Ask Alienware's General Manager, Frank Azor, Anything on AWA! - Part Two!!

Yeah, don't even bother at this point. After going through that kind of communication fiasco, it is simply not worth putting forth any effort. The products and service quality are both at historic lows. It's terribly sad, but there's nothing we can do about it except move on. It used to be awesome and I'm extremely grateful for all of the positive experiences of the past. There were many and it was an amazing ride, but nothing lasts forever. I'm sure there are still a ton of good people working there, but they are apparently not the customer-facing staff. Those are certainly the most important employees, as they will make or break any business.

Posting the content of private correspondence (chat and email) is not permitted, but paraphrasing is most definitely OK.

You do have a lot to think about. There is not much left to choose from that is worth owning from any brand if you're in the market for a brand new machine that is capable of delivering truly outstanding performance. A few lonesome models (from Clevo only) stand out from the rest as being the best options, but I can count them on one hand and have spare digits left over... and they are not fantastic options, merely "OK" options.

 

It's a good time to move on, that's for sure. A lot happened in between most of those conversations, too. More crap from reps. not even worth mentioning. But you're right, can't do anything about it. I'm not anticipating Frank Azor show up (again) and wave some magic wand and everything go away. I just want potential customers to see what Alienware has become, and hopefully understand what Alienware is today is actually much, much worse than the Alienware we were fortunate enough to experience...

Management needs to step up and take action. No more piddling around with PR stunts to make themselves look good. That's all Alienware has been doing as of late on Twitter with events around the States. As a business major myself, I find it difficult to watch such a good company implode. It's one thing to cut production costs and make adjustments in anticipation for market change (e.g. BGA), but it's entirely another to dismantle the Alienware community by lowering standards and quality assurance in order to save a few dollars...

There must be balance. Lowering production costs while improving their standards of service should be the LEAST Alienware does to adapt to market forces. The lowering of production costs, lowering standards of service, and dismantling online communities (cutting out enthusiasts altogether, forcing products onto customers (i.e. eGPU), and relocating Social Media Team members) is what is killing Alienware.*

*By "killing Alienware," I'm referring to the name and brand. Not the actual profit margin. I'm sure these moves are saving them lots of money, short term. But I can almost guarantee you, long term, these changes will come back to bite them in the butt. They'll need to adapt more rapidly more so than ever before (now that they've put themselves in this position) to remain profitable. Other companies have an advantage because they've been at the bottom. Alienware just showed up to the party.

 

I had two overclocked Hayabusa's one ran turbo with 16lbs of boost the other ran 10 pounds on a turbo. Sold my last one 6 years ago...

 

LOL, I removed what I had originally posted on that subject... it was a little bit off topic, but it was still awesome. No clock-blocking nonsense or performance-crippling firmware crap... fully upgradeable components, no engines permanently welded to the frames, etc.

 

That's what I tell people when I try to explain why soldered CPU and GPU is crap, funny thing is that they still say "Ok, but I won't do any upgrade so why not soldered?"..... losing faith on "Gamers"

 

They show up in diff forum's when they experience just throttling from its recently acquired BGA trash...

 

Completely agree! Can't believe everyone was telling me Dell can't be beat in service. Should have and will now go the Sager route. Would've been nice to know this so I would've had it with me while I'm recovering

 

Don't get too excited yet, because this is only one part of the puzzle. We are talking about sales support and complaining about how they are now (lousy) compared to how they recently used to be (amazing). Clevo (Sager) resellers generally give excellent sales support as well as good phone technical support, but life is going to suck for warranty repair service no matter who the Clevo reseller is. There is no such thing as swift remote diagnostic, and no next business day in-home repair dispatch, no overnight delivery for parts-only service, etc. Unless something has changed in their realm as well, none of the Dell/Alienware competitors can come even remotely close to delivering similar quality warranty service.

If it needs to be fixed, it goes off to Clevo's repair depot and you're without a computer for a longer than reasonable amount of time. This is the norm for the industry, albeit a really lousy standard, and Clevo (Sager) is equal or better than most of their common competitor brands. But, we've come to expect much better than this from Dell/Alienware where warranty repair service is concerned.

Even in the worst case scenario, an Alienware depot repair typically takes no more than 5 business days for North American customers if all parts are in stock. If they screw up on the first attempt end up having to redo it a second time, chances are that sending it back and forth twice will still be faster with Dell/Alienware depot than a Clevo depot repair.

If the after-sale in-warranty repair service has gotten as bad as the incompetent sales support, they are doomed to extinction. Hopefully, that is not going to be the case for current customers. I won't be able to know first-hand any more, since my systems are no longer under warranty and they no longer offer any laptops that I am interested in purchasing.

 

Actually it has gotten as bad. You should check out my broken Alienware 17 R2 thread. I requested the replacement Alienware last Wednesday and it's still in production when I was promised it would be here yesterday. I think Sager will be easier to maintain and hopefully won't have any problems, but Xotic PC seems pretty helpful on this forum. I think it will be a safe bet. You are right about when my warranty runs out with Xotic. It probably won't be very fun at that point

 

If you are talking about a system exchange, that's a slower process with a lot of approval crap and other rigmarole going on. You can expect that to be a slow process with any brand. With some brands, getting an exchange system takes an act of congress. That sort of warrant support is very different than having a problem fixed the next business day at your home or business, or sending you the part so you can slap it in yourself, or sending it to the repair depot to have a part installed. That typically occurs very swiftly with Dell/Alienware. Since most repairs involve replacing a bad part or two, I generally prefer fixing what I have versus having something unknown (with the potential of being inferior) sent as a replacement/exchange.

Hopefully, you won't have any problems at all with your Clevo. Chances are really decent it will be awesome and you'll be super happy. If something needs to be fixed, it should be fine as long as you're patient and OK with things taking a long time.

 

Nothing is as Dell home support a day or two after problems. If the technician is at your home, you are allowed to dismantle and reassemble the laptop itself. Then you have full control of what is being done... This is worth a lot of money.

 

I am talking about a system exchange. Honestly Dell and Alienware support just sucks now. They shouldn't have made a promise they couldn't keep(Insert Cortana here) Unfortunately it's just a giant mess over there. I'm sure their next day service is better, but my Alienware was just poorly built. Honestly after my experience I'm sure any brand would be better. I hope so too!

 

Guys lets just face it, people who want MXM slots and non soldered CPUs are the total exception.
Maybe 5% of all their customers do probably even care about these things.

Just check out the ratings on amazon for example:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00SIJGGGC/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?qid=1429747500&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=alienware graphics amplifier&dpPl=1&dpID=41U4VtSOoXL&ref=plSrch

Why should alienware change anything if they sell so many notebooks and people love them?


" Admittedly, I was never much a fan of the last generation of Alienware laptops. They were too industrial in appearance, and had all the aesthetics of a giant brick. I can happily say that the new Alienware 15 is now much better looking, without sacrificing any performance. While it's no Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Pro, it does look better "
- this is from the top rated review on amazon.com


People just care about esthetics more than about raw power I guess!

 

What is this nonsense ?

 

Actually he's just a vine member and got the product for free. There are only 7 reviews there

 

Here are Wprime, Cinebench11.5 and Hwinfo64. chrusti If you want a new AW15, run these benchmarks and monitor with Hwinfo. Post screenshot of RESULTS with all 4 cores at max turbo speed without cores falls down. Use high perfomance in power options so we can see if the processor throttles and not showing idle speed of the processor after the bench...
http://www.wprime.net/
http://downloads.guru3d.com/CineBENCH-11.5-download-2475.html
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/hwinfo64-download.html

 

Dude, this review wasn't written by me. I did say that this is the top rated review somebody else posted! :0

 

Thank you. Got scared now. I looked at your hardware signature now, this is something else ..

 

Of course reviewers are going to promote the product. How else would they get - or why else would Alienware give - the systems to them for free? Most of the people reviewing these systems do not know the "good ol' Alienware" most of us do, and are blind to what has changed, what has been lost, what has been added, what is worse, what is better, etc.

I take almost all "reviews" with a grain of salt, as should all of you.

 

Haha! I am not daft! Do you think I would want to downgrade from a perfectly fine m18 x r2 to this junk?

 

+ rep. Love you...

 

I have both and the new one is definitely not junk, it will give you more performance if you put in a great graphics card to the amplifier, much more than 880m SLI. Now whether or not you want to pay a premium and lose mobility for this is the main question.

 

This is like owning a small car and have to use a trailer as well, wherever you drive...

 

Just quoted your other post, but I agree

 

It is just as easy to buy or build a desktop gaming PC. Much cheaper too.

 

which is honestly my next step, at this point I'm done with laptops. It was a good run.

 

Even if you buy a proper gaming desktop now, people could still retain its older gaming laptops. The performance is still much better than alot of other laptops you buy nowadays.

 

"Alienware, it makes sense if you don't think about it."

New company motto. I laughed a bit too hard after typing this.

 

willfull ignorance of the facts

 

but it's not just Dell, not by a long shot

 

It is not certain that everyone knows what they are buying. Many people discover it when it is too late...

 

This should be plastered on the side of the Amplifier, lmao.

 

The funny thing is that it seems the amplifier is still a better option than their closed down desktops at least from what I can understand

 

Yeah, all jokes aside, I'm sure it's a great seller... Not denying that. Just hate how they'd rather make weaker laptops requiring the Amplifier.

 

Rather a warning that you must bring your G/A wherever you go, if you want gaming performance on your AW laptop after a wile.

 

Well I built a x99 desktop. No way Alienware deserve any more love. It was either that or an x79 Clevo. I don't see anything changing soon. None of these companies want you owning the hardware you pay for - we are all getting slowly screwed and it's time to pay attention. Not just with PC hardware.
Funniest part about building a desktop.. I had to go for x99 with 980 SLI to make it a worthy upgrade from my 3 year old portable beast r2.
Just imagine what AW could have done if they hadn't sold out.

 

Wonder what the TSA will say aboiut a GA?

 

Looking at Amazon, dell has giving quite a few laptops away for a good review.

 

The Alienware 15 on Amazon has a review with Alienware 17 R2 images, lol. These reviewers...

 

Yeah they might not be Junk of course but you know I don't wanna anchor myself to a Graphics Amplifier.
If I wanted to get a Desktop Graphics card I would get a desktop, its as simple as that. Also you cant run any cards in SLI with that GA can you? So basically you will NEVER have more performance than a MXM card could offer since two 980M SLI are still faster than any desktop video card.

Cheers




PS, I never found the thickness of my Alienware an issue. I mean, I dont look at it from the side all day long - and even if I do I dont find it that thick at all.

 

I agree... if I am going to be tethered to a desk, just build a desktop monster. Why bother with a hybrid pile of garbage that compromises everything and excels only at achieving mediocrity across the board? That concept sucks in the computer world as much as it does in the automotive world.

Viewed from another angle, I look at it like this... Do you want to get credit for actually winning or being excellent, or does an honorable mention simply for showing up float your boat? " Nice try, better luck next time" and getting a " your hard work and effort are duly noted" attaboy is never something I strive for. Good intentions and ingenuity are nice, but I measure results and pass judgment based on outcome, not effort or intent.

The thickness and bulk of my dual-GPU Alienware systems and my Clevo beast is something I view as a massive benefit. Thin is a nice attribute for a business traveler's laptop that needs to be tucked under an armpit as you scurry from one gate at the airport to another one, but thin and light on something characterized a gaming/high performance system absolutely sucks. It is a misrepresentation built around a compromise that true performance enthusiasts are unwilling to accept. Anyone that expects amazing performance and good thermal management from something thin and light is not playing with a full deck of cards.

 

It's sad that the "thin and light" crowd have encroached into gaming laptop territory - where they have no place to be. Just because there is a market for thin and light, it does not mean "hey, lets make EVERYTHING thin and light". That's kinda like the car industry churning out only eco-friendly, solar powered sissy cars and ignoring those who might like to drive a high performance sports car. Anyone who wants a thin and light laptop should look at other machines, and not Alienware, just as people wanting to buy a eco-warrior car should not walk into a Ferarri showroom.

 

Using your argument there are enough people who buy ferraris and sports cars to justify their manufacturing cost.

If enough people do not buy thick gaming laptops, then there isn't much of a justification to keep making them. The people who care about them or things like upgradability and overclocking are a very small minority and even if you look at old (original) alienware sales I would be shocked if that percentage was greater than 5%.

The vast majority of people who buy alienware (or other) gaming laptops aren't performance enthusiasts. So Dell is now faced with the decision to either get rid of alienware, or start making them more appealing to mainstream gamers and forget about the enthusiasts. Clevo will soon be faced with that decision too but since they're in a more stable position they'll be ok for a while, but soon after that they'll start moving towards what AW, Asus, MSI etc have done.

Hell even if you look at cars, the people who buy ferraris for performance are a minority. Most people buy them as a status symbol or because they look cool.

 

But that doesn't make them build cheap cars, Alienware should do the same. There has always been people that are hardcore gamers/entusiasts and the ones who don't know what they are buying.

I'm not mad at Alienware for making light cheap "gaming" laptops, I'm mad because they decided to stop building real performance machines. They could still build the 2 of them without any issue since there will still be people getting monster machines. Of course you can't try to sell as much ferraris as corollas, but that doesn't mean that you have to stop creating your ferraris.

Dell is big enough to have both kind of laptops.

 

Like I said its based on demand. If enough people bought those laptops then Alienware would continue to make them, they're a company...companies react to demand.

If enough people do not buy them, then there is no point for AW to continue. They don't exist to serve your needs, they exist to serve their shareholders needs. If the shareholders see that the AW18 sold in the tens of thousands and make a lot of money, they would have kept it. If they saw the AW18 didn't have enough sales to justify keeping it, then they'll demand getting rid of it.

And sure Ferraris might not sell cheap cars, but compared to what Ferrari used to be...they're a FAR more mainstream car company now. Sure they build a few very limited edition performance cars here and there, but overall they're quite a different company to what they used to be in the 80s/90s. But even so enough people buy them to justify that they keep making them. If Ferrari sales dropped year after year then Fiat would make them change.

Just because Dell is big enough doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

 

I sort of doubt anyone posting in this community has direct insider knowledge on Dell/Alienware financials or product demand, and there has been an awful lot of "common sense" shooting from the hip going on since the release of this new BGA excrement. The speculation is generally offered from those that think it's OK, so we can take it with a grain of salt, considering the source. Speculation is fine, and lord knows common sense is a good thing. Let's stop with the presentation of theories as though they are fact. We have to put up with that nonsense with tree-huggers all the time.

Alienware exists today because of this hypothetically irrelevant "small minority" the Kool-Aid drinkers chirp about all the time. That's just a lame excuse for accepting the dumbing down of a once desirable brand. They are turning their backs on the people that made the brand successful, using clever marketing tactics to create an image of something special that isn't real any more, and sucking up to the trailer park gaming crowd to make money from volume rather than quality. I don't care if they make a disposable piece of crap for people that cannot afford something better, just don't want to spend more for something better, or just flat-out don't know any better. That's fine. The part I don't appreciate is the lack of acceptable options and pretending things are business as usual. I'd prefer to see the brand sold or just killed off completely rather than run into the ground. The "small minority" are those that are not afraid to point out that the emperor is buck naked.

 

No they don't.

Just because alienware was created "for enthusiasts" the vast majority of people who bought their products weren't enthusiasts. They were people who either didn't know better and just wanted a "gaming" laptop, or people who had a ton of money to spend, or people who just wanted something that looked different.

And even so, that market has significantly changed. Look at how many gaming / enthusiasts laptop manufacturers / clevo resellers existed in the 2000s. Now look at how many exist, and how the vast majority of them have just become the exact same clevo laptop with a different logo with no other differentiation at all.

That market is dying and it's already taken quite a lot of original brands with it. Like I already said, AW exists for Dell to make money not to cater to a dying market because of some sort of honor code that you expect them to have. If you enthusiasts made up the majority of their sales and kept pushing them to record sales, you would still have what you want. If you didn't then you'll be pushed aside for them to find another customer base to appeal to, and that's exactly what they did.

It also doesn't matter that you feel the brand should be sold of or killed. You don't own the brand, and you don't owe the brand anything. They're a company, not a family member or friend that you feel a sense of loyalty for. And I find anyone who feels loyalty towards an inanimate thing like a company to be rather sad. Sorry. If Dell stops serving my needs, I'll go elsewhere in a heartbeat. I don't feel the need to be loyal to a company, they only care about my money. And I also don't feel the need to make a posts about how a company has let me down. I got use out of them for the time they served my needs, when they stop then I'll go find another company.

 

Yup, I admit. It is sad... Almost as sad as people with know-it-all, snarky, holier-than-thou attitudes that think it's OK to be that way. Present it framed in logic or whatever you want. It does offer some degree of amusement to folks like me, but others might take offense. Some will think it's impressive or some evidence of wisdom. Oh yeah, you don't care... forgot about that. News flash... it's a Community and there is room for more than one view at the table. If we disagree, we don't have to act like an ass in public.

Back on topic, and building on your comments about going elsewhere. The trouble is, now that they don't offer what I want, there's no other place to go. There are a couple of compromise options that are not as good. It's not a code or some kind of sentimental loyalty thing. It's about being disappointed with not having any good options or alternatives left. I really love my Panther 5, but it's lacking in areas my obsolete Alienware is not. That pile of crap MSI Ghost or whatever that BGA turd is called ain't gonna cut it. Neither is a 17 r2 with crippled BGA CPU connected to a eGPU contraption. What else do we have to choose from? Plastic, plastic everywhere... nice! So, while I agree with the idea of looking elsewhere in theory, the advice is worthless. My needs wants and desires are not met because there is a void in my niche. I did go elsewhere and settled for something almost as good. I think it's reasonable to find that disappointing.

 

Except that my post had none of that? It's just simply facts, a corporation doesn't exist to serve you. It exists to serve it's shareholders. And they serve their shareholders by doing whatever the majority of their customers want to do.

They are not loyal to you, no company is. No matter what they tell you the only thing they care about is whats in your wallet. Past they they'll be happy to toss you out like garbage and move to greener pastures.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't make posts complaining that Alienware no longer serves your needs, that's perfectly acceptable. I'm saying the whole "alienware used to be this and have let me down" thing is getting rather old now and in some cases ridiculous.

And that's fair enough, like I already mentioned in the previous topic it's sad that the enthusiasts gaming market is dying. I liked seeing some of the stuff you guys were able to do. But at the end of the day there just aren't many of you left, and so companies have reacted to that change like they're expected to.

 

You seem to be FAR more concerned with the profits of the company and its shareholders, over and above the quality of their products - we all know that business ethics is about making money, so I don't see the continual argument from you about "yeah, but they're in it to make money"......'cos we know that already. Your mentality is that it's okay for them to churn out any old garbage, as long as they make money....and YOU as a consumer are happy to sit back and be happy with it and lap it up.

That's fair enough, I guess.....if that's how you like to roll. I guess there will always be 'sheep' that are happy to accept mediocrity as the norm as opposed to excellence - but, hey.....as long as the company, directors, employees and its shareholders are drinking cocktails in the sun, who cares????