Ok, well, long story short – I am returning the Alienware m18x. I am not returning it cause of performance, nor am I returning it over looks (although it did have a nice little paint chip on the top lid).
The reason, in short, was the warranty. Normally when you buy things you can buy a warranty for it within a certain time. In this case, until your other warranty expires. Even then you can buy another one. However its not the fact I couldn’t buy it – it was the price of it.
To max out the warranty on Dell’s point of sale price it would have been around $500. I said to myself, I don’t have the money right now so I will upgrade later. When I received the laptop, I priced it out and boy was I shocked… To max out the warranty on the Alienware m18x would have been $1500 for the same protection.
I called up customer care and tried to ask them to lower the price, but they couldn’t give me the POS (point of sale) price. So they recommended I send the laptop back and order another one. Not only do I find this dumb (IMHO), but its a good way to loose a customer since you have to wait nearly 30 days to get your money back and then you can reorder.