Dell Studio 1535 Order

Greetings all. New to forums and wanted to thank all the posters here for the information they provided.

My Story:

I ordered a studio 15 laptop through Exchange Online (retired navy) on Dec. 5 with an original ship date of Dec. 22 (base model ship date of Dec. 15 with mobile video card as the delaying part). This was acceptable to my Xmas plans so I ordered it.

Dec. 22 the ship date changed to the 26th (although they offered next day business so I couldn't complain.

Dec 24 the ship date changed to the 30th (arrive 31st). This would complicate my Xmas so I began to vigorously contact Dell for explicit details as to the delay. Finally found out that the color options were now the delaying factor (plum purple) and that they were sorry for the delays.

Dec 26 the arrival date changes to Jan. 2 (shipping 31st). After reading other threads in this forum these delays are mild, but I had received no phone calls or emails concerning the delays and that caused me concern.

Dec 30 the ship date changes to Jan. 6 (arrive Jan. 7). At this point I am extremely frustrated as I have still received no emails at all concerning my order. Four hours on the phone with Dell (and many apologies later) I am assured that my situation is being looked into.

Dec 31 my order has been changed and I immediately go into panic mode. My Dell studio 1535 order has been canceled and a new studio 1537 order has taken its place. I don't understand the difference in names but the new 1537 has the top tier processor (T9400 instead of T9300) and better ram (800mhz vs 667 mhz) and some associated software differences from my 1535 order. Unfortunately, the ship date on this new system is Jan 14 (barring any delays).

Still no phone calls or emails from Dell, but it appears they upgraded my order because of supply troubles. I'm tired of getting voice mails on the extension numbers that I have. I'm still not sure how they can change my order without contacting me first. I may get on the phone yet again later to see if I can get any information about this change.

I thought posting this might help others here.

 

I am prior service military (Army) and have a similar story with a positive ending.

I placed my order with AAFES on December 5th and experienced the same delay and was offered the free upgrade to the 1537 with the T9400 CPU and 800 Mhz RAM.

The ship date ETA was January 7th, however I just checked online and found the order was shipped on December 30th - so the new laptop will be waiting for me when I get back from our family ski vacation.

I bet you will also have early ship date and find that the upgraded laptop is well worth the wait. Dell is overly conservative on their estimated ship dates...

 

Nice system for comparison.

 

Thanks for the information flatsix and I hope you enjoy your laptop after the holidays.

It sounds like they used the solution that worked for you on me. Its also encouraging to hear that someone else who has gone through AAFES (purchase order) is getting good customer service and being contacted. My assigned people must just really be swamped. It appears to be a nicer system than the one I ordered, I just wish that they had contacted me when changing the order as I would like to have given my input (e.g. changed to 64-bit vista since 4gigs of ram now). I may try and call again today to speak with someone, but I was told several times before that with a purchase order through AAFES I could not make changes to the order, I would have to cancel and reorder and I would have to wait even longer.

 

Made it to boxing stage today so looks like I will have laptop in a week. Hope you are enjoying yours flatsix.

 

Congrats - according to my contact at AAFES, your new Studio 1537 should ship on Friday, 1/9/08.

 

According to the email I just opened, my order shipped today and should be delivered tomorrow by 3 pm. That would be outstanding.

 

Well, did your new laptop arrive with the upgraded specifications?

 

Yes it did and I am very happy with is so far. The delays were more than a bit annoying but they delivered a good product in the end. I'll try to give it a good workout over the next month to see how good it is.

The speakers are what I expected for a laptop.
The keyboard doesn't seem to be "mushy" like others have noted.
Only problem I have run into so far is that it doesn't seem to like firefox, but that is likely a vista issue (faithful to XP on desktop).

Internal broadband and bluetooth work very well.