Doing my part. I ordered an Alienware M18X in mid April and they have changed the date of delivery like 6 times now and I went on Facebook to complain. Not only do they outsource to India, and dude, I know you said it isn't the Indian people's fault, but I really don't care. Dell gets these people that aren't even technical in any way, give them little resources, and scripts to read off of, and when a CS rep starts being successful, and solving issues well, and actually taking care of the customer, they leave to go to a better company that will pay them better. Dell scrapes the bottom of the barrel of employable people that only have to understand half of what English people say. No tech ability? No problem, we tell you what to say to frustrate our customers until they hang up on you or say "THANK YOU COME AGAIN". Alienware needs some competition is all I know. Some company needs to step up and make that top of the line laptop that kicks Alienware's, and provides excellent customer service EVERY TIME, and INSISTS on it. If they push my computer back again, I am going to cancel my order and try to find a better solution, because I am sick of what Dell has done to Alienware.

I see this is a rather old thread with one new post. When I had a XPS dell computer and had to call or email support it was always a total disaster. The people I had to talk to in India could not understand me and I could understand them, it was very frustrating and at times I would spend 3 hours on the phone, be transferred and hung up on 3 or 4 times and finally just give up and try to fix the problem myself. At first I blammed the people I was talking to thinking they they were inept idiots and shouldn't doing that job. Whose fault was that? The untrained tech who is making $10 a day or his company who is making millions who won't take the time or spend the money to train them? They are also trying to learn to speak and understand American English which is not that easy the way we scramble the English language. The fault is with the people who hire these people and won't train them and Dell for hiring the contractor under those conditions. The phrase "Don't blame the messenger" comes into play here. Alienware seems to be a whole different thing, so far. I ordered my Alienware Aurora R4 and was told it would be delivered on Oct 11th. I recieved it on Oct 5th. It was DOA and they had a tech out the next day to fix the problem. The problem was caused by an American worker in Texas that configured the computer for two hard drives instead of one and had it booting to the hard drive that wasn't even there. He probably makes 10 times what the poor dude in India makes and is still not trained or just doesn't care. I have had to have a couple parts replaced on my Aurora R4 and Alienware support said the parts would be overnighted and they were. The problem started as soon as the tech called me to setup a time. He complained about being so busy, he may have to work overtime, could I change the appointment to another day, and on and on and on. Once he got here it was even worse. He had the personality of a toad and acted like he was doing me a favor by even showing up and wanted to leave as soon as he got here. The last problem was a fan making a squealing noise. He acted like he was deaf and couldn't hear the noise so he changed out the easiest fan picked up this stuff and left. I knew the problem wasn't fixed, I just wanted to get that person out of my house.The fan is still making the noise, but I won't be calling again until it dies because I don't want that guy back and it appears he is the only one in my area. Dell should be checking these people out much closer as the customer has to deal directly with these people. I have noticed when I called Alienware support, I am talking to a person with Spanish sir names and speaks and understands English very well, they also know their jobs and can lead you through trouble shooting steps very well with no hesitation. So things have improved, but still not there all the way.

Yes I can understand the frustration you are having with all hold ups on your laptop. I also agree that when you pay that kind of money you should have some kind of preference over someone paying $299.99 for a computer. I was very lucky to get my computer as fast as I did, but still am at odds with Alienware. Come to find out, all their replacement parts are refurbs and a lot of their hardware is OEM stuff. They told me there is no difference in OEM and the brand products. Ya, right! all one has to do is look at the specs. When you buy a Rolls Royce you don't expect to find Ford parts in it. Alienware doesn't see it that way. $$$$ is what it's all about. Dell is not the only computer company that has big problems. I had a top of the line HP a few years back that had to have the motherboard replaced once, It was on the 3rd hard drive and OS, 2nd DVD burner, a power supply and a couple fans. Luckily this was all while it was still under warrany. I have had much better luck with Dell so far. My son has a Alienware laptop (don't know which model) and loves it, never had any problems at all and actually got his earlier than he was told. Guess it's just the luck of the draw. I put a 240 gig SSD in the computer and use it as a boot drive plus my photo programs and pictures. I will never go back to a platter type drive except for storage. Good luck on getting that laptop, sure you will like it once it does get delivered to you.

One thing I can say about the OEM / brand parts is, research things before you purchase, and if you are not happy with the parts then don't buy it.

It's not a secret what goes into their machines.

I'm in the camp that got my laptop delivered on time, everything works great, no problems as yet.

I guess as with anything, they can't get everything right all the time, there are bound to be mistakes somewhere, afterall the customer base would be huge.

Well, when you pay a premium, you should expect name brand parts, like ram and hard drives as well as motherboards and graphics cards. Like you said, you don't buy a Rolls Royce and expect to find Kirkland Signature parts in it. (Costco's brand name for all their rip off products). That's why I can't understand why another company just stepping up and making high end gaming laptops, they would sell, and Alienware would have to get their act together  or lose market share until they went out of business. Right now it says my laptop will arrive on the 12th, but somehow, I kind of doubt it. I am not holding my breath on it, that's for sure.

( I won't mention the name here)

You can if you want, nothing bad will happen.

There are a couple computer companies making gaming PCs. One of my friends Grandson owns one and loves it ( I won't mention the name here) Is it any better than Alienware? that would be a personal opinion. He went with them because they offered a lot more options of what he wanted.That and he said he got a 3 year warranty at no cost and knew their tech support was in the USA and spoke English. He did tell me he has had the computer open to clean it out and there is not one OEM part in there, It's all high quality named brand parts. That is one place I see where Alienware could improve beings they sell high end computers and use low end parts, that is really my only complaint with Alienware. Their sevice to me has been excellent and every thing they told me that would be done was done and on time or sooner.

Thanks Tesla1856..... Cyberpower

OEM ... original equipment manufacture.. it effects everything... wether parts are custom made by a company  or built of better specs..aka asus vs asrock motherboards..

FOXXCONN is the largest of the OEm companies.. making everything from alienware to mac books to automotive  systems...  not to say they are bad but its the components the companies asks for when  say motherboard is built that makes the quality, this is were  dell now lacks using cheap resistors, capacitors ect.. on the board for one.

making it cheaper also goes to the consumer aswell  for lower price and so fourth...

every company has a ORIGINAL  MANUFACTURE making it an OEM company ....

I wanted a 18+ screen and dell is only one that had it ..

I have no issues with Dell.  I do have issues with INTEL and their Sandy Bridge and up

switched HD Graphics.

My M11x R1 has a mode called Discrete Only that shuts off the INTEL Graphics entirely via bios

and allows me to download the Generic Nvidia Driver and it works.

Whether ATI or NVIDIA this no longer works on ANY laptop that uses INTEL HD Graphics.

All Vendors need to get the message that WE DO NOT WANT to save power on a Laptop for gaming.

We want the fastest processor and GPU speed.

only problem i have with Alienware is the m18x-r2 delays.

in the last day or so another two threads have been made about customers and their delays carrying on and on.

then there's the thread mr fordprobe86 and i were in {search shipping delay delay delays in one of our activity profiles} which has myself and other customers all suffering from no deliveries of this laptop.

i'm a little different as i ordered mine through xoticpc for some extra features. the australian dell site customisation choices are worse than the american dell site's choices and for 3 grand + of laptop you should just go the whole hog anyways. still today 5 and a half months form my order through them and they say they're at the mercy of alienware delivering which i can see here too is simply not happening.

conclusion: alienware have a huge supply and demand problem, me guess's sales have trippled without warning? or a strike in china means alienware are stranded without half the parts and they're too scared to tell everyone your computers won't arrive untill we've flogged the 2013 models to death? never mind my retailer being fishey fordprobe, it's looking more likely that alienware management has become so scrambled it can't fullfill orders anymore.

the wait continues... oh look it's the four horsemen of the apocolypse, at least they'll keep me company in these times of being left in the dark.