Xps M140

Does anyone have one of these yet? I ordered one today, it's supposed to ship on December 8. It pretty much exactly fits my wants and needs, and the 18 months no interest financing deal (which I think ends today) sealed it for me.

I currently have an Inspiron 3800 that I've had for years and it's been 100% rock solid (I've even dropped it a couple of times with no ill effects). I'm hoping the M140 will live up to this legacy of reliability.

I was just wondering if anyone else ordered one of these and if so have you recieved it yet? Any impressions?

One other thing I wanted to mention, I have been waiting a few weeks to order one hoping there would be a coupon or some kind of price-reducing deal. They never came out with one, but I did notice this past week they eliminated the 40 GB hard drive option, making the 60 GB drive the "base" drive, and the prices shifted accordingly (so the 80 GB drive now costs what the 60 GB drive used to cost, etc.). This effectively works out to a price decrease if you wanted a 60+ GB drive. Not much but it helped. (I got an 80 GB, BTW.)

 

I'm in Europe, so I've ordered the Inspiron 630m, which I believe is pretty much the same machine. It pretty much was just what I needed in a laptop, fairly small yet with enough processing power and Ram (1.86ghz and 768mb) for my needs. I didn't want to be using it for games, other than the occasional game of Football Manager 2006 which is entirely made up of screens of statistics, so didn't want to go having a dedicated graphics card I'd never use. The only thing I'd have liked is a higher resolution so that I could run that game in windowed mode, but it's really not a big deal at all. My main use for the machine will be internet, email, listening to music and watching video, as well as storing and editing my digital photos. The 80gb HD should be more than enough storage space for that.

I ordered it on the 13th of November, and the delivery estimate is the 23rd, but it doesn't look as if it's happening as it's still pre-production. I emailed Dell, no reply yet but I'm waiting to see what they say about it.

 

Ours just came in yesterday, expect a formal first thoughts soon.

 

Mathew: It's strange yours is still in pre-production, because right now, about 12 hours after I ordered it, mine is supposedly already in the testing phase! That according to the order status. My ship date hasn't changed though.

Brian: Thanks, can't wait to hear what you have to say.

 

Got a reply to my mail saying my order had now gone into production and I could expect it in 3-5 days. I don't know if it was coincidence that this happens the day after I emailed them. Dell's page still says pre-production though.. will give it a few hours to update.

Edit: Rather odd.. now I have production, but it says production started on Monday the 14th!

 

And it shipped this morning! Woohoo!

 

I just ordered the M140 last night! I'm glad I did -- now they're forcing people to buy the DJ Ditty so the starting price is $1088! Geez you'd think if they were forcing a bundle on folks that it would be cheaper than the combined total.

Oh, well. To those on the fence, you may want to wait until a good coupon for XPS notebooks come out. Either way, it'll be a wait. My ship date is 12/9.

Psst... Hey, there are some folks getting 15-20% off $1299-1499 coupons in their email box that work on XPS (and are stackable with the $50/100 regifting coupons).

 

You shouldn't be forced to buy software. When you pick a Dell model you are directed to a screen with 4 bundle choices. If you choose the cheapest one it really shouldn't include any extra software that you can't opt out of. If you choose the highest level some of the bundled software is listed in a way that you cannot uncheck it. If experiment and customize it the same under each bundle it should be exactly the same price so there is no advantage in picking one initial bundle over another.

I just bought a 9300 the other day and an M140 last night. Both times I built it online and phoned in the order. I told the guy I was a returning customer each time and wanted a discount. I received 10% off each order. In the first order he just gave it to me. The second I asked flat out for a 15% discount and he gave me 10%. How you build it online should match the price the sales rep initially gives you exactly, before the discount. So if you play your cards right you should get your online price minus 10%.

 

whiz, great info on the phone haggling! I ordered my M140 last night as well, and wish I had called them. I was actually going to ask for 10%, but I was satisfied with the 15% and $50 coupons I had. I do wish I had upgraded to 80GB! Oh, well, don't feel like changing it now.

BTW, this morning the starting price was $1088, no joke. It had the free DVD burner and "free" DJ Ditty (it's an MP3 flash player, $89 value). Now the site has the $999 starting price but lists the DVD burner as an $89 option (even though the offer is still listed above), making the base price w/DVD burner added = $1088 again.

If anyone is interested in buying the M140, I would wait until the website is corrected or better yet call like whiz did. Good luck!

 

The "DJ Ditty" thing wasn't there when I ordered on Monday. (I got the "free MusicMatch" option. If fact if you click the "Help Me Choose" under the DJ Ditty option you'll get MusicMatch information.)

You're right, the free DVD burner option is gone.

The other option that has changed since I ordered it is that they're now offering a 512 MB "1 Dimm" option; when I ordered your only option was 2 Dimms. That's fine with me as I'm going to dump what's in there and order 2 GB from Crucial anyway.

Mine is still "testing," the ship date hasn't changed. The last item I ordered from Dell (a desktop) shipped before the listed ship date, so I'm kind of hoping the laptop will too, especially considering how quickly it went from order to production to testing (about 12 hours--if you can believe what the order status page says).

 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I am on the m140 right now! it is really a nice machine.

 

The speed at which my order went through production, testing and packing makes me wonder if the email I sent to them had anything to do with it, and if I'd not contacted them would it still be pre-production. I can't check the tracking on UPS from work, but it was in transit as of about 2:30pm yesterday afternoon, and that was in Ireland. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll have it this evening.

 

what?

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Well my M140 shipped almost 2 weeks ahead of schedule and now is enroute according to UPS tracking... hooray!