Alienware is the worst company I have ever dealt with. DO NOT BUY ALIENWARE! I purchased an AREA-51 M15X and have had it only six months. I have had numerous blue screens, a screw fell out of the frame that holds the LCD in place and the internal fan is making noises like its broken. I have even done a system restore 3 times now, and it continues to blue screen. Everytime I call support, I am on the phone no less then 30 minutes waiting on hold to speak with someone. I purchased the AlienFX lighting system. I can't use it if I upgrade to Windows 7, since they haven't been able to come up with a fully functional piece of software to control it, so I am stuck with Vista if I want to use the lighting system I paid for. So I am currently on hold with them right now, since I need to setup an RMA to get all of these issues fixed, and its been over 30 minutes and I have not even talked to anyone yet. So essentially if you want to overpay for a piece of crap and get terrible customer and tech support, go with Alienware.

Order an Alienware desktop last week. Picked up at FedEx today. Removed from packaging, etc. and to my disappointment it would not post. Contacted tech support and they had me try the usual troubleshooting- reseating video card, trying one video card at a time, removing CMOS battery, disconnecting optical drive and hard drive, holding power button in for 25 seconds when first powered off, and other garbage. Support rep finally arrived at conclusion that it was a defective motherboard. Well I'm in the process of selling my home and moving into a temporary place. They refused to ship to any address except previous. Also said I would need to arrange a time with their tech to replace the board. Inquired about returning equipment and they said it would be a 15% restocking fee even if it was defective. And shipping was not covered. I asked for a supervisor and was informed that he was the only one I could talk to about anything. Basically refused to transfer me to anyone of higher authority. I will give them an opportunity to try the motherboard replacement even though it is a great waste of my time. Will update as things progress.

I ordered the OPTX AW-2210 on September 30, 2009. The web page stated it would be 2-3 days for delivery. They debited my credit card on October 2, 2009. I called them for 4 days to get a delivery date and I was told each time it would ship within 48 hours. That never happened. I had to cancel the order on October 7th, 2009 and call my credit card company and inform them of the situation. At this writing the charge still remains on my credit card.

First off, I haven't even received my computer yet. I just need to display my anger with customer service and how things haven't worked out in any favor.  
 
I won this lap-top via a contest. The actual order was placed August 24th, 2009, for an m15x. I called to confirm and was told the ship date would be Sept. 16th, 2009.  
 
A week later, I noticed no movement on my order making the date Sept 3rd, 2009. At that point I sent an e-mail(before they insisted you call) and was responded to 3 days later saying everything was fine. Sept 15th, 2009. No movement on the order. I call in and find out it's on the check stage, and that within 24-48 hours it would ship.  
 
3 Days later, I call, and processes have failed and the screen was damage, product has no ETA now when shipping out will occur.  
 
I've called everyday since then, and have had answers ranging from 24-48 hours shipping and no ETA. Customer service is the worst I've seen as far actual help.  
 
I've won this computer for free, and was told it would ship almost a month ago. I was in the market for another computer after I get this lap-top, and Alien ware WOULD have been at the top. I'm afraid with all this two-way talk, they would lose favorably. I'm just saddened by what has transpired, and I don't even have the computer yet.  
 
**Update**  
 
I've had the m15x for once month, upgraded to Windows 7, and has been running great. However the hinge is cracking ALREADY. Less than a month and the computer is breaking down. Stay away from Dell and Alienware.

This review was modified by its author, n1chol3, on 11/2/09 3:16 PM.

Alienware Customer Service is a joke... nothing but lies, guesses, and broken promises:  
Order for Area-51 M15X laptop placed 5/27/09 showed schedule to ship 6/1.  
Immediately rescheduled to 6/3 as soon as the order was accepted.  
Actually shipped 6/8/09.  
After reloading operating system 3 times and hourly reboots, internet connection problems, etc. Alienware finally authorized the return on 8/12/09. They advised it would take them up to 2 weeks to fix and return the unit.  
As of 9/8/09 they claim the unit was delayed in shipment and not received until 8/19 yet FedEx has delivery signed on 8/17.  
Worse, they say the unit has been rebuilt twice yet they do not know when it can be expected to ship.  
They never could provide status.  
They could not transfer me to someone that could help.  
They could not refund my money.  
On a positive note, when I asked the customer service agent if he wanted negative things to be said about Alienware he responded "of course not" yet he was not interested in doing anything to improve the situation.  
I spent $1,502.58 over 3-1/2 months ago and finally got a working laptop after hours and hours of phone calls and emails with tech service agents that never knew anything!  
Alienware says they will extend the warranty an additional 90 days but have never updated my account. Also they promised to upgrade the memory but did nothing. They promised too many things - I count 11 various lies that I have in writing in emails and they don't care!  
I wanted my money back so I could buy a Dell.  
After 3 more lengthly phone calls (shortest was 20 minutes) on 9/10/09 I was allowed to speak with an Alienware/Dell supervisor who contacted the Alienware repair center and found out that they still could not fix the Area-51 computer and were running diagnostics again. He then offered to cancel the system and credit my Visa card (even though all agents I had talked to previously insisted they could not do refunds). But he actually submitted a cancellation ticket and another department then contacted me and said absolutely no refunds so I had to cancel the Dell order and continue to wait. They promised to do a 48 hour burn-in test and yet the next day they had finished. They promised to ship by 2 day service but sent it by 5day ground. They promised to ship it to our new address but sent it to the old so it took another 3 days to finally arrive.

This review was modified by its author, BillT909, on 10/7/09 12:05 PM.

So I just received my M17x all decked out with the top parts to replace a crappy Sony laptop.  
The laptop is great an VERY fast, I mean after POST it boots in like 30 seconds (Vista64 Ultimate) but there is a great disappointment, really great: the touchpad!! It is a Synaptics Touchpad V7.0  
 
1- Usable area is much smaller then the pad itself (yes, I checked in the pad control panel) as in, even with horizontal scrolling disabled at the bottom there, sides and top there is a strip of 1/4" -+ that does nothing (yes, edge motion is disabled too)  
 
2- When I lift my finger off the pad the cursor snaps back on screen some 2/8" making it quite complicated to hit buttons, make selections, etc...  
So, for example, I am moving the cursor to say a window close button, when cursor is over it I lift my finger for the tap but the cursor snaps away from the button back in the direction the cursor came from.  
 
3- Tap zone are a joke, they are physically located nowhere near where you see and set them in the control panel and work badly, going from needing a light tap to a strong one to get it working and that happens 1 on every 5 taps only.  
 
4- Scrolling is horrible, acceleration is disabled, but on a long page it will go ok and then suddenly scroll like 20 pages at the time or jump the whole site up and down.  
 
5- Tap lag, when I tap, anywhere there is a few milisec lag , 400 or so, enough to be noticed and bothersome  
 
This is a freaking joke, my old $700 Sony is as precise as can be, this $5800 rig comes with a pad that is literally a joke and should keep people from buying such a laptop until Alienware fixes it, I am actually calling Alienware today and will return the laptop if a good fix is not offered, which is a shame because for the rest it is a smokin rig, but what's the point if I can't use it properly!  
 
UPDATE:  
3 days in owning this new laptop, the AC adapter died on my, already called CS, sometime next week I should have a replacement I was told.  
THIS IS NOT what I expected from a company that claims to be have the world's best laptop!!!  
If one more thing goes wrong I am returning this laptop!!

This review was modified by its author, JClaude, on 8/14/09 4:33 PM.

I have purchased two Alienware Machines in the last three years and up until last week had no problems whatsoever. As of last week however, I will no longer be doing any future business with the company due to a recent malfunction with one of my machines.  
 
Despite the fact that I have purchased an extended warranty on the machine, I still have a broken husk more than a week later. I was originally given a time frame of 1-3 business days for a part to arrive... that did not happen and when I pointed this out I was essentially told the tech must have been misinformed. Now that I've received the part, I was told initially by the tech that within 24-48 hours a tech would call me. I followed up with someone upon receiving the replacement part and was told the same thing, however, 48 hours later I have called again and am now told it may be another day or so.  
 
Alienware is a fine company as long as your machine doesn't break, once it does they do the best to avoid helping you within a reasonable time frame. I had been lead to believe that shipping an item and having an on-site tech would be faster than me shipping my machine back, but I no longer believe this will be the case. I recently had issues with an HP machine, they overnighted me a box which then overnighted the machine to them and then they overnighted it back when it was fixed, that entire issue took 5 days, the same amount of time it took for me to get a part from Alienware.  
 
Having left feedback to Alienware and contacted Customer Service multiple times, I've been told they more ore less don't care about me or my future business.  
 
Followup 8/14  
As of today I'm almost 3 weeks without a working computer, I was contacted by Alienware after posting this by a man named Charles who promised to escalate my issues. Charles has not followed up with me since then, I had to follow up to make sure they even received my pc and since then have been unable to reach Charles for a status update.  
 
8/19  
PC received back in working condition. Still not pleased with the way everything was handled, but I appreciate the follow up by Charles on the 17th and having it shipped back 2 day shipping.

This review was modified by its author, kierydon, on 8/22/09 11:30 AM.

It is my opinion that most of the reviews for Alienware, a subsidiary of Dell, on this site are likley fake. If one compares the amount of BBB complaints against their high rating here a large disparity is readily apparent. Please do a web search and many bad stories emerge.  
 
After the glowing blue alien head started to flicker, I had my notebook catch fire due to what looks like a poor case of wire routing. It is beyond repair and unfortunatley, out of warranty. Victor, the head of customer service, refused to let me speak with anyone else and told me that "even if you notebook is only 24 hours out of warranty it is your problem not ours". Yes, the notebook was out of waranty. However, a notebook is not supposed to spontaneously catch fire. This appears to be the fault of the Alienware build process and they refuse to help me out at all. I am not asking for a free notebook, bit a slight discount on a new machine would be in order it seems. What happened to going above and beyond Alienware?  
 
Having been a good customer, I will no longer do business with a company like this. I strongly encourage you to research the Alienware customer service reputation and take your business elsewhere.

This review was modified by its author, lostin, on 4/29/09.

I bought an Ailenware m15x-R1 computer for playing games. I thought I was getting a top of the line gaming computer. I was sadly disappointed when the laptop arrived. After it was charged up and ready to go I unplugged it take it to the living room. The volume control on it went nuts. It began to turn itself up and sometimes down at random about every 5-10 seconds. Then the computer began to just freeze up or just completely shut down. I haven’t even played any games on it yet. When I went to the Ailenware tech site I discovered that many people where having the same problem with their computers. They were complaining about sending their computers in multiple times for “repair” but getting their computers back still broken. The tech response to one such person was they didn’t know what was causing the problem, they would pass it on, and that they would get back to them when they had a solution. That particular complaint was logged about 4 months ago. The earliest complaints of the volume control was 10 months ago. Another gentleman complained that he his computer shut down intermittently. He got a new computer and that one had the volume control issue. Based on on these complaints I decided to just return my computer and get my money back. When I contacted Ailenware I was told I would have to pay a restocking fee of 15%. I was stunned that they expected me to pay them for a BROKEN computer. They stood by their decision to charge me the fee despite my arguments. They said I either had to let them try to fix it or pay the fee. I see that as black mail. I am not returning the computer because I don’t like it or changed my mind. IT IS BROKEN. They send it to me that way. Why should I be forced to let them try to fix something the tech people say they have no solution for. Plus, I would then be without a computer during all this fixing time. I need a computer now when I bought it not when they finally manage to fix the broken computer they send me.  
I would like to warn all other consumers not to buy from Ailenware. They don’t care about their customers or their product.  

Lets just start of by saying that I (Like many others obviously) was searching for a company to build my dream machine. I have known about Alienware for several years and was very excited that I finally had the chance to have one of my own. I attempted to purchase a fairly expensive Area-51 ALX system on approximatly March 26th, 2009. I had noticed that a new feature for the Area-51's became availble and that was CPU Liquid cooling and decided to go with that. The order had been made and the person to whom I spoke told me that it would be two to three buisiness days before the order was processed and it would be shipped about April 6th. As the days went by, my order never left the phase two stage in the check order status page of their web page. I called many times only to reach employees that were not at all helpful and seemed as if they did not care about me or any customer for that matter. Everytime I called, I got a different answer to why my order was being delayed and the workers could not answer a simple question about the product I was ordering. If I was trying to sell a product, I would probabally treat the customer with utmost respect and at least know what the product I was selling was and to an extent how it worked. Finally, it was decided that the liquid cooling that I had ordered was only avalible on the web site for two days because the cooling system was not working as intended and to top it off, they had no idea when this certain part would be ready to "Start" building my computer. Then, I noticed a few days later that a new option had came out called High Performance Liquid Cooling for about one-hundred and fifty dollars more then the other option I had picked. I asked them if I could pay the difference for them to upgrade it so it could be shipped to me faster and they said yes. I then noticed that they released the new Wartime Edition of the computer I had ordered. The only difference between it and the customized version of mine was the word wartime in the name of it and the 265 dollar discount for ordering it. April 13th rolled around and I had yet another unsatisfying phone call to the company saying that they would have to cancel the order competely before they could give me this discount even though it was one week after they said they would ship my computer. Instead of being led around the yard like a Jack-ass, I decided enough was enough and canceled the order. All in all, their customer support is terrible and they make for a very shaky experience in business. I do not recomend anyone ordering an alienware if you want quality support with your order. Recently I have been looking into DigitalStorm where they care about their customers.

Obviously Alienware has some of the best gaming systems out there. I have both a MX17 and a ALX desktop. My MX17x purchase was disappointing to say the least. 1 day after receiving my new laptop the laptops miraculously went on sale...and if you've been to the site recently, they went down significantly. I called and talked with a customer service rep - he told me there was nothing that he could do. In fact, he told me he couldn't do anything for me because it was against the law - he said"It's against the law for me to discount your past order because you have already paid for it"...are you kidding me.  
 
When you spend a ton of money on a system like this and see the price drop 2,000 dollar after you receive it - thats a bummer. He told me I could return my laptop if I wasn't happy with it.  
That's not a solution - that's an employee that doesn't care about a customer doing future business with this company. He told me if you want to get the system at that price - you'll just have to order another one and return the one you have - OH and here's the kicker, he told me that I would then be charged an additional 15% for re-stocking. Then it got worse, He said - it's not his problem and that it's just marketing, he said again, it's against the law for him to help me. So, Mr / Mrs. Alienware how stupid do you think you're customers are?  
 
I have written a couple of times to the sales department and they refuse to respond.  
 
I highly caution you from buying one of these systems until you know for sure you have the best price. The last insult I was given before getting off the phone was : I asked the "customer service" rep if they knew about this promotion when I ordered my laptop. He said yes. Can you believe that?! I said to him, why...seriously, would you let me spend all of this money and right in front of you - you have a memo saying that tomorrow you're discounting the same system I was buying today and NOT TELL ME TO WAIT 1 DAY.  
 
...and on top of it not to offer any kind of reconciliation?! I asked for a manager and he said they would tell me the same thing. I gave up. I am a SVP of sales in a New York firm, I know the difference between a good deal and a bad one. The bad ones leave a horrible taste in your mouth long after the purchase. If you haven't guessed by now, the experience I've had with Alienware so far - has been way below what I would have initially guessed.

My Gaming system was unbelievable, have never seen my game look or run so well...I was so impressed, untill I got an overheated system shutdown. Had the system for two months and it has been gone for four weeks and still has not reached the repair facility..they telling me another three weeks if they can get it back across the border. I would not recommend this company to anyone.

The ordering wasn't bad - Alienware was somewhat backlogged, but they did make it clear up front that this was the case.  
 
Build quality is not the best. It's not downright horrible, but it's not worth the price premium. I've had overheating components, squeaky joints, breaking joints, crappy hardware, bad drivers.... It does look reasonably good, though, but computers aren't all about looks.  
 
Support since then, though, has been absolutely horrible. For all Alienware's claims of Onsite Support, that's nigh non-existent. The only things that you can get fixed onsite are those that they'll also walk you through over the phone, and even if you get onsite support, it takes several days after you receive a part before they'll schedule somebody to fix it. As it is, a customer support representative estimated ~30% of calls get onsite support - an absolute joke compared to all the other major manufacturers. On top of that, technical support doesn't really care about your problems.  
 
If you want to say you have an Alienware, then feel free to buy a system from them, but don't expect quality and support that matches the price premium.

I am a repeat customer with Alienware, and I have to say that I will not ever be buying another machine from them again. Their Support is the most horrendous support group I have ever seen. My latest laptop a M15X came in originally only to have to be returned for a new motherboard. Then 5 months later the monitor casing cracked and the light pipe started falling apart in it. Returned it to them and after a month and a half now I still do not have my computer back. They claim that it is on indefinite backorder for the monitor. They will not replace it with a new one, which they still are selling, they will not issue a credit to get another, essentially they are holding a $3000+ laptop indefintely, and I am now looking to have to buy another laptop to replace this one. DO NOT BUY FROM THEM. Both laptops i have had have had issues and had to be returned. Their support does not get back to you and once they have your money they dont care about you any longer.  
 
Andrew Ellis

This review was modified by its author, wolff9653, on 11/11/08 9:17 AM.

I ordered a 9750 notebook on october 22, 2008. After about a week and it was still in phase 2 I called on numerous occasions just to find out that the video cards were on backorder. It is now November 9th and after I called them on the 6th and they said they would update the status on the website it is still stuck on phase 2. They did put a rush priority on my order but it is still not in production. The video cards were not up to there standards so they had to order another set. This is still unacceptable because I have been waiting since the 22nd of October and it was suppose to ship on the 4th of November. I'm lucky if it ships during the week of the 10th of Nov. if It dosen't I'm going to cancel my order and never order from them again. They are very slow with there process and have been the worst out of all of the online etailers that I have dealt with. I would not recommend them to anyone. They don't even compensate you for the long wait and the lies they tell you about your order. I was receiving different answers about my order including it would ship on time ............................yeah right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This review was modified by its author, ronbos56, on 11/9/08 7:23 PM.