Update for anyone interested…
I ordered a Mini9 with XP for my wife, and a Mini9 Ubuntu for myself. Both were ordered around 8:00pm on the first day they were available for purchase. With the exception of OS both units are identical, 16GB SSD, 1.3 webcam, and 1GB of RAM. Within an hour I had my estimated shipping dates: Sep 19 for the XP and Oct 10th for the Ubuntu. The XP system shipped an entire day early on the 18th. As of October 11th my ship date had been changed from October 10th to November 7th. After calling Dell and politely working my way up the ranks of support and managers, I was told that the webcam / Ubuntu combo is causing the hold up. Apparently, and this is from the words of a Dell Support Manager, they haven’t gotten the webcam working yet. This was after being told that the OS wasn’t readily available….right… So they went on to explain that once they figure out how to get the webcam working in Linux, they will ship it. Props go to Dell for offering products that they claim work, exist, etc,…Taking my money…Not shipping a product… And not even sending an email to explain the hold up.
On top of everything else, I tried to get Dell to throw me something for my troubles. A T-shirt, Bluetooth upgrade, or even a stinking USB drive for being a patient customer / reseller. Yeah, they offered to cancel my order if I wanted… Nice.
Searching the web will yield various results as to the actual hold-up. The only piece of seemingly factual information that I was able to find suggested that the hold-up was due to a shortage of chassis plastic or some such.
Considering the numerous issues with shipping, partitioning, and manufacturing; things look pretty sloppy for Dell as far as I am concerned.
As of right now I have not canceled my order…yet.
–Himuraken