So when I ordered the Dell XPS12 on the 8th January I was told it would definitely ship by the 21st January. I had an online chat with the sales person because I had noticed that the shipping date on Dell’s website kept going back a day every day.

Now, I need a new laptop because my trusty old Samsung P510 is playing up a bit. I told the salesperson this and said I needed it urgently for my business but was concerned about the delivery date moving backwards. I was assured that the shipping date would be the 21st January.

Dell XPS12

The Dell XPS12 is an intriguing take on the problem of combining a laptop with a tablet PC. I am sure you could buy both a laptop and a tablet for less than this machine costs but that’s missing the point. This is one attractive piece of technology that hits the sweet spot in many areas and why carry two devices when you can carry just one. The one I have ordered has the new 4th generation Intel Haswell 1.9GHz Core i7-4500U processor. It has 8GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD. The display is a 12.5 inch, full HD (1080) IPS touchscreen with gorilla glass panel and a pixel density of 176ppi.

Obviously, I kept checking on my order status and it remained briefly at the 21st before jumping to the 22nd after a day. The alarm bells started ringing but It remained at the 22nd for a week. Today, however, it has jumped back to the 30th January!

I got straight on the phone for an explanation and further reassurances that there would be no further slippage but didn’t get any. One CS rep told me it was due to an unexpectedly high demand (probably due to the excellent press Dell XPS12 has been getting lately – see here for an example) and another admitted that their order for the displays had not been fulfilled by their own suppliers so they couldn’t build them yet.

I know that companies constantly have to revise shipping dates due to all sorts of reasons but it’s a bit galling when I specifically said, at the time of ordering, that the delivery schedule was very important to me. I suppose my mistake was telling them that my order depended on a re-assurance that it would ship when they said it would. The result was quite the opposite to what I intended!

EDIT: The order status has now changed to “shipped” as of 17th January with an expected delivery of 24th January. I don’t know what changed but I did send a twitter complaint to Dell and wonder whether that made any difference?

EDIT 24/1/14: Well they missed the delivery date and it is now saying 27th January on their tracker system. No courtesy email or anything – just a missed date.

EDIT 26/1/14: Apparently it is now in their depot in Sheffield and will be delivered by “UK Mail” tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

EDIT 4/2/14: Sorry for the delay in updating about this. Yes, it did arrive on the 27th and UKMail delivered it exactly when they said – within the 11am-3pm timeframe. Well done UK Mail. I can tell you that the laptop is superb and I’ll be writing a review about when I’ve had the chance to evaluate it properly.