Area-51m, Customer Care, Quality, disappointment

Hello. I recently purchased a new Area-51m Alienware Laptop in January. It arrived on the last day of February, which was a disappointing length of time for shipping. I could have easily forgiven the wait, but when I received it, the F2 key had popped out from its housing. Again, forgivable, until the enter key decided to do the same thing. It would not have been a major issue if it wasn't a key that would be used frequently. Despite the seemingly small issue, I had not expected an expensive laptop from this company to start losing keys less than a week after arrival and light usage. Unacceptable, but tolerable for use - if you didn’t mind a bare space on one of the most commonly used keys on a keyboard.

I contacted Alienware support on Twitter, and had a keyboard repairman sent out to my house. I did get the keyboard fixed, so end of problem, right? Wrong. During his repairs, I was out of the room where he was working, wanting to give him some space and finish some household tasks while waiting. When I went into the room where the repairman was working on my computer again, he was having trouble starting the reassembled laptop back up. I saw the problem immediately. He was using one of my old chargers, the one used for the old Alienware 17. Its quality had deteriorated, as expected with an old product, and at a certain angle it would cause the battery to overload and require it to be reseated. This had happened to the 17 one time before, so I had always been cautious to avoid it happening again. I had expected a computer repairman for Dell to be carrying one of Dell’s universal chargers if any problem came to pass, and not need to unplug a customer’s other laptop to borrow the charger without asking if it would be alright beforehand. The seemingly small mistake could have broken the battery, forcing a replacement battery to be bought and installed; at the very least, it might’ve required another disassembly to reseat the battery.

But that’s not the end of the issues. After he left, I discovered two problems. One, the screen was dented where it was unblemished before; two, the Alienware head logo remained an unchangeable red hue, when it had previously been set to purple. This was shoddy work done by a professional. I contacted support directly this time around. 

I tried to clean off the dent at first, thinking it was dirt. It was sadly not dirt. It is currently blurring and darkening a patch of the screen noticeably. I expected better of Alienware and of Dell, considering that I spent $5,219 on a laptop, then an added $150 on the bag to follow it. When I pay over five thousand dollars on an Alienware, I expect it to have good quality, both in performance and durability. The repairs just caused a flurry of more problems.

Beforehand, I had an Alienware 17, bought 2014. It was a great computer, with a great microphone, and had great on-board audio. However, this one does not have the sound quality of the above, which was manufactured five years ago, sold to me for $2,200, less than half of the price of the Area-51m. The raw processing power makes up for the poorer quality of audio and display, but as someone who frequently is on the move and can't carry a Digital-Analog Converter for my audio with me, it's simply disappointing. 

At least I was lucky enough to escape having two new Area-51m’s arrive with noticeable scratches on the screen, but another customer of Dell cannot say the same. I wanted to inform Dell, Alienware, and any potential customers thinking of buying the Area-51m of these issues I had with both the hardware and the customer service. I advise either waiting until Dell addresses these issues with customer care and quality, or simply not buying their new products at all. I used to enjoy using Alienware's products for their quality; it was a constant I could trust in Dell and Alienware. If support continues to be this poor, I might have to look somewhere else soon.