"Stay away from Dell or Alienware: I just bought a M14x R2 in early May, 2012, it came about May 28th or so, by June 8, 2012 the hard drive died with over 2K of software I can afford again.
I spent hours on the phone on Friday, when it died, they said new hard drives come in on Monday, (2 of them) and by Tuesday they never showed, I called and have it on tape, that they do not know when the hard drives will ship due to a 'shortage' of hard drives and it could be over two weeks and I can't get my money back because the laptop is now over 21 days old, but hey on that Friday I could, well not even then.
Now, I have tried four times to install windows on this the way it came from Alienware, and I have been working on computers for over ten years and let me say, if you can even talk to these guys, they are wrong. I just spent an hour and half installing Windows 7 on a 32 gig SSD drive because Harold said, oh yes this is how it is done!
AHHH!!!!
Over a week with no action!!!"

"This is a review of Alienware very POOR customer service. I am having a customer service nightmare I'm having with the Alienware Solution Station. My son is 13 and saved up to buy his Alienware M18x. He had a problem and tried to resent to factory settings and made a mistake. His bad...should have looked on line for instructions first. Still, we called Alienware and asked for help. For a fee, they said they would take care of it.

That was five weeks ago. Fourteen phone calls later. Four technician appointments - three of which had NO technician show up. First, they did the basic re-install. However, they couldn't get the wireless card to work and came to the obviously incorrect conclusion there was something wrong with the wireless card (it was working fine before we called them). I waited for a technician a few days later. He showed up, replaced the wireless card and it still didn't work. I called back. They worked on the software some more (remotely) and still couldn't fix the wireless. So, they decided that the replacement wireless card was bad and needed to be replaced again.

I received two confirmation calls from Dell but the technician never showed. When I called, I was told it was because the part was backordered. Nobody ever called to tell me (these are three hour time windows I'm waiting).

Then, two more confirmation calls for a couple days later. The technician never showed and lied about calling me and waiting 20 minutes. At that point I said that I wasn't going to wait again for a wireless card that was unnecessary in the first place. The Alienware support person asked what I wanted him to do - so I said I wanted him to fix the software. After about an hour, he did. He discovered that the technician who did the initial work (a month had passed at this point - and about 10 calls) did it incorrectly and nobody ever went back to check it. Then, however, it turns out we had a problem with graphics that we didn't have before.

He couldn't solve it and instead said that we needed a new graphics card. So, today, I waited again. I got two confirmation calls from Dell and the technician didn't show up. Again, because the part is on backorder, but nobody told me. So now, I've spent countless hours working with my son at times (of course, he has to go to school at some point), taking up time in my working day, and most of it wasted because the support people did the job incorrectly the first time, told me I needed parts I didn't need, and have on-site technicians who lie and don't call customers to tell them they aren't coming.

Today, I asked to talk to someone who might be interested in hearing about this. Tech support transferred me to customer service. They wanted to transfer me to tech support. Finally, I got the woman to understand that I thought they might want to know that their tech support has been terrible and their on-site technicians don't show up. She told me her manager would call me. Who is good for a bet that I don't hear a word?

So...I wait...with my frustrated kid...for the part that is on backorder and the technician who doesn't call and there's nothing I can do, except let other Alienware users know, just as a heads up and just in case someone who cares is looking."

"I originally made a purchase to HP, but that didn't turn out so well, so I decided to give Alienware a try. I never had to deal with Alienware/Dell Customer Service before. I purchased a computer that arrived defective, then came the problem. I spent nearly two weeks in an attempt to contact Customer Service for the last 2 weeks to get this resolved.

Alienware Customer Service is the worst I have ever seen. It's amazing how they continuously transfer your phone call. When I write emails, they respond with an automated email informing me that I have to contact Customer Service through phone, but I tried many times to speak to someone. I get transferred from one person to another, and sometimes without any notice, I just get transferred.

After a very painful amount of time, I have managed to eventually get them on the phone and have since returned the computer, since I shouldn't have to beg a company like Alienware to help me since I pay such a premium for one of their computer. Currently I now have a computer that I ordered from Ironside Computers. I have to say the computer arrived on time, and it runs great. Their customer service is fantastic, I had a problem with a program of mine not working properly, so I called up tech support and they were able to help me right away, but the best part was how much cheaper they were. What I got from Alienware I was able to get the same thing from Ironside Computer for $470 less. It was an overall much better experience."

"bought an alienware M17x R3,3.1GHZ i7,16GB ram,750GB hard disk,1920x1080,2 GB GTX 580M 3D for a cost of £2500. had it for just over three weeks and already had an engineer come to fix it three times!! 1st the motherboard was changed, then the touch pad and now the motherboard again! what a joke and the technical help dept is in Slovakia and they can hardly speak english and are very rude. very poor product for a very high price with loads of poor customer service. never again!!!"

"Terrible. Everything was wrong. Within the first few weeks of getting my M15 laptop i had to replace the video card and wipe my hard drive. It was ridiculous. The service was okay for me but they just wanted to milk my money. I do not recommend alienware for the price. Im building my own computer for 1/4 of the price and 2-3 times the quality. "

"I purchased a Alienware Aurora-R4, it worked the first time it booted up and that was it. Upon contacting tech support I learned that my problem was considered a software support issue and it was not covered in my service plan. However they did make an exception seeing how it was brand new out of the box. The software support person basically just had me reinstall windows, and after that I was on my own. No recovery CD I was to look through various CD's they sent with the computer and try to find my drivers and various programs that were factory installed. Big head ache and I couldn't find the majority of drivers or programs. So I decided to return the computer.

*No software support unless you want to pay extra for it, and it was horrible. It was outsourced and all they do is reinstall windows nothing more.

If you go to return a product to Dell / Alienware they will first ask you if you want a $100.00 credit if you do not accept that they will offer you 10 percent back. They will not refund shipping.

I will update when I see how long it takes to get my money refunded. "

"Wow lots of problem and i can't believe i could not do a simple search before my purchase. Now i recently bought a m14 alienware laptop, i7, 750GB....... at 1800$. i have had it for 40days. i had to send it 2 times for repairs and now i still beeps and won't open again and i have demanded my money back.(i have used this computer for max 48 hours... I talk to the very bad costumer support... 2 hours of calling them, being hang up and transfered (i was not mean but for some reason everytime they transfered me it would hang up),... and beind sent to one place to another.. Finally i can supposly return it for my money back with lots of pushing and i will definately send it first thing in the morning... They are lemons and i do love the look but it's not worth it. I have had a 400$ gateway desktop for 5 years and never broke and still works very well. It's very disapointing and i just felt that sending it for the 3rd time in 40day was not normal and my mom bought me this for christmas and she went way over her budget for this... all for this :( sorry for the spelling errors!!"

"Most Dell computers have chat & email support, but not Alienware. Instead you have to call India, repeat all your service numbers and contact information several times over a terrible connection, be put on hold for 5-10 minutes at a time, have to say "hello, are you still there?" repeatedly, be forgotten, and ultimately hung up on. Repeat.

If you can get through all the BS they'll hook you up with regular Dell support guys who will (in many regions) come right to your home the next day and replace whatever's broken, no questions. They even fix factory defects after warranties expire. THAT part of the service is great, but the call center is a nightmare.

I wish to hell they had email/chat support like the rest of Dell products."

"i got my alienware m18 about 5days ago with max performance settings and when it came in they didnt configure my processor which cost $75 from them so i had to get ahold of support which took about 2-3days, when i finally got someone it took about 2 1/2 hours to figure out why my processor wasnt overclocked to 4GHz so after going through all the steps... 2 1/2 hours l8er that was suppose to have been done by dell(alienware)and while i was doing all this, by the way this was the first time i turned on the computer. i noticed on the top left corner a black spot, which i believe were burnt pixels, i told support that and still they give me the run around like i was lieing to them, they wanted me to take a picture and email it to them, and ofcourse that will take 2+ days to get a respond from. and could it get any worse...? AND id like to mention that the laptop itself looked poorly built the peices didnt look like they fit together, ive had many dells along with my family, typing this on my old dell, better built then the m18, LOL. reason why im even doing a review which i NEVER do is because i was playing it 30mins ago and guess what BLUE SCREEN, i was on pandora and playing LoL(League of Legends)so there you go... you tell me if $4500 is worth it for a lemon. the best help i got was from the Kias Dell store i got it from, i couldnt do live chat support because my service tag is from china.... i could go on and on about this VERY DISAPOINTED, now i gotta do the process of return... help me god..."

"Their customer service is a joke.
First off, ordering this laptop was a pain. The electronic order was messed up and somehow duplicated due to a technical error by the site so we had to call and fix that. They still sent us the second laptop even after spending several hours fixing this issue.
My M15x laptop stays at my work (a graphic design shop) and it got a deep scratch when I was away. I called in and showed them, as best I could, that the screen got damaged and they wouldn't replace it. It was brand new, it got scratched only a month after I got it. This laptop was still under warranty and they still wouldn't do anything.
I was insulted, called "little girl", and brushed off during my horrible experience of attempting to just get a new screen. I will never get anything from Alienware again. If you must get a laptop, Dell's customer service is so much better."

"I have an M15 and I want to say that this is the worst laptop I've ever had.

- The monitor makes a better mirror than anything else;
- The battery dies at 60 odd percent after 2 years of use (no nice shutdown, just kills power)
- The usability is the pits (who puts a non tactile wireless shutoff right next to the non tactile sound button??);
- My model has 2 USB ports (really, on a $3,000 workstation replacement?, 2 USB ports??).
- The touchpad is utterly terrible with huge problems with palming.
- The touchpad also has a horrible button that's hard to use and forces you to click the far left side of the mouse, meaning your finger is forced to use the upper left corner of the touch pad only (necessitating that you relax the sensitivity to palming causing a catch-22 situation in which you can't win, I don't leave home without an extra mouse).
- The whole thing looks and feel like it was made in the 1980's, really, I had a slimmer laptop in 1989. If I need to lift weights I'll get a gym membership.
- The power adapter is on its last legs with tears at the socket from very light usage (I don't travel too much with it), again after 2 years.
- The screen is easy to scratch.
- It was a power hog even when the battery actually worked.

And that's it. There is not one good thing I could say about this laptop. The quad core processor rocks, but thanks goes to Intel for that. The solid state drive is nice, though they offered, as bundle, one of the worst performing ones, so I look forward to better in the future. It shipped with a massively bad soundcard bug that caused bluescreens for my first 6 months of ownership and made skype unusable (fixed now thankfully).

I personally will never ever touch anything with the Alienware name on it again. I can't fathom why it gets good reviews. All these sites seem to be people who play with it an hour or two and write a review. I was disappointed within my first 2 weeks of using it, and after 2 years now am completely furious. I understand why they only sell it online, if you actually looked at it for 5 minutes you'd never make the mistake of purchasing it."

"7/13/2011
I just received my Alienware M18x laptop, which cost over $3500.00, and it was not the one that I ordered. In fact, it was configured for someone in Australia, so I couldn't even plug it in. I ended up calling Alienware five times, three times I was disconnected. Everyone I talked with seemed to be from India, which causes problems because sometimes you can't understand what they are saying, so you have to get them to repeat themselves. Finally, on the fourth call I was told that another order will be processed, and that I would receive it in 7-10 days. Being skeptical I called back a little while later, and they could not find any record of any re-order, so I had to re-order again.

This is really amazing, since you are paying (supposedly) for a quality product, and what you get is far less than quality. Moreover, the customer service is terrible. I will never do business with these people again.
"

"Bought an Aurora desktop for 2500 bucks, was not compatible with the saitek controllers I use for flight sim. Tech support was no help. Spent hours on the phone and they kept telling me it was just a software issue. If that was true it could of been fixed. They basically told me they did not know why it would not work, so the system was useless to me. Sent it back. BEWARE DELL charges 15% restock fee, and that can be expensive with these over priced machines. There is better deals out there. I learned the hard way. DO NOT BUY ONE!"

"I called Alienware customer service over 3 days ago to try to get a technician to come to the office to see why our system was shutting off every time we were in the middle of a program, well after two long hours on the phone and numerous transfers to different departments, we still do not have an answer as to when we will have a technician. Every time I called it took each agent about 10 – 15 minuets just to figure out how to spell the tag #. After two long frustrating hours the agent finally agreed to send a tech out but we had to pay about $150 (mind you that we chose the best warranty plan when we purchased the product last year so that we don’t have to pay for troubleshooting).

They gave me a number of a company which they hire to outsource techs. I called them and they seem to know what they are talking about. I had to wait 24 hours for the order to get in their system. I finally call back 24 hours later and they advised me that the Alienware agent charged my credit card for a technician to set up a new PC!!! At this point all I can do is laugh of how incompetent ALienwares agents are. All I asked for was a tech to see why our system was shutting off and they scheduled a tech to set up a new pc. The outsource company said I had to call them back and re-do my whole order. WHAT A JOKE! After we spent over 10k on this system we can’t even get good customer service.
"

"I'd had this for about 8 months. The honeymoon is over for this computer and Alienware in general:

1) The hinge is broken due to an engineering problem (google "m11x hinge"). I've been waiting for them to fix it/address it for weeks to months now. I've spent many unnecessary hours waiting to talk to CS or getting no useful help from Customer Service. I was hung up on twice by the their service team.

2) the computer shuts off on its own (even after turning off the accelerator). I spent hours trying to fix it with their service team. the technician they sent said he was confused and could not help me and to 'call back' to open another service issue.

3) even when purchasing the thing, it was close to a 3 hour process over the phone.

4) the computer feels 'junky'. The parts (side panels), hinge, stoppers, etc are made of a cheaper plastics, glues, and have already noticeably begun to fall apart.

As context, I had, cared for, and used a Dell XPS for 5 years straight with no issues due to my mishandling of the product. This is a clearly sub-quality product.

Buy another computer, and I would advise not an Alienware. It is really not worth it."