Well my true luck returns, any suggestions before AW?

Well it's a result at least

and tbh I don't care if god himself is running alienware until dell sells it I won't be buying one

They need to stop meddling in what was ok not a purfect outfit but 50x times better then the crap we have now

 

Pman, the M17x and M15x ARE sold by Dell

 

He means until Dell sells off Alienware.

 

yeh i meant until Dell sells alienware

until then they are a waste of space

 

Ummm you mind not trolling ? Just because ....

Europe Dell sucks simple as that

 

Don't know how your Dell Europe experience has been, but with the 4 other laptops and 1 desktop i got from Dell, when something breaks, they send an engineer with replacement NBD. Never had a problem with them failing on this atleast .

 

i am in the US

and Dell has been GREAT for TS and CS and NBD shipping of parts and installing them

 

C'mon alex bring us up to date with the drama...

im on a course and need something exciting

 

He's been updating us in other threads:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=421881
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=423014

 

Sorry Pman, basic gist is at the moment, Im due a refund, Im waiting for the RMA email, they're not sending it like they promised; they have backed out of offering a 4870 equipped M17x, they are being yelled at, and I am trying to see if theres any chance of a decent discount being flung my way on the off chance it makes a 4870 M17x 'affordable' or at least a lot closer, but not getting too far.

In other words tis a sham lol

So, on that note, given the people I've been speaking to but sorry Moo, regardless of where Alienware/Dell US stand, Alienware UK/Europe are an absolute mess.

 

Agree with Alexrose1UK. In Europe they are a total shambles with customer service. I swear to god that they would increase sales with better customer service. It really is as simple as that.

If anyone from Dell/AW in a position to make any changes to the way you guys run things reads this and wants some sensible advice on how to improve sales through better customer service (and without paying anything extra) feel free to PM me. It's such a shame that you're wasting a priceless opportunity.

On the other hand it may well be the age old problem of US companies outside of the US (I used to work for one) where they assume that the world revolves around them and understands their business practices (sweeping generalisation I know but I genuinely believe it). By not properly adapting to local markets while being overseen from the US causes them to lose so many customers/opportunities and they are confused as to why.

Europe is a valuable market for Dell/AW and deserves better service as a result. At the end of the day it may be that only falling sales will trigger any sort of reaction. Everytime we moan about things being crap and then carry on buying systems anyway we get what we deserve.

Sorry for the rant but I'm so upset by the whole experience. Something that should have been great became a nightmare when it didn't need to.

 

I personally dont believe its any better in the US.......thats just a myth.

 

its better in the US no doubt

 

Well after ringing and yelling once AGAIN, finally have been sent a returns email, authorising it to be returned (although the email says by the 14 day policy, but lol)...in the process telling me this should have been sent several days ago.

Talk about a waste of time!

Still, package it up, arrange the DHL collection, and theorectically, AW should return my monies finally!

 

well another hurdle overcome eh Alex!!

 

Yep lol, its taken almost a week to get the refund email out of them! Now we get to see if I have to threaten them with SCC to actually GET the refund lol

Its a sad shame really, and I actually would have liked a 4870 M17x, but through thier actions I have lost almost all trust, and willing to compromise with them. Shame really as even if they lost a little money on the M17x upgrades, I was actually willing to pay a bit extra for it.
I MAY try seeing if I can get an outstanding deal over the sales line, but my hearts not really in it anymore.

 

Keep at it boy .... Europe sounds like it must be he'll

 

Well the machine is all packed up and ready to go. Only things missing from the original packaging are some plastic bags, the Win7 upgrade voucher, 4 small HDD screws (not sure where they got to) and the fabric pouch the laptop came in (was sent in it to protect it when returned for repair, and never sent back!).

If they mess me around and deduct anything from the refund,oooh Im gonna be mad...I even included the damned T-Shirt, Mug, Hat and the insert that labels all the functions the keyboard has, there's almost nothing missing!

 

Glad yor finally able to take care of your problem Alex.

 

Well, its not over yet, I've still got to actually get a refund...it took them almost a week to send the promised RMA email (and it was one of the TSAs I'd dealt with before, NOT the manager who promised it, who sent it in the end!)

PS. The TSA who sent the email was one of the few who'd at least tried to help out of the plenty I spoke to. The rough region of different people I spoke to was about 10-15, only 2/3 actually tried to help, all the others were ignorant, just not helpful, or plain useless at best, many more nasty words at worst.

 

Well minor update/major depending on your POV, I today got an email from the finance company saying that following thier investigation, Alienware have cancelled the contract on the goods following thier return, and the finance has been cancelled. (Hooray finally a resolution!)

Now on one hand, this is great, (although I *still* need my £80 deposit back, as that hasn't been refunded yet) but on the other hand this is a PITA for me; as I now both lose out on the finance service charge (£60 standard fee) and also dont have any money to buy another machine! Unless I organise another finance of course, which having been on BNPL previously is going to cost me more, and Im probably not going to be able to take out a return loan from the previous lendors as they're a pure retail finance company.

Whats worse for me is that Kobalt dont have thier own finance service yet due to the UK government dragging thier heels...in other words til I can find some way to proceed that isnt going to cost a bomb, Im still stuck at square 1, no machine. I will be ringing the finance company tomorrow of course though to just double check everything has been annulled as promised, and see if they can help me out in any way

After this whole experience, I really cant see myself going for that M17x though I'll be honest (or indeed with Alienware again in the next few years, as UK Dell/AW support is apparently the same team for these machines as the M17 was), Im not in the mood to spend anothe £60+ to finance companies, knowing what sort of service Alienware offer aftersale incase something goes wrong again. I'd rather put that effort into negotiating a good deal with Kobalt for a machine without a CPU, RAM and OS (they definately do the OS-less option) at less money than an M17x, and put a little extra into thier £40 2nd year warranty and being able to run 3x320GB WD Black RAID0 in the M980. Should be nippy if the latency isnt too high!

Either that or just sinking the cash into an absolutely behemoth of a desktop machine. (I7, 8GB DDR3, SSD, 5870+Eyefinity/Crossfire 5870)

 

Glad to see that a resolution was reached.

 

Yeah I see your situation now Alex......perhaps a call to the ifnance company can yield something positive for you.

sorry to see your leaving the brand pal.

 

Hey mate, you know I wouldnt if I didnt have to, I truly loved my M17 for those 3 weeks.

Unfortunately, right now I dont even have the cash to stump up for a new machine on the spot, day to day living costs prevent that (not to mention the £140 that's been lost to the machine so to speak). Financing was an easily affordable way for me to get the machine, but unfortunately AW seem to have inadvertently pulled that out from my feet as well.

Still pissed off they didnt just refund me directly like they originally promised; at least that way I would have had a lump sum to spend on another machine, and the original service charge wouldnt have been completely lost.
£60 isnt a huge amount in the scheme of things, but its a bit insulting considering this whole case has been a blunder on Alienware's part, and not mine, but Im the one who's going to have to take the hit, and has been left high and dry without a machine since august. (borrowing machines and trying to do basic internet bits with a PS3 and the control pad isn't the way forward!)

Im hoping if its not yet been completely terminated, if I call the company tomorrow then they can extend the loan agreement under the same basis as before, except pay the balance directly to my account.

 

yeah unfortunatley this was always an option for refund, but at least your not paying for a machine sitting in the store

tbh if you have a good credit record your better getting a £2k personal loan then finance anyway

 

Was on Buy Now Pay Later before anyway, so wasnt costing me anything apart from the service charge. My credit history is good however they might not like my age

Im gonna have to look into personal loans and 0% credit cards...oh deep and utter joys, I shouldnt have any issues paying them, its just a PITA, the BNPL was perfect for me, as I could happily pay off in the time given

Still might give me an excuse to be a little more flexible on my M980NU, at the moment though, my key concern is actually getting a working machine, its about 2 months I've been out of action now, and it's causing me some issues now, Im not enjoying have to borrow machines, and Im behind on private work etc.

 

Oh btw, Pman if you like space games, check out the link in my signature, you might like what you see.

 

hey alex looks very very nice, quite early in devolpment im assuming?

 

About 6-9 months or so into development (including recruiting etc), last I was able to speak to the rest of the team on skype, it was predicted about another year or so til released; by the time all the modelling and textures, along with scripting, mission writing and actual writing has been completed. Im one of the writers and lead designers on the project (if I haven't been replaced lol),
This quote from the website (an early interview/profile) probably sums up my role better:

Tis one of the many reasons Im missing having a machine so much; I've got a whole lot of stuff to get on with and catch up on, and most of the development work has moved to Skype, as its easier for the majority of the team to communicate and share, which means I quite out the loop atm.

It's built on Cryengine2, so by the time it's done it should look pretty damned nice; you can already see some of the progress thats been made since the early days in the the early shots that are posted, the ship shown on the website background was the original design for the Thunderbird fighter, although as you can see from some of the concept art its been reworked since, although we're contemplating keeping the original design as a 'light' variant craft.

Sorry if thats a semi-shameless plug, but hell, the market has been dead for these sort of games for the last few years, and its nice to have something to take indirect pride in, it's not going to be the new coming of christ, but the team lead is pretty intent on making it 'releasable'.

We've got a couple of fun ideas for all sorts of different things to bring you a little more into the universe, outside of normal flight time, between missions etc, but I cant really say too much on that incase it doesnt make it to the final 'product', the majority of the work so far has been basic design and modelling anyway.

 

all sounds good to me alex, I hope you get the funds for that new machine soon!

 

So do I mate. Have spoken with Kobalt and they've offered me a pretty decent deal. About £200 off for not including a CPU and the RAM (I can either let them test with thiier parts; or I can post/take in my parts so that they could stress test the machine with them), whilst including the extra HDD so I can try 3 drive RAID0 (3x 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Blacks).
If I exclude the X-Fi card for slightly better headphone audio on the move, then it's only £60 more than I paid for my M17, which I consider a fairly reasonable deal indeed (given the potential for future GPU upgrades, capable of 3 HDDs at once, and also including 2 years of warranty), I just need to sort out the financial side.

Tesco finance rejected me for a 0% for 12 months on purchases credit card because thier application system is poor and couldnt take 2 previous address (they seem to think Im a serial house mover, when I've lived at the same address for 15 years, with a 6month stint in the middle recently), and I dont really want to apply for two many things, incase I harm my future credit record. So frustrating when I know that if the finance with Alienware had been refunded not rescinded, then I'd be able to order tomorrow (presuming funds were here haha)

Oh, and it was new Andy, not Andy Andy who responded to my email; I'd never even thought about getting him instead, but he's been just as helpful as I could hope for. What might also interest you was he directly promised that if new mobile parts come forward, and Clevo support them in the Commanche BIOS then they will offer them as an upgrade. That's fairly good news as he's the new sales manager!

X9100
4GB RAM
3x 320GB (7200RPM) HDD in RAID0
GTX280M SLI [with future possible upgrade path]
1920x1080 screen
Expresscard audio card for better headphone audio
2 year warranty.

For only £110 over my M17 as I already have parts (or £60 without the audio card) that sure sounds tasty...

 

bet you wished you had done that from the start

 

To some extent definately. On the other hand when I bought my M17 I didnt have the parts I do now, wasnt dreaming of spending this much, and was waiting on some borrowed money back, which ended up buying the X9100, HDDs and RAM.

Would have saved time and stress though!

 

Oh, just as a further small update, I'm STILL waiting for the refund of my deposit, and am trying to see if I can get the finance service cost refunded via them as well.