New Alienware PC an Overpriced Underperformer

Steve Kerrison writes "Alienware has jumped on board the Core 2 bandwagon and rightfully so, but their new Area-51 7500 loses out to cheaper and faster solutions from other companies. From HEXUS.net's review 'No matter which way we dress up the Alienware's performance and feature-set, it's relatively poor in comparison to SKUs that we've reviewed recently. Value for money may not be the greatest concern in this sector of the pre-built market but when you can get substantially more for less, it becomes impossible to recommend this particular Area-51 7500.' "

Custom Built way to go

[SSGamer]

If you want value and performance custom built is the way to go, not prebuilt crap.

Overpriced?

[BigDork1001]

It's overpriced you say, I never would have expected that from Alienware.

I've always found them to be overpriced compared to other, lesser known vendors or even just making it yourself. I guess if you want to brag to your friends "I have an Alienware!" and they all gasp in awe then it's worth the extra money but I think most people could care less.

Re:This isn't news

[grasshoppa]

*their

NEED MOAR COFFEE!

Alienware customer service

[ronkronk]

In regards to Alienware's horrible customer service, I've got to weigh in. Last year I bought a laptop from them expecting a 15" 4:3 screen as pictured on their website when I ordered it. It took over a month to arrive, and what I got was a 15" widescreen with a 1680x1050 resolution -- I'm a young guy with decent vision (with corrective lenses) but this was too damn small for me and not what I ordered.

Add to that my X, C, and V keys were DOA, and when I powered up the computer it informed me the CMOS battery was dead. Alienware advertises extensive power-on load testing -- if any of that were true, they would have found and corrected this problem as soon as they tried to power it up! Additionally the video card and wifi drivers were not installed, so their marketing B.S. about fine-tuning drivers for you is just that.

To top this all off, I had to pay a 15% restocking fee to return my laptop for a refund. That was a $4k machine. Even after their false advertising as to the laptop design and absolutely no in-house testing -- despite the falsified testing sheet that came with it -- I lost $600 to them and it was two full months until I got the 17" Gateway laptop I now have. And it runs great.

Re:Bullshit bingo

[hansamurai]

Because each product is assigned a "SKU" at the store level. I worked at Staples for a few years and each product had a six digit number associated with it, including computers. That number was Staple's SKU.

Big ripoff Power Cable for $48

[Joe The Dragon]

company that has Power Cables for $48
It use to be out in the open but now they hide it under the Power Supply Selections.

To go from one 1gig to 2gigs is $250 that is just as bad as the mac pro ram price

Video Performance Optimizer $18 seems like stuff that you can set your self in the video drivers control panel.

$29 for the restore disks that should be free or at the cost of the disks.

$49 Automated Technical Support Request System there is a new dell ad showing off someing like that and they say it comes free with all new dell systems.

Rehashed Sager?

[955301]

But I thought Alienware has always been repackaged overpriced Sager notebooks [sagernotebook.com]? The just slap a coat of paint on, then charge another $400 for their "value added" service.

For example: http://www.sagernotebook.com/pages/AMD_systems.htm l [sagernotebook.com]
This system is $3,229.00 before customization

The equivalent Alienware notebook w/ a different paint scheme [alienware.com]:
$4,499.00

Sweet Jesus! I'm in the wrong business if I can repaint a notebook and sell it for an additional $1270 bucks!

Okay, lemme hold my excitement and see the specs for the difference:
Windows Home edition vs media edition
Whoa! The video actually has *less* memory than the Sager!
80G vs 120G hard disk
And you're missing a bluetooth adapter that the sager has too!

So you actually get LESS machine for $1270 more! Balancing out the hard disk only makes the Sager $3304, or $75 more expensive.

Okay, I'm in! Anyone interested in buying this notebook, send me your money and I'll sell you a custom airbushed *cough* notebook. Free shipping!

Re:What did you expect?

[Grym]

While I understand that Dell sucks (I hate them too)...

I understand that there are good reasons to dislike Dell. It's very difficult to get a good computer at a reasonable price from them lately. However, I have had a very good experience with Dell.

In 2002, I got a Dell Dimension 8200 with a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 MB RDRAM, an Nvidia 4200ti graphics card, a Soundblaster Live soundcard, an 80 Gb harddrive, CD-RW, and a DVD drive for $2200. At the time, that was an incredible deal. I couldn't have built the same computer on my own without paying hundreds more.

Two years later, I was upgrading the graphics card when I accidently mangaged to fry the motherboard. (I'm still not sure how that one happened--I was grounded the entire time.) After a 30 minute phonecall (lol yes with technician from India) where I did a number of tests to verify that it was, in fact, dead, the warrenty kicked in and only three days later, a computer repair guy was in my house (at no cost) and replaced not only the motherboard but the two drives, the processor, the RAM, the powersupply, and the soundcard. For all intents and purposes, I got a new computer because of my own negligence. Now how's that for customer service?

With only two upgrades of a Geforce 6800 (unlocked pipelines, slightly overclocked) and an extra 512 MB of RD RAM, that computer is what I still use today to play even new videogames.

Granted, I'm probably the exception rather than the rule, but I think it's unfair to say that Dell is always a bad deal or that Dell's customer service universally sucks.

-Grym

Re:Alienware customer service

[fm6]

Yeah, really. People get away with chargebacks that are outright fraud, never mind a customer with a long laundry list of legitimate complaints.

Restocking fees are for "I decided I didn't want it" situations, not defective merchandise that wasn't what you ordered. Of course, the customer service drone may try to tell you otherwise...