Alienware and Houston
I have an Alienware Area 51 m17x laptop. I both love and hate this laptop… it is so much like an exotic sports car! When it is running it is the most awesome machine to use but when it is down, service for it is the pits! So I guess my complaint is that the service center leaves much to be desired.
My story starts out several months ago when the back-light on the screen partially went out… I had two bars of blackness and at first I thought I was having eye problems. A call to the customer support line resulted in my having to take a picture of the screen to prove to them that there was a backlight problem. I was then assigned an RMA number and I shipped the machine to the Houston facility for repair. A few weeks later I received the laptop back and when turning it on noticed a slight screen flicker which went away after a few minutes. It was very minor and I had to leave on a trip so I took the laptop with me. All was fine on the trip, but the week I returned the backlight completely died. This time the entire backlight was gone. Another call to customer service, another RMA and off I shipped it back to Houston. A few more weeks later, I received it back and turned it on. The screen was very nice and bright and also THE WRONG SCREEN. There are two screens for the m17x. One is the higher resolution screen that I had ordered with my m17x: a 1920×1200 ‘glossy’ screen. The service center had put in the lower resolution screen in my laptop and returned it. Another call, another RMA, another shippment to Houston. I complained to both Alienware and Dell management asking for a replacement. They could only assure me that it would be fixed… I was beginning to wonder if it ever would. There is obviously a QA problem in Houston.
I am happy to report now that the final repair (now a few months old) is good and I’ve had no further problems with the LCD or backlight. I makes me think very hard though about buying anything else from Alienware.