Alienware Reviews

I bought an Alienware gaming PC from Dell more than a month ago. I was persuaded to buy it by Dell sales. When I found out more about it I realised that it wasn’t what I had been persuaded to buy. So I phoned up to cancel the order and get a refund to buy a more suitable computer. I thought this would be straightforward because it wasn’t due to be delivered anyway.

The delivery of the computer was cancelled and so I never received it. I was told that I would get a refund within 5-7 working days. I didn’t get one. So I phoned again. I was told the same thing. I would get a refund within 5-7 working days. I still didn’t get one. So I phoned again. I was told that I would get a refund within a few hours. I didn’t get one.

So five weeks after ordering and cancelling the order I still haven't had a refund.

Alienware previously used to be affiliated with quality and power, this would come at a premium but that is to be expected with any top end product. However it seems that Alienware is slowly becoming more and more like their parent company Dell, where ambitious technology meets the cheapest materials and easiest production.

Imagine you bought a Porsche 911 where you are told you have one of the best cars on the market on paper. But then once you buy the car you find out its only able to go 70 miles an hour on the motorway for 20 minutes without overheating. Then imagine that you are expected to manage this heat issue yourself but setting a hard speed limit on you car of 50 mph. No matter what you try you can't cool it down, and when you get it "fixed" by the company they charge you for the convenience and the same issues occur.

This is standard in all top end spec Alienware laptops to my knowledge. I've been through a couple, and for some reason I thought I could get it fixed and it was a one off but there seems to be no end. Look online and you will see the same issue, constant skipping if the pc is even remotely pushed past what should be an easy task for the hardware. This is called "Thermal Throttling". It essentially means the parts of the pc overheat, and cut power when they reach their limit causing a massive skip or "Lag spike". At first it was bearable but it's only gotten worse in a pc barely over two years old. I say this while I run an 8 year old game that's struggling to max out on 60fps, what is considered bare minimum on a pc that has a 1080GTX.

The irony is you will see the new DOOM run at 144fps completely smoothly, the BAM, lag spike, smooth again with no drops for 15 seconds, the another spike. It's unplayable. Imagine if a professional footballer had a microstroke every 15 seconds while he was on the pitch and his manager said "don't worry, he runs smooth other than that".

Before I get told that it must be a setting I will let you know what I've had to do to make a very expensive machine barely fictional at a decent standard. It's running on power settings with no power saving restrictions. All NVIDIA settings set to performance, resolutions set to 1440p, Intel XTU to undervolt the CPU, MSI afterburner to undervolt AND underclock the GPU. A frame limiter application to lock the pc at 60 (some games will kill the pc if they are not limited even if they are old). All OC software turned off as I would want to risk the apparent 3 tiers of overclock available on the Alienware 17. Both CPU and GPU re pasted, new ram and SSDs and a cooling pad.

This is just a fraction and I'm sitting here running Crysis 2 with some issues.

Believe me when I say that Dells ambitions to have high end laptops is incompatible with their cheapest manufacturing first policy. It's like expecting a chef to prepare you a Soufflé but the owner of the restaurant bought him Crunch Corners to serve as the ingredients (no disrespect,love a crunch corner).

Alienware has lost its way, the only reason I'm not giving this one star is because my laptop does actually work, but I have years of experience. I pray for the poor child who saved up for one or the inexperienced gamer looking for a travel option thinking this would be suitable.

Specs for the curious: 7820HK, 1080GTX, 32GB DDR3 Ram, 2x500GB M.2 SSDs.

Best gaming company

This is review of the online sales chat. not the product.
I am looking to upgrade to a new gaming pc to embrace microsofts new flight sim.. new gaming world.. new gaming pc. So thought i'd seek help from their online live sales chat. started at 12:40... got an agent straight away.. fed him my requirements.... got 1st response at 12:56!. and that was just... "whats your budget".. ok I thought. cuold have given me options initially but hey ho.. i put in my up to figure... it's now 13:08.. and no response...still waiting.. Im now surfing other gaming pc sites while waiting. half an hour and not one buying option. Very poor

Edti:- Still waiting at 13:15.. and giving up.. you lost a sale there alienware!

Ordered new m17, said 10-12 days. After I paid it then said it was 25 days. No response to my email asking to honor the advertised days. They were quick to respond before sale! Just to add also that I waited for a response back to my student status but time was running out as my current laptop needs replacing so had to place order without student discount.

Got a new pc delivered recently and must say it runs like a dream, could be more happier with the product! thanks guys:D definitely will be back to get another on for video editing!

Quite simply the biggest waste of money I've ever spent. Even out of the box the laptop was overheating to ridiculous temperatures. It would periodically freeze for a couple of seconds upwards of 20 times a day making gaming impossible on a £2k laptop built specifically for gaming. It would also need restarting at least twice a day as it would just randomly stop connecting to any web pages on any browser.

Despite contacting Alienware, I was told they wouldn't even look at the problem until they had passed me to a premium rate telephone number, or paid over £300 to extend my one-year warranty, even though the problems had been going on since I'd bought it. They don't pay any attention to emails or complaints unless you're telling them you want to give them money for something.

The products are made from cheap components and while they might look pretty, are actually terribly designed. If you're seriously considering buying an Alienware product, save yourself £2k. Buy a gun and just shoot yourself in the foot instead. It'll be a less painful experience than owning one.

After having such a good experience with my first Alienware, I have recently just bought my second: the new Aurora R9. Neither machine has ever crashed, perhaps down to their liquid cooling. I have the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti graphics card and all my games run like a dream on the highest available settings. It’s surprisingly quiet, perhaps due to the 1TB SSD. It also looks aesthetically pleasing, love the lighting on the chassis. If you can’t be bothered to build your own PC, I’d highly recommend Alienware. They often have discounts available, I waited for the 14% off discount before buying. If you speak to the people on chat sometimes they can do something on the price.

It dont matter what product you buy their will always be someone that has a negative experience. I have an M18xR2 and love it. Yes I have had problems but no more than other laptops I have owned. Build quality is first class and it still looks fresh even after 6 years of use.
Truth is the perfect product, whatever you buy, has not yet been manufactured.

Services are horrifying they're products break really fast, on call they FULLY kept trying to sell me things, I kept saying to not extend warranties etc. and they just transferred me to another caller!

Don't get one from them as it will save you a lot of money.

I bought a laptop r17 I paid over 2000 Pounds. The laptop broke down 3 times over a period of 6 months. In 1st time the speakers began to crack.... I sent it to the warranty.... Wrucil with broken antenna from wi fi..... So there was another repair and again the same speaker broke down..... Now I have it 1 year and fall off the buttons from the keyboard..... This is the first laptop with ktury I had problems .... I thought that for such a price I would have a product of better quality but it turned out that Laptop for 500 from China may be better than alienware... It's a pity because I always wanted to have alienware and it turned out to be very flawed. Product

Ordered a pc, they said they need 2 week to deliver. After a week and a half I received an email that my order has been pushed a week further into the future. 2 days before the second supposed delivery date they cancelled the order. They told me that one of the parts was discontinued and that they needed another 3 weeks to deliver the pc. If I ordered the parts individually from amazon prime it would take max 2 days to build the same pc. I did ask why they needed 18 days to let me know that they didn't have the part in stock but I didn't get an answer. The internet is full of bad reviews for the exact same reason.

My last alienware lasted a good 6 years and never crashed. Great performance, liquid cooling excellent to prevent over heating. Dell customer service always helpful in my experience. Would buy again.

NEVER AGAIN!! NEITHER THEM OR ALIENWARE!! (Same Company)
I purchased my Alienware laptop form them right before Christmas. A week later, I noticed that the lower edge of the screen got detached (the glue was not holding). As I was away, I called Dell within the 30 days limit and they were nice enough to send a replacement with no further issue.
So far so good.
Two weeks later, I get the new laptop. IT IS ALSO FAULTY!!! the 'Escape' key was not clicking properly (very weird sound and feel to it unlike the other keys) and it came with an i7 processor tag but I ordered an i9. For me, this means that my computer might not be brand new and might even be refurbished, although I bought it directly from their website.
After calling the company, they REFUSED to replace the computer again. They said that they want to send someone to repair the laptop instead of just replacing it, or send me a refund.
WHY WOULD I REPAIR A BRAND NEW £3000 LAPTOP??? No one had an answer for this.
The 'supervisor' said that replacing the computer is not an option (because the escape key was interacting with the computer so for him not faulty just a bad plasticky sound) and they either send a person to repair it or give me back my money. No one really cares that they are wasting your time because all you need is a working laptop and I didnt think this would be so hard.
After a lot of arguing with the supervisor who, in some of the conversations, was telling me that they need to check if my laptop is really faulty (as if I was having fun for a few days arguing with them) he tells me that I am with the 'premium' support plan and that I have agreed to his terms and conditions, which is not true. The premium plan is purchased SEPERATELY and adds to the computer initial warranty which is supposed to be: if the computer doesnt work properly on arrival, I have 30 days to replace it else it is against UK LAW (to my understanding).
I then decided not to deal with Dell and Alienware anymore and asked for my refund. If they do not take their mistakes seriously and no one takes responsibility for their work then the day I have a real problem with my laptop no one will care.

I do not understand how a 'premium laptop' (£3000) can come faulty TWICE and no one takes this seriously.

Very disappointing and frustrating. They wasted my time and money (as I had to take days off from work to get the deliveries and send them back) and no one cares about anything. They always find stupid excuses to say that this happens.

After all this fight, I asked for an email address to send an official complaint to Dell and they gave me a physical address to send a letter or go there physically (as if I have nothing better to do). HOW IRONIC IS IT that a COMPUTER company does not have an email address for complaints?? LOL!!! I then immediately understood that they just avoid all these issues and as long as people are buying and they are making people pay more and more they are happy.

After looking at reviews online and seeing the one star on Trustpilot and several bad experiences on other websites, I understood that these companies really do not care about the customers and train their 'Customer (do not) care' team very poorly.

NEVER AGAIN

My pc broke every half year in these 2 years ive had it. Its great but the compact design means theres no airflow even with the fans and it burns out your graphics cards. Never get an alienware. So much hassle with the pc.

For a laptop that has cost over £1000 I cannot believe the hassle we have had to go through to get decent help with the issues with it. It’s never operated right, it’s been sent away, parts replaced, engineers out to help, all after so much time spent on the phone going through tedious protocol stuff. I understand why, but when you pay this much for a product and it doesn’t work properly from day 1, it shouldn’t take a year to fix the problems (actually still not even resolved yet!!) countless resets etc, different problems diagnosed each time. I wish I’d gone for a different laptop. I felt the service would have been flawless for this type of high end product but not once has it been an easy ride. They’ve never even suggested just replacing the laptop with a different one, but at this point near enough all the parts have been replaced on different occasions! I’m a little fed up, and if I had time to use this more or was needing it for work or study, I would honestly be very, very angry and frustrated

Big mistake, swapped the 17" R4 for an Aorus x7 v7

better in every way but I can't be asked to type the list

4 stars: Great – decent treatment and very little friction.

Don't ever buy one of their computers. The computers are of poor quality, and will most likely die out after a year or so. Their customer service is equally trash. They don't listen to your issues, and when i sent in my Alienware 14, they kept it for 15 days, just to send it back with a new charger, completely ignoring the acual issue. I then sent i back in, but they said nothing was wrong, and this time they also messed up my harddrive, even though it was working proberly when i sent it in. Do yourself a favor an buy from anyone but this company.

Cant believe Dell and Alienware are still in business. Purchased top of the line Alienware 18. It died on the first day. Spent over 12 months trying to remedy the problem. Then Dell wouldn't honor the warranty. Ended up in court. Buy Dell if you like spending hours on the phone every day for months, If you don't actually want to ever use the product, when you finally fix the problem and pay for it $1600 your laptop will have depreciated %50 so hope your also rich. Oh yea and defiantly purchase the Dell premium warranty because it is worthless......

Having read reviews on Dell & Alienware, I very likely shouldn't have bothered.

I bought a Alienware 15 (7820HK, 120HZ, 1070) and whilst the laptop itself has been the best one I've bought so far (bought MSI,Razer,ASUS ROG laptops before this one). It came with a dead pixel, which on a £1900 laptop is pretty terrible. I contacted support, went through the process to be told 10 dead pixels is the 'industry' standard and they refused a replacement.. Despite the fact the sales of goods act says products should be free of minor defects. Now have to wait for a return, will defo not be buying another...

I have no idea why there are bad reviews about alienware. I have and just had the best customer service experience of my life. VERY knowledgeable, helpful, and a wizard. I wish i could remember his name but he helped me reinstall all my drivers after a hard drive installation. I can not explain enough how helpful and amazing this customer support was. I hope his employer realizes how amazing this guy is and gives him a raise.

Alienware Area 51 is a beast, love it, love it. great combination of strong performance, comfortable typingand an attractive design. I have the one with Core i7-7700HQ CPU; 8GB of RAM; an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU with 2GB of VRAM; and a 1TB, 7,200-rpm HDD and its reasonable for everything.

This comanys costomer service is non existant. Its a bag of lies.

So here is my story and i hope everyone reads this before buying anything from Dell. I bought a alienware laptop R4 top of the range. Put all of the best of it in there. Cost £3500 more or less. After the order had been placed i phoned up the next day to get a confirmation from them when i will recieve this beast of a laptop with high hopes just to be crushed by an answer that it wil take 30 days before i recieve it even though the website says 7 to 8 working days.

So being unhappy with this after a couple of days 3 or so, i phoned up to get a update. To find out by the voice machine that my dilevery date is unconfirmed. So went through to a agent and asked them what the hell is going on. All he said was its delayed because of a quality check in the factory in china. Why the hell its in china i have no idea. Another 3 days went past and it was now more or les 6 days of being sent back and forth with no idea what is actualy happening and im not going to wait more than a month to recieve a laptop i spent 3500 pound on. (All my money).

I phoned up again and asked where and what is going on and got the same quality check answer with no confirmed date of shipment. So i cancled the order. I bought a diffrent laptop from scan computers witch is fantastic. Recieved it in 2 days. 3 days later happy as larry enjoying my new pc. I go to the shop to by food and the payment dosent go through.

Confused i look into my bank account and im in 3500 pounds overdraft. Dumb Dell took the money. Phoned them up and asked what the hells going on. Oh my order has been shiped i wil recieve it in 2 days. But i cancled it. I want a refund. Its been over a week now with an overdrawn account. The order has been shiped and recieved back by Dell. The email i got today is its going to take 3 to 5 working days before i get my complete refund.

They dont care about customers and will drive them into the floor. Do not spend your money with these robbing cowboys.

Dell has horrendous customer service which has put me off for life. I have been lied to more than once and they often ignored the question I asked them. The laptop itself had severe light bleed issues and the processor got hot with a huge core temperature difference. Now Alienware are claiming that 100c degrees is a normal operating temperature for the CPU, which is ridiculous. 100 is the MAXIMUM before it shuts down. Price was very good but I guess you get what you pay for. Laptop has been sent back for a refund.