Dell can’t ship customized laptops on time
For a company that prides itself on building customized computers and hopefully getting them out to customers in a timely fashion seems to be taking some kind of a break. The past several weeks have seen delays in laptops shipping out, especially the relatively new M1330 series. Dell blames problems during the manufacturing process, especially for those custom colors.
The company has been relatively quiet about the delays but it has admitted that there is a problem with the M1330 due to quality control issues, component shortages and problems with the paint jobs.
Other models are affected as well with the Inspiron 1420, 1520 and 1720 all seeing delays because Dell can’t keep up with the amount of orders that have come in and it only gets worse if you want one of those custom colors.
These delays are so bad that NoteBookReview says there are over 9,000 responses to this issue on its forums, a record for the site.
According to one poster, delays for the Inspiron 1520 depend on which color lid you want:
Black, white = no delays
Brown lid = 5 days extra
Yellow lid = 6 days extra
Blue lid = 8 days extra
Red, green, pink lid = 11 days extra
Want one with a dedicated graphics card? That’ll be a couple more days wait time. It has gotten so bad that users are making concessions such as taking a different color that has no wait time such as white or black in most cases, or taking a laptop with reduced specs just to get it in a timely fashion.
If you’re lucky maybe Dell will make some concessions to you. My recommendation, don’t buy a Dell at all, if you don’t care about color (or make) head on over to Newegg and buy any number of ready-made laptops shipped to your door in 72 hours (in most cases, excluding weekends and US holidays).
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September 4th, 2007
I have ordered my m1330 about 1 month ago, and finally it is being shipped today! Horray.