Well it has now been a full month since I placed my order for a new Dell XPS M1330, their new flagship mobile system. After all that time I still do not feel much closer to getting my system, and on top of it all I still have not received the other items I ordered from them. There is a lot of discussion going on over at notebookreview.com right now about the lead times on these systems, but the biggest problem is the complete breakdown of communication.

The Bag

Back on June 28th I placed an order for a laptop, a 19in LCD monitor, and a $150 laptop bag. The laptop had a estimated ship date (ESD) of August 1st, which was a long time but I agreed to it. The monitor and bag however had no such lead times and I was expecting them to ship rather quickly. After getting my order confirmation however I was shocked to see that the monitor also had a ESD of August 1st, and the bag had a ESD of August 29th!! So I would actually get my bag a full one month after I got my laptop.

I decided not to cancel the bag at the time and wait to see if it shipped early. Well after a month my laptop ship date is getting closer, and being a optimistic person I decided to cancel the bag and order direct from Timbuk2. One day after canceling the bag Dell posts a new deal where all new orders come with a new Timbuk2 bag for free! But the kicker is people are getting estimated ship dates for their bags of August 8th. So new buyers are not only getting a free bag, which I was will to pay a lot of money for, but they would have got it nearly three weeks before me.

After searching the website for the bag separately from any system the Dell site says