My m17x Experience

We'll I've noticed an abundance of m15x posts coupled with the apparent lack of m17x reviews, so I decided to write one to hopefully aid in the decision of prospective buyers. The first half of my review will deal with the chronology of the events of my purchase, and the second half will deal with the hard review. Ps: Instead of giving exact dates I will say "day 1" because I do not have the exact date of some phone calls I made.

Day 1: I place my order for a brand spanking new m17x.
Graphics Card: Dual 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8700M GT – SLI Enabled
Display: 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview Technology – Black
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 120GB 7,200RPM (8MB Cache) w/ Free Fall Protection
Sound Card: Internal High-Definition Audio with surround sound

Day 2: I discover sites documenting alienware flaws and horror stories
Bad Software
Alienware Sucks
Hexus
And I read about how Alienware has sold lemons and not taken responsibility, how Alienware only provide laptops to reviewers who give alienware good reviews etc...
My thoughts... oh sh**

Day 3: I call alienware asking if its too late to add an orion backpack to my order, and the lady tells me "You should wait till after you receive your laptop so you can use your owners discount". Hey, thanks for the honesty but that stirred up a couple questions. So I should just buy the cheapest alienware at 1 gb ram, 120gb hdrive etc and then buy the upgrades (including gear such as bags, mice) at a discounted price? maybe so.

Day 3 (part 2): My order shipped. Wow, that was fast. I guess I placed my order at the right time? Maybe since I'm ordering it 8 months after it was released, demand and built time have both decreased? I was kinda bummed they shipped with fedex though (they didn't update tracking until the day before it arrived).

Day 4-7: I play the waiting game, and continue to play on my old laptop running an ATI x600 mobility

Day 8: I send Alienware an email. This is the exact email (with order number omitted)

Day 9: My order arrived, yay! It powers on, yet I noticed the cloth sleeve was ripped and they spelled my personalized nameplate incorrectly...

Day 11: It's been a couple days since I asked the question regarding the messenger bag/ram/$7.38 so I decided to give them a call. I'll keep this short and down to the point. I am blue, customer service is green, technical support is red.

Me: I want to buy a messenger bag and an extra power brick, will the m17x and power brick fit in the messenger bag?

CS: Hmm give me a minute. Lets see 10 plus 2 equals 12 divided by the cubed root of... Yes it should fit.

Me: Awesome, ok I'd like to place an order with my owners discount

CS: Oh sorry I can't do that, only technical support can, I'm going to transfer you.

Tech: Hello this is technical support, just to let you know you can't order the messenger bag through us, that has to go through the gear shop (customer service), I can order the brick and transfer you though.

Me: Ok well I'll order the ac adapter here and you can transfer me back.

Tech: Ok credit card number blah blah... done. transfering you now.

Different CS rep: Hello I was told you want the messenger bag? First I just want to tell you the m17x won't fit.

Me: Aw really? Another CS told me it would!

CS: hmm lets see, 12 squared times the cosine of 1 over x.... oh yeah it does fit sorry about that.

Alright good, can I get my owners discount?

CS: No sorry only tech can do that
...

Different Techie: Hello this is tech, you want to order the messenger bag? Ok credit card blah blah done. Have a good day.
Finally. (even though I thought tech support couldn't order the messenger bag for me)

Now that took so long I didn't even bother to ask about the ram issue. When I asked Customer Service about why it says FREE SHIPPING!! Yet I was charged 7.38$,

I was told "Shipping is free, but handling isn't". All I could say was wow...

This pretty much sums up the series of events, Hope this was insightful.


Good things about my experience

• built quickly (arrived 8 days after order)
• worked out of the box
• customer service was eager to answer minor questions quickly

Bad things about my experience

• protective cloth sleeve was ripped on arrival
• personalized nameplate was spelled incorrectly
• customer service reps were not in sync with another, would sometimes outright ignore major questions unless you called.

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Pictures!

I figure my review would be pointless unless I included something that hasn't been contributed yet, and I noticed there have been a lot of questions about the Orion Messenger bag, so I uploaded a couple pictures to give you an idea of how much space there is.

As you can see there's plenty of room, and if it was necessary you could fix two m17xs with 2 power bricks in them. Its a very high quality bag!








I'm currently working on the last part, the hard review. I hope everything has been helpful so far.

 

strange turn of events i must say...
AW CS is one of the major issues with AW. not everyone has had issues as you had though. some less to none, others were way over your experience.
send them your feedback via the feedback email and let them know.
AW-James and AW-Armando pop in on occassion as well in here, you may want to PM them and direct them to your post as well.

and keep us up to date....

btw - gratz on the new unit and welcome to the boards.

 

My cloth sleeve was ripped when I received my m15x. They send a new one out to me for free.

 

Thanks for the info and the welcome, I noticed that my review so far seems a bit pessimistic, but I really do enjoy my new m17x and I will make that clear when I'm done with my technical review.

ps just updated it with pictures.

 

i see you updated with pics...but alas, my network does not allow me to see them unless they are attached to the message....

 

Would attaching them put them as little thumbnails? That might make the review a bit more easy to read. I'll do that now.

 

yes....kewls....and thx

 

nice review on the ordering process. + rep. you alienhead power button seems so bright