Service Reviews?

look at the people who are happy on here, aw is just having trouble redelivering parts and they are back orderd, so np aw is a great company and they will take care of you (if you become a customer)

Dude, although it may seem that there's a lot of people bashing Alienware, keep in mind that forums are places where people with problems go. There are plenty of satisfied Alienware customers whose stories you never hear about. I for one am a two time Alienware buyer (I currently own an Area-51m 5500 notebook, and I couldn't be happier with it). The service is great: their support staff is knowlegeable and courteous. The reason why there's been so many delays with orders lately is because demand is increasing rapidly. Once Alienware adapts to this change in demand everything should be straight again. I hope this helps.

The squeeky wheel gets the grease ....... Noodle got it right. The real utility of these forums are for people looking for help . looking for consolation. The AW community ..... as I am finding out ..... is extremely helpful and cohesive. I would think that no matter what computer manufacturer's forum you visited, you would pretty much find the same...... AW rox.

While the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" excuses are all well and good, they don't tell the whole story. Sure, only customers who have problems complain, but if you're interested in customer service, what you really want to know isn't "Are they good people" but "Relative to other companies, what do they give me when thing go wrong?"

I bought a Sentia because I was tired of the video-card problems I was having with my Dell Inspiron 8500. Five times over two years, I'd had to call tech support and ask a tech to come to my place. Five times they'd replaced either the motherboard, video card or LCD. (Sometimes they sent the tech out with all three, just to be sure.) I figured I'd never have the same problem with Alienware.

I was right: I didn't have the same problem. When I encountered similar video card failures with Alienware, I found out that the "onsite" support I'd paid for wasn't really onsite at all. Any significant problems I had--i.e. any hardware failure involving replacement parts beyond memory and such--would involve sending the system back to Alienware. Now my computer is winging its way to Florida, and I'm back to using my 8500. (For which, it should be noted, I just extended the warranty.) By all reports from their forums, I may not get it back for several weeks.

Is Alienware a great company? Who knows. Are many people happy? Sure. When you're making your buying decision, just keep in mind that "onsite" doesn't have its standard English meaning, and that if anything does go wrong, you're going to get real familiar with your local Fedex delivery person.

Check the forums. See how long you'll be out a machine if something breaks down. You're talking about a Sentia, so you're buying a business/school machine, not a gaming rig. That means it may be a critical system, and what you worry about with those is downtime. I've already had more of that with this one issue than I've had with three years of Dell, simply because when my Dell was down, I didn't have to wait around for shipping.

So there's my advice. If you absolutely need the machine working on your desk, go elsewhere. Sure, many people will be happy, but at the end of the day, you don't need the risk. I don't say that because I hate Alienware: I *love* the machine. But I would have loved not taking time from my exams to deal with technical support more. In the end, however much I love it, it's just too much cost.

Wow. Now I feel stupid. No sooner do I go back to AW's support forums than I find that not only did jll37gulc purchase the Sentia, but according to the forums:

It failed on April 13th (or at least by that point it had been shipped).
It was received on April 17th and spent until the 24th being "diagnosed."
It was finally shipped back on the 28th.

Sorry to tell you what you already knew.