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10 out of 11 people found this review helpful
2.0 stars
"Ehhhh.... Expensive piece of S#!$@"
Pros: Great Looks... Cool lights, great display, fastest set of chips you can buy on a 15.4 Lappy.
Cons: Alienware Customer Service (Beware!), Issues with all touch quick keys, keyboard is not responsive, driver issues, Vista, price.
Summary: For everyone looking here I wanted to first say I am not a Mac Fan boy and love my PCs, and I did own this laptop for two weeks.
I was so excited when I ordered this computer, it was the most powerful 15.4 Laptop around and I was bringing this thing to the Game Developers Conference so it would fit in perfectly with all the techy geek stuff out there.
First off the case is great, real clean look and awesome paint job, however the cool lights and great paint job only take a laptop so far, and that is quickly were it failed.
The touch functions on the top of the keyboard do not respond that well to touches and worst of all when the computer goes into hibernate, the buttons are disabled and you cannot use them! Alienware is working on a driver to fix this but has not yet come up with a solution.
Another big problem I encountered is that when Bluetooth is on, the touchpad does not functio which is okay, however if you hibernate your computer and the Bluetooth is left on, you are left without a mousepad leaving you to tab through Vista to change the option back. Very annoying.
The one hot button I was really looking forward to was the Stealth mode feature which disable the GPU for longer battery life on the road. This button only worked when the device was plugged in! How dumb is that! I argued on the phone with ALienware about that issue and a CSR actually had the nerve to tell me that stealth mode only works when it is plugged in. I had to point her to her own website for her to realize that she was wrong.
The keyboard is terrible and I find that it frequently misses things that I type. For instance, WWW will come up as WW which is annoying for a person that is so used to touch typing.
Barring all those issues I was moderaly pleased with the performance.
2.6 ghz
8800 GT w 512
4 gigs of ram.
200 Gig 7200 HD
Crysis did not run that well even in Vista and I felt like I overpaid for performance.
Vista sucks. I will leave it at that. Too many pop ups and takes way to long to load network profiles.
BIGGEST REASON NOT TO BUY... Customer Service
The biggest reason I am returning this laptop is because of the terrible customer service I received from Alienware.
They always seem like they are against you on all issues.
They put you on hold for checking and confirming all questions.
I was hung up on many times, having to call back three to four times for ONE issue.
Repairs take a week and a half there and back, way to long for a business line computer and make you pay for shipping if you are not a business or government unit.
Technical Support is as good as searching the support forums on Alienware.com since that is all they do to get their information.
Treat customers poorly on the phone.
Were not helpful.
All of these issues are problems I encountered on my first Alienware and now it is my last. IF there is anyone thinking about buying a laptop, please stay away from Alienware and avoid the mistake and countless wasted hours I have spend dealing with these people. I hope it helps and sorry for the mistakes, I do not feel like dealing with this keyboard anymore than I after to. (I am typing on the computer I am about to return.)
- 3 replies to this review
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I couldnt agree more the worst system I have ever bought just got it 3 days ago and its the slowest machine I have ever had. Even with dual 1 gig nvidia cards and a quad processor its garbage and the customer service is laughable if its not you trying to get help. The worst I have ever experienced.
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Got mine with xp and all the bells except for bluray.Flawless performance.I think you have a vista problem.I've got vista ult.on my xps1530 and it rots.I don't know if it's just me but vista's protos are so friggin meaningless and unproductive.Sorry for your bad experience.
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The touch functions work well enough for me. You just need to hold your finger on them for a second. The volume control works better when you put two fingers on and then slide them. It is true, that when the computer sleeps for long periods of time the touch buttons sometimes don't work.
When the bluetooth is on and you regularly use a bluetooth mouse, it will disable the touchpad, as it does whenever you have a mouse connected. No, tabbing through vista to turn this off is not necessary; yellofellow obviously missed the function key that disables/enables the touch pad regardless of whether or not you have a mouse plugged in.
Stealthmode DOES work with the laptop running on battery. That is when I usually use it. The m15x comes with an integrated graphics card that can be enabled and the main video card disabled for longer battery life. Also, Alienware offers a battery pack swappable with your disc drive and with that + the stealthmode + integrated graphics, I have gotten upwards of 5 1/2 hours of battery life. Pretty good for a laptop that is sporting a 2.6 Ghz processor and an 8800gtx!
The keyboard does have some spring to it and may pose a problem for "touch typers." It didn't take too much time for me to get used to it though.
Alienware at first had issues with downclocking with the 8800gtx card but after a few Bios updates it has all been resolved. This may or may not be why yellowfellow had mediocre performance with Crysis. I however, do not own Crysis and therefore can not attest to this poor performance.
Vista sucking is not the fault of Alienware or any computer manufacturer.
I have a 3 1/2-year-old Alienware desktop as well and I can honestly say that the customer service is really hit or miss. It can be spectacular service, and it can be lousy at times. The one thing I love though is it is never outsourced to India where no one understands what you are trying to say. All customer service is located in Miami, FL (I think).
Overall I think it is an awesome laptop and I just thought I would throw my two cents in regarding yellowfellow's frustrations.
