the support you deservered and paid for since I paid for the most expensive support.

[johnnyis42]

Hm, interesting post you made there specifically to call me out. Ever heard of reading the date of the post? And if you kept up with the tech world, you may have noticed that DELL bought ALIENWARE... meaning that now they answer to the same company with the same policies?

And, uh... are you talking about a DESKTOP, or a LAPTOP... because I was specifically talking about a laptop here.

Since being acquired by dell:

1) Alienware's pricing is no longer competitive with comparable dell systems
2) Alienware's laptops do not compete directly with the XPS line of Dell laptops, and instead only compete with comparable laptops from other manufacturers who typically rebrand the customizable solutions from the baseline OEM distributors.
3) Alienware's call center still has better english speakers than any other outsourced call centers I have ever encountered, although I'm not 100% positive Alienware has even outsourced their call center, it may just be located in Miami and employ a large number of spanish speakers with accents.

Anywho, my last alienware was THE ONLY mainstream customizable laptop that actually had a replaceable video module designed to be easily accessed via a panel on the bottom of the case. Additionally, Alienware had exclusive distribution rights to SLI in the laptop market before anyone else did. If you look at people's complaints with alienware, and WHEN they made the complaints, you'll see a consistency with parts available throughout the PC market as a whole and the wait times for alienware to ship their product. that's just the way it is when you deal with ANY OEM, Dell, Alienware, FalconNW, VooDoo PC, etc, when those OEM's deal in high end parts.

If you want real, unbiased reviews, go check out HardOCP's consumer reviews, and read about their experience with the high end, "gaming" PC builders. HardOCP has probably had the absolute worst luck with ordering those high end systems from a variety of vendors, and they hear about how utterly opposite their bad experiences have been compared tot heir reader's experiences with the same company all the time in e mails and forum threads.

The point is that there is no system builder without flaws. Additionally, I have only shared my experiences with alienware, and what I know to be true (at the time of posting) about alienware. I have personally never had a problem with them, but I also would not recommend them to anyone unless they were looking for the absolute most high end laptop gaming machine. If that was the case, I would recommend alienware, voodoo, or falcon NW simply because they are the only steadfast companies who have been around for years, and will likely be around to ensure your 2 or 3 year warranty is honored. Buying a laptop is NOT the same as buying a PC, and the second most important thing a laptop OEM can provide is a warranty to protect your investment. The third most important thing is to have a reputation that they will do just that.

Of course the most important thing a manufacturer can do is provide a quality product for a good price. If alienware did not dot hat for the overwhelming majority of their customers, they would have gone under by now, and would not have been purchased by Dell and kept their identity. If alienware honestly did have a bad reputation, dell would have buried the alienware brand name all together.

In the end, my personal opinion is that the absolute best bang for your laptop buck can be achieved by going with gateway, seger or lenovo, but your options are limited, and there are less and less companies providing the customization options for laptops that dell and gateway made so popular years ago. More compaqs, dells and HP laptops are sold than any other retail laptop brand, and none of those companies are gioing bankrupt any time soon. Now I ask, would you recommend compaq to someone expecting their laptop to last for 3 years?

Hope the rest of your flamming goes well.

PS, my original Alienware still works fine, battery still holds a 90 minute charge after 3 years, only thing I ever had to replace was the CD drive because it stopped burning CD's, read them just fine. That was a completely free replacement, covered by the warranty, even though i was fairly sure that I had caused the damage myself.

[frostbitetwice]

Originally Posted by johnnyis42

what i have found in dealing with alienware is that if you call them and the first person you talk to doesn't take car eof you, hang up and call back.

Is that not a sign that their service is not good ?? I would find service highly questionable if it required me to call back to find a better agent !!!