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New Alienware PC an Overpriced Underperformer

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the woomp-there-it-was dept.

Steve Kerrison writes "Alienware has jumped on board the Core 2 bandwagon and rightfully so, but their new Area-51 7500 loses out to cheaper and faster solutions from other companies. From HEXUS.net's review 'No matter which way we dress up the Alienware's performance and feature-set, it's relatively poor in comparison to SKUs that we've reviewed recently. Value for money may not be the greatest concern in this sector of the pre-built market but when you can get substantially more for less, it becomes impossible to recommend this particular Area-51 7500.' "

4 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. What did you expect? by fotbr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Its a Dell.

    1. Re:What did you expect? by DaveWick79 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Unfortunately, while somewhat sarcastic, this is probably true. Being under Dell's wing probably profits Alienware financially but lowers the quality standard. The focus used to be not just to make a pretty machine, but one that spanks the competition and was backed up by some of the best service in the business. If I'm going to pay Alienware type money, I expect to get the fastest machine money can buy.

  2. Alienware customer service by ronkronk · · Score: 5, Informative

    In regards to Alienware's horrible customer service, I've got to weigh in. Last year I bought a laptop from them expecting a 15" 4:3 screen as pictured on their website when I ordered it. It took over a month to arrive, and what I got was a 15" widescreen with a 1680x1050 resolution -- I'm a young guy with decent vision (with corrective lenses) but this was too damn small for me and not what I ordered.

    Add to that my X, C, and V keys were DOA, and when I powered up the computer it informed me the CMOS battery was dead. Alienware advertises extensive power-on load testing -- if any of that were true, they would have found and corrected this problem as soon as they tried to power it up! Additionally the video card and wifi drivers were not installed, so their marketing B.S. about fine-tuning drivers for you is just that.

    To top this all off, I had to pay a 15% restocking fee to return my laptop for a refund. That was a $4k machine. Even after their false advertising as to the laptop design and absolutely no in-house testing -- despite the falsified testing sheet that came with it -- I lost $600 to them and it was two full months until I got the 17" Gateway laptop I now have. And it runs great.

  3. Big ripoff Power Cable for $48 by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    company that has Power Cables for $48
    It use to be out in the open but now they hide it under the Power Supply Selections.

    To go from one 1gig to 2gigs is $250 that is just as bad as the mac pro ram price

    Video Performance Optimizer $18 seems like stuff that you can set your self in the video drivers control panel.

    $29 for the restore disks that should be free or at the cost of the disks.

    $49 Automated Technical Support Request System there is a new dell ad showing off someing like that and they say it comes free with all new dell systems.