Alienware m5550 Notebook

I purchased a laptop computer from Alienware on February 3, 2007. Upon purchase I was told that my custom made computer would be delivered no later than February 13^th. I waited and waited tracked my computer online, finally on March 3^rd, 1 month later I received the package. The shipping not only took a very long time, but they charged me $99.00 for it, and it took way too long! I personally know that it does not cost that much to ship a computer because I’ve done business with friends and sold them my laptops, for a 3-three day fed ex shipping with insurance it cost only $18.00. This computer cost me under $25.00 to return it, which amounts to about $74.00 that Alienware used to buy the box and plastic for shipping. Now that is either a very expensive box or Alienware is pocketing it.

Two days after I ordered my laptop Alienware was giving away free shipping. I contacted them to see if they would apply that to my order since it had only been two days. They told me it did not apply to the laptop I had ordered, but I know differently because I went online and added the computer to my cart and it said free shipping.

Okay so once I got the computer, the optical drive would not read any disk I put in to it. I called technical support and they walked me through a couple of things that might help it to work. The next day there were all kinds of errors popping up about the optical drive and it stopped working completely. Another error with the computer is that there are dead pixels on the screen, 4 to be exact, making the screen blotchy in those areas. Also, the top of the laptop has a paint defect in two places. One defect is dark, like they brushed black onto the computer and then poorly covered it up with silver. The other is an actual bubble in the paint about 3/4" from the Alien head..

These are things you would not expect from a brand new custom computer that cost $2100.00!

Finally I was just so fed up with them giving me excuses about the defects of the computer that I called Alienware and said I wanted to return the computer and get a refund IMMEDIATELY! After 30 min. of getting nowhere and their clients making up reasons not to return it, I got a manager on the phone and told him what I wanted. He said there was no way to refund the shipping, and that they would have to charge me 15% restocking free. Now I understand that if i had the computer for awhile I should pay a restocking fee, but not when the notebook came broken and with defects from day one. The customer service representative, when asked, told me that they only way they refund the 15% restocking fee is when the computer arrives at the door with defects, yet somehow the defects on my machine just didn't apply (aka load of crap). In the end I ended up losing a total of $415.00 for something that wasn’t even working properly! As an alternative I could have kept the computer and returned it ever so often to get the defects fixed but time is money and I would have lost more going without the computer than refunding it.

It seems like this company is trying to squeeze every last penny out of you so in return they can give you a cheaply made product that they are not willing to back up.

I recommend Alienware products to those that love serious graphics but only play once a month cause you will spend more time trying to get the system working than actually enjoying the graphics and other capabilities of the computer.

I will never buy Alienware again regardless of how cool their products are.

UPDATE: I did get a full refund after 3 calls and filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.