go for alienware?

Here is a thread I made a few weeks ago concerning the 1 year anniversary of my AW Area-51 m5500. Hopefully this will answer some questions you might have. 1 Year Anniv link

Well, it's the risk that is taken when buying anything like this. I am looking forward to my next AW purchase, as I am now sold on their products after having mine for a year without any problems.

I've owned six AW systems, four desktops and two laptops.

My current daily system is an m9700 I received last Sept. and it's on 12+ hours a day. So far it hasn't missed a beat. I'm very impressed with Arima (the company that makes the base platform), and I've had very good luck with AW.

I've had a few support issues, had a vid card go out after six months that was replaced with an upgraded card under warranty. AW paid everything including shipping. Also had one desktop that had a sound card from Diamond that I didn't like, AW let me swap it out for a soundblaster also free of charge.

AW isn't perfect, no computer company is, but they do tend to get more than their share of angry people that go on a crusade against them on the internet. There are a few websites set up to bash the company. I've visited a few and posted comments that get deleted as I'm not attacking the company the way the site owners obviously want. Read them carefully and judge whether the stories make sense or not...

My only issue with support was a shipment I was told had been shipped, when in fact it had only been sent to their shipping department. I expected it before a weekend, but it didn't arrive until the next week. Kinda pissed me off as I cleared my weekend to play with my new hardware, but it didn't arrive...

If the m9750 is anywhere near as reliable and solid as the m9700, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. This forum is also a great resource for information if you do run into issues, and AW has reps that visit here to help make sure problems are resolved asap. Most people seem not to have any issues with support, but a few do as you'd expect.

AW also has had a few issues in the past that have caused them to develop an intensive internal certification program for all their hardware before they ship anything. I've seen so few issues with the m9700 I think it's working quite well.

Stick around and keep reading here, it's a good place to get both good and bad experiences with Alienware, but IMO almost all issues are resolved to teh satisfaction of reasonable customers.

AW rawks!
Iv owned the Aurora m7700, m9700 and now the m5550 (needed something light, but with power)

The only piece of advice i would give anyone before getting an AW is; Please understand this is a high performance PC, its not a Dell, or HP, or any other more common notebook

with that said, they must be treated like a high performance machine. You have to "baby" it a little.

AW pushes their systems to the limit, so they inherently run hot. You must keep these machines on a clean, level surface to allow proper air flow or you risk overheating the system. A laptop cooler is recommended, but you really only need a flat surface. Its also recommended that you regularly check your air vents for dust build up, and clean it.

This is unlike other more typical systems(HP dell, etc), that have their hardware tuned down and can take a bit of a beating i.e. leave them running on the carpet (thats one way to break a AW), toss them around, use a pillow as your laptop stand(dust will kill it…), ect.

What marker said...

A big thing you should consider is what you will do in the event you do develop an issue that requires repairs. AW can send local techs to your home to do minor part swaps or repairs, but if something major goes wrong like the motherboard fails, you'll have to ship the system to Miami for diagnosis and repair.

In my experience they take care of the customer well with these issues, but you may be without a system for a few weeks if that should occurr.

Companies like Dell can just send out a replacement part or system in a matter of days, so that's a consideration, but you're not going to find the level of hardware you'll see in an Alienware with most other companies.

I have owned 2 alienware's both laptops and yes, at first the tech support sucked. Once I got ahold of somoene I felt I could trust I kept that person as my single contact and everything seemed to pan out very well for me. I think a lot of the support issues stem from talking to 800 different people.