"I always knew ALIENWARE made the best computers and i just could not wait to have one for myself! This is my first purchase with the company and there customer service is top notch with flawless products! If your in the market for a new computer don't settle for anything else. Just LOVE IT!"
"This was my first experience with Alienware, and they didn't disappoint. I ordered two m17 laptops, both of which arrived promptly and in perfect working order. I've had no cause for complaint and everyone I've dealt with at Alienware has been professional and strived to make this an awesome experience."
"I ordered a new M17 notebook just before the holidays. While I was prepared to wait until the New Year to receive my custom built order, it was assembled, shipped, and delivered in time for the holiday break. I have had no problems with the system to date and its' performance has exceeded my expectations. The graphics are more than fast enough for my work and it beats my desktop system for gaming. I couldn't recommend them highly enough. "
"I recently purchased a Area 51 M9750 notebook from alienware.com. This is my first AW purchase - I have known about them for years, but build my own desktops. I do not use the notebook for gaming as most AW users, but I use it for business. After having a HP notebook with Vista I had a lot of issues with industry (Home Theater/Home Automation & Control) software not being supported by Vista, I needed to find a notebook that supported XP which lead me to AW. Screen size was very important (my office desktop uses 3 monitors - two 21" and one 30"), I need as large of a display as possible, however this was a notebook so it could not be too large. The AW 17" fit the bill as it was lighter and thinner than many competing 15.4" notebooks.
The online order process was very easy and I got daily emails showing the status of my custom built notebook. Shipping was very fast, I actually received the notebook on the day that I was originally told it would ship.
Quality of the notebook is excellent, much better constructed that any other notebook I have ever seen or used. Display is very clear and looks great at 1900x1200.
The only negative thing I can say about it is that the power supply is very large, almost twice the size of other notebooks. Not a huge deal as I travel with a very large notebook case, but it would be nice if there was a small option. I would guess that I could purchase a smaller one, but just have not had the chance to look."
"This was my first purchase from AW... I had reviewed many laptops and decided to purchase the M17... And when I finally received it, it was exactly what I had ordered and hoped for in a gaming rig... Was very hesitant of getting a laptop for a gaming rig but was told that AW could hold up to alot of demanding games... Since my purchase I can assure you it won't be my last and I would highly recommend it..."
"My M17 laptop showed up very quickly. It was top quality and I was treated like royalty. I am looking forward to doing more business with the company."
"This is the second PC I've bought from AW, third in my house. Anyway, I very much enjoy both my desktop and laptop from AW. The cost was pretty fair, the shipping was quick, and I've experienced very few problems with either of my machines. Only issue is I kinda wish I woulda bumped my laptop to a second video card, but didn't have the cash at the time to do so. Is a shame AW doesn't sell notebook cards via their site or anything, but other than that, the site is great and easy to navigate and customize your build. Thanks a bunch guys. "
"I recently bought the M17 laptop. It's a pretty cool laptop. I like the casing design and the nice touch. One thing that I dislike about it is, whenever i'm randomly on my laptop playing a game or listening to music, the sound starts to lag up at times. Then everything just slows down."
"I got the new Alienware M17 laptop, this computer is excellent for gaming... all my games runs at high settings without problems.
Placing the order was a little bit difficult for security reason with the billing department but after a few phone calls to Alienware and to my bank everything was solved.
The system was shipped fast and i can say that i am a happy Alienware customer."
"I purchased Alienware M17 gamebook directly from alienware.com. It was a minimum configuration for $1399 US (2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo, single Radeon 3870, 2GB RAM, Vista Home premium, 1440x900 LCD, unlit keyboard and so on). Online ordering process was fast and convenient. Shipping delay was one week (because it was a built to order machine) and packaging was great and high quality.
After wasting my time with overheating and not working properly Gateway P-173X FX gamebook this Alienware machine turned out to be a stark contrast. No signs of overheating, no signs of any trouble that plagued my Gateway. And I paid only $70 US extra for Alienware ($1399 vs $1329 for Gateway), which turned out to be a bargain.
All games I ran on it (Dead Space, Fallout 3 and recently released Prince of Persia) worked awesome, perfectly smooth framerate with all graphics options maxed out.
The texture of the case plastic is unusual, feels rubberish although it's definitely not rubber. Nice touch! Feels solid and not slippery in my hands, I wish all the other notebook makers adopted this "rubber-like" textured plastic for their cases. Another nice touch is dust filters on the fan intake grills. Yes, I'm not kidding, I was suprised when I discovered them, they look like a layer of black cloth, although it's hard to see through the grill.
Screen is great, bright and evenly lit. No dead pixels of course. Full-size keyboard feels great too. Speaker volume wheel on the right side is convenient.
I can hold it on my lap while working or playing, because fan grills are located in the middle of the case, i.e. between my knees. Smart! And it does not burn my lap by the way :)
Fingerprint reader works 100% after I trained it on my index finger. Face recognition works 100% as well, although I don't use it at all, looks like a gimmick to me (but YMMV of course :)
Alienware also offers upgrade to 64-bit version of Vista with this machine for free - yes, I'm serious, they don't charge a dime for that. Great and worth a separate thank you. I'm so tired of junk notebooks that are often sold with 32-bit Vista only.
Webcamera seems to be very high quality, I like its colors and clarity. Not a junk $20 webcam for sure.
Battery does not stick out like on my Gateway P-173X FX junk gamebook, nice touch again!
Now some nitpicking :) I don't like the feel of its touchpad's vertical scrolling. It's way too jerky. I compared it with my second notebook, Dell Vostro 1700, and Dell's vertical scrolling is perfectly smooth. This Alienware M17 has a kind of "nervous" scrolling, I mean you move your finger a bit and text stays there and suddenly (boom!) it moves about half a page if not more. Not smooth at all and a nuisance.
What else? I can only say I'm satisfied with this machine. Using it for more than a month now and looks like it's here to stay as my main home gamebook.
UPDATE: November 22, 2010
Well, it's two years I'm using it now. A few problems popped up since 2008. First is the sound distortion after the notebook sleeps for a while and I wake it up. They say it's a BIOS problem, people were reporting this about Alienware M17 on the notebookreview forums everywhere but Dell doesn't give a jack so... who cares, PC notebooks are PC notebooks, fire and forget, Dell's not gonna do anything about it since this machine is "old" you know. Anyway, what else went bad... one key on keyboard is kind of stuck and almost doesn't work. The battery is almost DEAD now, holds maybe 5% of initial charge. Looks like that's why this Alienware was so cheap to begin with, hehe, Dell saved big time on a battery. I figured, doh :-) Well, no other problems, fortunately, still going strong. Upgraded RAM to 4 gigz, upgraded crappy Vista to much more sweet Win 7 Ultimate x64, it flies rockets now! Happy with this gamebook in general, it ages and starts to break apart but I expected worse.
Will I buy another Alienware? Probably not because Asus G73 gamebooks in the BestBuy USA stores are sooo ubersweet, VERY good looks and design and quality, plus excellent gaming performance for a price, just read any anandtech review to see why. Gotta travel to USA to get them tho, Canada as always gets sh!t instead of hardware but whatever.
And one more point that shows that Alienware is still kind of above usual Dell cheapo consumer grade stuff. Remember all these HDD caddies you have to purchase if you wanna place another HDD in your 17" notebook? Guess what - Alienware is my first 17" lappy that does NOT use these moronic consumer-money-squeezing caddies, you just place HDD inside AND THAT'S IT! No stupid extra little parts, plug your new HDD in the second bay, close the cover and off ya go. Very sweet little detail, I like very much how they designed this lappy. Thumbs up for that!"
"I recently purchased an M17 custom alienware laptop with quad core processing and two graphics cards. I do very high end computer generated lighting renderings that take considerable processing time...up to 8 hours with CPU clocked at 100%. The M17 completely smokes my old machine. I highly recommend this machine in the quad core configuration for anyone that does real computer work."
"As a 60 year old female, I'm not your average Alienware gaming computer buyer. I am however, an author and an avid online PC gamer. My computers are required to put in long hours of everything from word processing and image manipulation to the chaos that is an online FPS deathmatch.
This is my third Alienware desktop computer. And the first system combining Intel/ATI Crossfire/Vista. Alienware Sales Reprepresentative Jaime Fonseca told me that I wouldn't be disappointed with the Intel/ATI/Vista system and he was right.
I've been running Crysis: Warhead, Farcry 2, Fallout 3, Dead Space, WOW, Left 4 Dead, Tomb Raider: Underworld and Age of Conan - Hyborian Adventures about 6 - 7 hours a day since my system arrived and had no problems whatsoever. The Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz, 4GBs of DDR3 memory and Dual 2GB GDDR5 ATI® Radeon® HD 4870 X2s provide a smooth gaming experience at the highest settings. Support for multiple 28" monitors has also been flawless.
From ordering, through shipping and delivery, and the ease of set up on the machine's arrival, my Alienware computers have each exceeded my expectations for performance and reliability.
As a repeat customer, I can also attest to the fact that when the occasional problem arises, Alienware's 24/7 tech support is there and ready to get you up and running as quickly as possible. In one instance I was required to return a machine to Alienware for repairs and the turn around time from my home in Oregon to Alienware in Florida and back was less than two weeks.
The only disappointment I've experienced with Alienware was the discontinuation of the Martian Red cases, but I'll admit that I'm rapidly growing fond of the new Space Black Alien on my desk and the AlienFX lighting system means that I am never bored with the color scheme. From internal hardware to quality casework and paint, Alienware computers have met or exceeded my expectations for a 'store bought' machine. The extended warranty means I can exterminate the alien infestation in Crysis, fight my way across Africa in FarCry 2 or hack 'n' slash my way through a WOW horde without a worry in the world.
So far with Alienware, the pleasures been all mine.
Jayel Gibson
Author/Gamer
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"I just recently ordered a M15X laptop from Alienware and have been very impressed since I first turned it on. The look and feel of the laptop is very nice. I have no problem running any of my games on high settings, they all run smoothly with no problems at all. I love the fact that I can switch video cards and put the laptop into stealth mode to increase battery life. The laptop was very easily to setup and I love how the keys light up, they're very useful. I've been an Alienware customer since 2003 when I ordered my desktop and I will continue to buy from them because I love their products."
"I just recently ordered the brand new M17 alienware laptop and am very pleased with the Quality of the system. It plays all of my games without fail yet, even with the high def 1200p screen set to 1920 x 1200, I get no lag of fps on any of my games, Black and White 2, FarCry, Crysis Warhead, Spore, The Witcher and more. I love the system even as a 17 inch I still dont mind carrying it as the case doesnt get scratched or scuffed easily. Thanks a lot for a great product!"
"The ordering wasn't bad - Alienware was somewhat backlogged, but they did make it clear up front that this was the case.
Build quality is not the best. It's not downright horrible, but it's not worth the price premium. I've had overheating components, squeaky joints, breaking joints, crappy hardware, bad drivers.... It does look reasonably good, though, but computers aren't all about looks.
Support since then, though, has been absolutely horrible. For all Alienware's claims of Onsite Support, that's nigh non-existent. The only things that you can get fixed onsite are those that they'll also walk you through over the phone, and even if you get onsite support, it takes several days after you receive a part before they'll schedule somebody to fix it. As it is, a customer support representative estimated ~30% of calls get onsite support - an absolute joke compared to all the other major manufacturers. On top of that, technical support doesn't really care about your problems.
If you want to say you have an Alienware, then feel free to buy a system from them, but don't expect quality and support that matches the price premium."