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Dell to Buy Alienware?
An anonymous reader writes "Well, looks like rumors are flying, and Dell may have bought Alienware according to an article on cnet.
It really would fit Dell well. They are the last big manufacturer not to use AMD, and this would fill that void. Acquiring this company would also help them grow their business to where they want it to be ($80 billion anually). One can only hope that Alienware support and hardware won't be ill effected by this acquisition."
All the while lining the pockets of good ol' Mike Dell.
I'll keep building my own, thanks.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
This makes more sense than Dell trying to dress up their systems with the XPS badge. Giving consumers a more highend (read needlessly expensive) systems will appeal more to the tweakers and neon windowed case types. Dell would cover all the bases; from a $399 complete system (after rebates) for Grandma, and a $3000 tricked out system for Johnny Freshman to frag on!
Now if Dell would offer Linux as a equal choice (I'm not talking about buying Linux or a 'naked' FreeDOS box on a similar system that is *more* than an XP box!). With Apple's Intel offerings starting to look great, people that want to run OS X for fun will be swayed once they try it, and people like me who have no use for XP are already planning on buying a new MacBook for OSX/Linux dual boot. If/when they have the abiltiy to run XP too, well I think Dell should be a bit worried, but they'll still beat them on price (well, not with these Aliens they won't!)
fak3r.com
Dell support is great.
Assuming of course you pay for the expensive option where you get a special phone number to call, and where they guarantee to send a technician out within 24 hours. I paid $300 to get 3 years of that, and I was sooooooo glad I did so when it turned out the laptop I bought was defective. Obviously, I'd prefer never to get defective merchandise, but having them come to me, instead of having to do any shipping or whatever was great.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Yes, because it never happens that a company's customer support reps don't follow the written guidelines published by said company. Just because somebody somewhere wrote something, doesn't mean that's the policy that's actually followed. Go cruise the BBB Online sometime, and see how many places get hit for not following through on their stated policies.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I know people tote Alienware's hardware and support, but every time I have had to interact with their support it has been horrible.
Most recently I have had a problem with the little screws falling out of my laptop and with my AC adapter dying.
1. I shouldn't have had to call in to get mailed screws (which is aside from the fact that screws shouldn't have been falling out of my laptop in the first place). This should have been simple enough to handle via e-mail, but no, I had to call.
2. I shouldn't have had to wait for 40 minutes on hold when I *did* finally call Alienware.
3. I shouldn't have been lied to by the first person I spoke with, who told me that part was all set and that I'd receive it shortly. When it didn't arrive and I called back they said they were out of stock and they'd ship it when it was back in stock.
4. They really shouldn't have been out of stock of the AC adapter for a laptop STILL UNDER WARRANTY.
5. When the DID finally ship it they shipped it do an address that I haven't used with them in YEARS. I then had to have people I knew at said address (it was a previous employer) ship me the part.
All of this is on my second Alienware laptop, whose only major problem is that it resets if you bump the DVD-ROM the wrong way (this is annoying, but avoidable, and I didn't feel like sending it to them to fix it). This is my second laptop only because THEY HAD TO REPLACE my first one after months of tech support, three round trips back to Alienware TO FIX THE SAME PROBLEM, and TENS OF HOURS on the phone.
The alienware store works a LOT like the dell store does now. Upselling Norton, the warranties are a lot like Dell's now...it just reminds me of when I bought my laptop.
This is rather wierd feeling.
Why are you complaining? It sounds like they fixed a user caused problem for free. Sometimes you have to grease the wheels a little to get them to go around.
I don't consider "good support" to include misinformation, hassles, and multiple phone calls *after* they already have taken your device hostage.
Most people would probably bend, needing their device ASAP, and pay the $300 instead of the $27.
People who manage to save money by building a computer tend to not actually build a full computer.
Talk to them. "oh yeah I used my old video card, the hard drive, keyboard, mose, and monitor for the old system."
In other words, most of the time they aren't building, they are just upgrading.
Alternately, they skimp. Maybe their girlfriend just laughed at their manhood, so they get the best video card and fastest processor, and put them in a system with the cheapest parts available. Spec sheet it might look comparable to OEM systems, even better... until their bluescreens come up and hte power supply catches fire.
In higher end market segments the skimping can save money without being so stupid- a gamer might not need 300GB of hard drive space, so they cut back to maybe 80 so they can afford a faster video card. Get a better system for gaming, for less money, than the most closely equivalent OEM box, but they lose the data storage that said OEM box would give them. "Specialization" would probably be a better word than "skimping" for this savings strategy.
Of course, on the bottom end where you bought, even if its possible to save money building a theoretically equivalent system... I wouldn't trust such a thing with personal email much les anything important.
Honda makes Acura too, you know...
And Toyota/Lexus
Ford/Jaguar
Etc. etc.
It would be a real shame if this were true. Like the article says, Alienware is committed to offering consumers and businesses with the best high-performance, innovative PC products on the market. Dell is not, and I don't see the Alienware corporate culture overrunning the Dell culture if this should happen. They'll just keep chugging out Dell stuff and take advantage of Alienware's good name until the public catches on to the fact that the name isn't what it was. In the corporate world, the value of a good reputation is how many fools you can sucker into buying shitty products at large margins before that reputation is used up.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
They always replace mine or the credit card charge gets disputed and I have never had to pay it.
When they tell me it is "industry standard", I tell them to feel free to send it to "The Industry" who should be thrilled with it, but that it is not up to my standard.
LCD technology is no longer bleeding edge. Do I know how many components go into making a 1600x1200+ LCD screen? Yes. But I have seen enough perfect ones to know that they exist in huge numbers.
Why should I pay the same price for 5 burned pixels that someone else paid to get a perfect screen?
An LCD with ANY burned out pixels is ... defective. Period. I don't care what anyone says, burned pixels are a pain in the ass, and when you have forked out $3,000 for a machine, they stick out like a big middle finger.
I buy Samsung panels because they have a zero dead pixel policy. They also have competitively priced displays. Apparently it can be done without a company going into bankruptcy.
It's just easier and cheaper to have you accept a mistake by quoting "Industry Standards" which are no any more legally binding or carry any more weight than my preference for chocolate ice cream over vanilla.
Set your personal consumer standard. If it is not met, dispute the charge until it is met. If it is between that, or a chargeback, you will get your display replaced 99% of the time.
I've had to go through this dance 3 times, and have never settled for a fried pixel.
For the consumers that don't care about burned pixels, "slightly imperfect" LCD's should be offered to those consumers at a discount.
That way, everyone gets what they pay for.
I'm assuming that you bought the laptop with your credit card? You should have gotten the credit card company involved and contested the charge. I've seen a number of companies back down real quick on restocking fees and return problems once their merchant accounts are involved.
For those who don't know, if a vendor gets too many complaints to their merchant provider, they run the risk of getting dropped. Amex is great for this and I never use anything else when ordering online.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".