After a lack in communication, several delays, and a reorder, my Dell Mini 9 has arrived.



The first thing I did after taking it out of the box was installed Windows 7 on it. So far, I'm extremely impressed - all the drivers loaded nicely, and I haven't had to do anything special to get it to work. Of a 14GB drive, the operating system took up around 7GB of that. Even with a 1.6 GHz Atom processor and 1GB of memory, I'm not seeing any performance issues so far.

I can't get over how small this is. As I mentioned last night, if my laptop had a lap, this Mini 9 would be its laptop. This would have been perfect for CodeMash - lightweight, with all the basic features that I would use.

You won't see me playing EVE Online or any of my graphics intensive games on this. However, you may see me blogging, IMing, Twittering, and even video chatting with this. It has its own built-in camera, making it even easier for me to stay in contact while traveling.

So within my first 24 hours of playing with this, I'm liking it so far. It just stinks that Dell and Adobe dropped the ball and made the process of getting it such a huge ordeal.

Labels: delayed shipping, Dell, Dell Mini 9

Welcome to this episode of "As Dell Turns"... in this episode, we'll take a look at why Sarah still doesn't have her Dell and which big name company joins in on dropping the ball.

The latest ship date on my Dell Mini 9 is now 1/16, but this time it's because we have an answer as to what the hold up is, the ridiculous wait behind it, and the reorder that shouldn't take so long (but I'm not holding my breath).

So while I was at CodeMash, my awesome husband had done some more work on finding out why this whole ordeal is happening. Apparently someone isn't talking, so I'm blogging it for others to understand - either Dell or Adobe dropped the ball but both are getting called out in this case, so pay close attention to your order.

If you ordered a Dell Mini 9 with Adobe 9 (guessing Acrobat or Acrobat Reader, but the emails with the reps only refer to it as Adobe 9, so I will do so the rest of this post) on it, cancel your order now, unless you don't mind waiting at least another month or so. See, Dell happened to let people order these Dell Mini 9 Windows netbooks with Adobe 9 on it - but there are compatibility issues that are still getting worked out. There doesn't appear to be any strong commitment of a date of resolving this.

Interestingly enough, when I look at Dell's site this morning, it says that the Mini 9 comes with Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.1.

So why didn't they disclose this incompatibility? Better yet, why did they let a 3rd party software package cause this much of a delay? The smart move, on behalf of the consumers, would be to disclose the issue and either offer to downgrade the Adobe package, not install the Adobe package in the first place, or at least disclose the delay and let the consumer choose whether to accept it.

The original order has been cancelled and a new order has been expedited for a Dell Mini 9 with a compatible Adobe product.

Incompatibilities happen, and I understand that. But full disclosure to the customer is something I also believe in, and Dell failed on that part.

Labels: Adobe, delayed shipping, Dell, incompatibilities, jerks

I've chronicled my journey so far with Dude, I'm Not Getting a Dell - Part 1. It doesn't help the situation that the rep is on vacation, and all that his backup can do is say that it will ship soon. How long does it take to come up with a real explanation for the delay? And why are they evading the question?

They have put free overnight shipping on the order supposedly, but at this point, it doesn't matter. I don't have time to prep a new machine in time to use it for CodeMash. The damage is done - they haven't conveyed a reason at all for the delay.

This experience is enough for me to never consider buying a Dell for a personal purchase - not even with our employee purchase program. Although they may make decent quality hardware, their lack in communication to the customer when it comes to delays is enough to make me want to take my business elsewhere.

...

Apparently I'm not the only one out there seeing Dell's shipping issues. I hope others who search this see this thread on the Consumerist before they even consider buying a Dell Mini 9.

Labels: delayed shipping, Dell Mini 9

I'm interrupting the countdown for a post to find out what others' opinions are of Dell. My awesome husband ordered me a Mini 9 for Christmas, as he saw it as a great tool for me, especially with giving presentations and stuff. When I found out about that, I was psyched! He ordered it for me at the beginning of December (12/5), and today, he got another shipping delay. It was supposed to ship on 12/19, but they delayed it until today (12/29). Sure, they were going to ship it today. Or maybe now it's delayed until 1/12.

Looking at their blog, they aren't saying anything about a delay in shipping, a shortage in parts, etc. So... what's up with Dell? Why is it that they are going to take more than a month from order to shipping?

I understand that back orders happen, parts can't get shipped because of strikes, etc. But honestly, with Dell not saying anything, this doesn't seem right.

He's got a call in with his rep to find out why there's such a delay. Unfortunately, the rep didn't get back to him at the end of the day.

More details will follow.

Labels: delayed shipping, Dell Mini 9