Ordered a XPS? What's your status??

Still in pre production, but I didn't order unitl the 21st. Shipping estimate is the 17th.

Just pulled the trigger!

ESTIMATED SHIP DATE: on or before Mar 16, 2004


Well i just pulled the trigger on an XPS! I Used the $175.00 off coupon posted in the coupons section of this site (nice). After looking at the other notebooks with desktop processors & 128 meg cards, i think this machine is really the best option, considering all the various factors. Here are the pros as far as I see it:

Pros:

-The only laptop currently for sale with the ATI 9700
-We'll prolly get the opportunity to upgrade our vid card to 256 meg version in late summer
-Very good initial reviews by all the major hardware sites / geek tech sites.
-I had an 8600 a year or so ago, and Dell was always good about keeping their drivers updated when i found imcompatibilities, etc. with games i was running
-Cooling. From the looks of it, vents, etc., I think this machine will stay cool - i hope this machine doesnt' sound like a hair dryer.
-Even if, in 3 weeks, Alienware, Vodoo, Sager, etc.., release comparable machines, I'm confident that in the long run, this type of laptop would be better purchased from a large manufacturer like Dell, because of the support, drivers, and quality control (hopefully there's a high standard of that)

Cons:

-Not the prettiest machine in the world. ( I have 3 macs at home )
-The 8600 i used to have, had a poor build quality. It just felt cheap, and the top case scratched easily. Hopefully this problem is fixed.
-I wasn't able to purchase an additional hard drive in checkout. Doesn't the XPS support a secondary hard drive where the CD / DVD bay goes?
-The snap on covers are kind of gay. It would be nice if they offered like 100 different kinds. Nevertheless, i got the Cipher.

Has anyone ordered one with Skullz?

I ordered the skullz, well actually, it was thrown in after the fact. If I don't like it, I'll just unsnap it. As I didn't pay for it, I couldn't give a rat'sass what it look likes. The others are a bit too flashy for me.

I got plasma--but I'll never use it. Didn't even want it--no big deal.

Congrats--may we all have a kick azz machine.

Ordered mine the 14th... showing estimated ship date as March 15th and status is, unfortunately, still in Pre-Production... =(

I'm just hoping they'll get whatever they need early, so we can get our laptops early!

Yeah, I just used the extra $175 to buy one today, too...estimated ship date is on or before March 16...made it to pre-production in less than 8 hours, but I assume that's where it's going to stay for awhile, considering these posts...

Anyhow, I was going to get a Sager when the 8790 came out in early March (the one with 9700 card), but they just are NOT planning on offering anything other than the 1440x900 WXGA, which I think is absolutely ridiculous given the capabilities of the ATI graphics chip...I'm not talking about resolution per se, just the response time/ghosting issues in video games & etc. I figured I'd go with the Dell right now since all the reviews I've heard of the ~25ms screen are stellar. Apparently, Dell was showing off the laptop at major hardware sites on the net prior to actually offering it for purchase...you can actually see reviews and benchmarks on www.anandtech.com, www.tomshardware.com, and check out praise for the screen on www.hardocp.com... just look under 'ATI Mobility 9700' reviews. Kyle (the guru at hardocp) actually said the following about Sager versus Dell screens (the Dell is the 'mystery box' with 1920x1200 rez):

"Before we get to the gaming outline, I'd like to describe the LCD display. We were recently supplied with a Sager notebook by PowerNotebooks. It was a very fine machine that had a native 1600 pixel wide display that allowed you to work with two full-size pages open. However, the Achilles' heel of the machine was the LCD response rate. In the past, ghosting in games on laptops, a condition caused by a slow LCD response rate, was not that much of an issue, for one reason. The reason was that games were not running at high enough framerates to really make the issue apparent. With our PowerNotebooks unit, the CPU and VPU power (Mobility Radeon 9600) was enough to make you realize that the LCD display response time needed to be lower for gaming to look the way it should.

The LCD display we used [on the M11 mystery box] had a native 1920 pixel wide resolution, and it was simply one of the finest displays I have ever seen...on anything, not just notebooks. Sadly, at this time we're not able to share any more specs or information with you, but let's just say that it was fully "up to snuff" whether working in Word or killing Nazis. This is the first notebook we've seen that had enough LCD display horsepower to keep up with ATI's speedy Mobility Radeon technology."

Woohoo!

Let's keep each other posted in this thread, and the first guy who gets theirs better post a HUGE review with benchmarks!

Sweet Ass Keyboard / Mouse Combo

Fellow XPS Owners,

Since we just tossed out about 3 g's on a new laptop, why not spend a little bit more for a bad ass wireless mouse / keyboard combo:

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/pr...CONTENTID=7321

This one is pretty sweet, gotta go - lunchtime -

Well I finally ordered my XPS laptop (Feb 25) and got an estimated ship date of March 11. Man, if I would have ordered last week I would be getting it in the first week of March (maybe). I think my shipping date is earlier than the others because I believe it is already available in Canada (don't quote me on it though). On the dell.com site it states a preliminary ship date of March 17 where on dell.ca there isn't one. All I know in 15 days or less I should be getting my first notebook. Very Intense!

I originally ordered mine on 13 Feb but cancelled that and re-ordered on 17 Feb so I could get the 15% small business discount. Yesterday they messed up my order and cancelled it so I had to call them today to have them redo it. Mine shows the 17 Mar date also as the delivery date ..

quick question, when ordering the xps, is it cheaper to buy another stick of 512 dual channel ddr RAM or would it be cheaper to buy it directly from dell ?

It depends on if you're willing to risk having problems (lockups, etc)... you might be able to get the ram cheaper other places, but you won't have problems getting it from dell...

I suppose, I"m gonna call them back tooday and MAYBE get it, do you think its necessary if I plan to game a lot?

Cancelled / Re-ordered

Everyone: Take advantage of the 10% off / Free Shipping on all Dell Notebooks. I cancelled my order last night, and placed the exact same XPS order using the 10% off / Free Shipping and i saved about $80 bucks or so. I pushed my delivery date back 2 days, but who cares, eighty bucks is eighty bucks.

My XPS order just moved into production, let's see how long this will take.

Searay, when did you place your order? and in what country?

Memnoch.

I placed the order on 2-17, the USA.