Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Aliens have reached the mother ship. Another Alienware rant.

Yes.. Dear Regular Readers, I know I'm boring the shit out of you with these posts. But you must know this is for search purposes for potential buyers.

Today I got the following email from Alienware:

"Thank you for contacting the Alienware Technical Support team.

In regards to your inquiry please be advised that, unfortunately, at this moment we do not offer an option to check the status of your system while being serviced in our facilities, in the same way it can be done when tracking the progress of your order through the Order Status page.

In regards to your inquiry please be advised that according to FedEx, the system was delivered today in our facilities. It should be entering the diagnostic phase during this week.

The normal Depot turn around time frame is approximately 15-20 business days. This time frame is subject to change depending on stock availability of replacement parts. If any issues were to come up, we would be sure to notify you."


Did you see that part where they say turn around is 15-20 business days? Plus 7 days for shipping time. Probably times 2 because who here thinks turn around time counts time to ship the machine back to me? Ya'll raise your hands if you do.

Okay - so this is the thing. This morning my husband told me his company started offering company discounts on Alienware machines. Lots of tech companies do this, but I couldn't have cared less.

Honestly there isn't a discount on earth that makes buying another machine from them worth it. Especially when I pay for on site support..which doesn't exist. Then have to ship my machine back to them for a minimum of 4 weeks. That's if they have the parts in stock.

Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes them to figure out I put a new drive in the machine that is completely clean? Drives are so cheap these days that I didn't want the support guys checking out my vast porn collection. So, we just popped a new drive in it when we shipped it back. We didn't even install an OS on it.

Okay - so I don't have a vast porn collection.. but I do have financial data, and they don't need the f-ing drive anyway. They can just plug in a master drive.

Oh wait.. I forgot to link my last post on this. So here it is.

7 comments:

  1. The other night, I was tricking out a Alienware laptop online and the whole time, I kept thinking about all the problems that you've been having. I wanted to pull the trigger and it was a pretty slick machine, but at the end of the day I couldn't justify overpaying for a computer after all of the problems you are having. I also thought about getting a used one, but at that point, I think I'm better off buying a high end regular laptop new, than a $2,000 laptop that's been used for 2 years. I still haven't figured out what kind of system I'm going to get, but your rantings have cost Dell at least one customer.

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  2. "I still haven't figured out what kind of system I'm going to get, but your rantings have cost Dell at least one customer. "

    Davis - I went through the follow thoughts in rapid sequence. Happy. Sad (I don't want to be the one getting in the way of someone getting their technology groove on). Then - shit.. now I'm gonna get sued.

    I'm actually surprised Alienware hasn't tried to shut me up. I've seen it on many a blog complaining about them. I even remembered something a while back about them forcing good reviews out of companies like CNET. From slashdot:

    http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/30/1156227&from=rss

    But hey.. if you decide to not go laptop you can always pretend like you have one of their machines:

    http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cases/alienware-selling-p2-case-separately-for-399-270301.php

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  3. It's not a question of getting in the way, it's letting people know that customer service isn't up to expectations. That's a huge part of why I would pay such a premium, otherwise, I could just build my own and waste two weeks worth of energy. If I'm going to spend that much money on a computer, I want to be treated like I shop at Nordstroms, not Miller's Outpost.

    I don't mind looking for a bargain and when I get a good deal, I can't complain about the customer service, but even before your posts, I figured I'd be better off by going custom built vs. Alienware's limited HDTV setup. Dell wouldn't sue you if they knew. They'd probably help solve your problems. They like to keep a lid on the rabble rousers ;)

    Do not ever feel bad about speaking your mind, you wouldn't be Snarkolepsy if you didn't have strong opinions. I'd rather you help me find a great computer than worry about Dell. They make plenty of profits, even if it's not up to Wall St.'s expectations. They will live without my dream laptop funds, unless I can't find a better alternative.

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  4. "Dell wouldn't sue you if they knew. They'd probably help solve your problems. They like to keep a lid on the rabble rousers ;) "

    Well.. they would shut me up if they got my machine back to me soon. Really soon.

    Ultimately though - I plead for anyone to provide examples of Alienware employing people outside of the state of Florida to perform on-site support.

    I think its fraudulent for a company to let customers pay for a service they have no capability of providing.

    That is my main irritation level at this point, and I'm not sure how they can solve that.

    I'm not happy I've had -as many-problems as I have, but I'm super not happy to pay for a service that doesn't exist.

    "I'd rather you help me find a great computer than worry about Dell."

    Well.. we are shopping notebook PC's right now. I don't know if that helps you. If you want to pay a super lot of a laptop though you could check out http://www.voodoopc.com/

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  5. I'm actually fine with a cheepo notebook, but I would then need a high end home PC. I want to edit high def video and my piece of crap video card can't support Pinnacle's piece of crap software. I also need another sound card, a DVD burner and at least another gig of ram to put an end to my performance problems. Since I've got so many upgrades, I figured it'd be cheaper to buy new, than try and Frankenstein it together. Other than the video editing my current desktop looks great. I thought if I got a video editing laptop, than I'd have a laptop to use too, but after pricing things out, I may be better off going low end on the laptop and then high end on the PC. I'm still deciding. I hate having to figure out all this stuff, but I hate even more not being able to make high def videos because I didn't figure it out when I bought my PC.

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  6. "I may be better off going low end on the laptop and then high end on the PC."

    Honestly, that's what I would choose. I've tried to pretend I can get a laptop to perform like a desktop. Putting performance aside - they still just don't like to be run 24/7. Maybe that is not a factor for you, but it was for me.

    I burned through 2 laptops before I realized they just run too hot and burn out in about 1-2 years.

    I remember reading Thomas bought a new mac laptop. He seemed to really like it.. you don't want to go that way?

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