Anyone here ever ordered from Dell.com? Specifically, big monitors?

I put in an order on Thursday November 4 for 2 20.1" LCD monitors. That night under my order status it said "In Pre-Production." TODAY IT STILL SAYS THE SAME THING (NOV. 15!). They have an estimated ship date of November 22!

I understand how Dell works, how they don't actually stock this stuff but come on, should it really take this long?

And I emailed them 5 days ago just asking why it would take so long. I was very nice and not hot-headed at all, just said that I was curious and anxious to get these (very cool) new monitors on my desk at my home office. NO REPLY!!!

I'm sorry I just wanted to vent!

I've dealt with Dell far more than any human should ever have to. Used to work far too closely with them when I worked as an IT director at UCF. All I can say is that I don't think I would take a Dell if they gave it to me for free, unless it was to pawn it off on some poor unsuspecting soul.

Their customer service was atrocious (one year, my department spent almost $1 million dollars with them and still got treated like crap!) and from what I hear, since it's moved overseas for the most part, has deteriorated further. Good luck with 'em.

Your best bet is always to use the phone over e-mail.

They are probably understocked in those LCDs and can't fulfill all the orders.

I have ups and downs with dell. My home computer and laptop are both dell. I had problems with my laptop and was having trouble getting through to the people over the phone. Finally one guy set things up for it to be picked and fixed. The laptop was picked up the next day and repaired and returned 4 days later.

Both of the computers were bought on line, but took almost 2 weeks to be delivered and I live in Texas.

Someone on another forum was just expressing their excitement for receiving the same LCD just in time for HL2. When questioned about shipment time:

I ordered it on the 4th.

Dell said it would ship the 22nd.

I received it on the 15th.

You might just check your online status, maybe it's on the way.

Thanks for the replies guys.

Karate - no, just checked the status and it's the same. Your post made me excited, thanks for nothing! hahaha j/k :)

Well I just found a pretty good deal and the company has a dell account so I went for it. I think maybe it's the products I got (http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=320-1578&category_id=4009).

I got my 2001fp quite a while ago and only had to wait about a week for it. Dell doesn't have a large on hand inventory so you're pretty much stuck waiting for them to get shipments in before they can then send the product out. Considering all of the insane deals they've been having on those 2001fp's the past few months I imagine there is quite a long waiting list for it.

I got my 2001fp quite a while ago and only had to wait about a week for it. Dell doesn't have a large on hand inventory so you're pretty much stuck waiting for them to get shipments in before they can then send the product out. Considering all of the insane deals they've been having on those 2001fp's the past few months I imagine there is quite a long waiting list for it.
Lucky. :)

Yeah I have heard that they don't have a large inventory, what's up with that? You'd think they would have a big stock of these monitors in a warehouse. Oh well.

That was a pretty decent deal on that monitor don't you think?

Thanks for the reply (everyone).

Lucky. :)

Yeah I have heard that they don't have a large inventory, what's up with that? You'd think they would have a big stock of these monitors in a warehouse. Oh well.

That was a pretty decent deal on that monitor don't you think?

Thanks for the reply (everyone). It costs money to have warehouses, keep track of large inventory, etc. By having stuff built on demand they eliminate a lot of overhead.

It costs money to have warehouses, keep track of large inventory, etc. By having stuff built on demand they eliminate a lot of overhead.

Plus, with the way prices drop on these things it's not good economics to stock stuff that is essentially depreciating in value every day. Accounting doesn't like excess inventory.

I wouldn't mind if their web pages and checkout process clearly stated that the ship date would be 2-3 weeks after my order is placed, but this is NOT obvious anywhere. I also don't appreciate the fact that they didn't return my emails (I checked the spam folders both in Outlook and on the server; these guys just did not reply).

I'll think very hard before ordering from Dell again.

Weird, it told me the estimated ship date when I ordered mine.

Hey everyone just got an email, the monitors are on their way! Should be here tomorrow, yay!!

They're using DHL for shipping instead of UPS, interesting. Their tracking web pages are not as good as UPS', but not bad either.

I'll take a pic when they come in after I get them on my desk. :)

PS - I'm getting old. So nerdy. I'm excited about computer stuff. lol

PS - I'm getting old. So nerdy. I'm excited about computer stuff. lol

You are not getting nerdy. Now, about old, well I can't comment on that since I couldn't wait for my laptop to arrive when I ordered it from Dell 2 years ago and this was right around Christmas. So who knows, this may be a sign of getting old, but I am not the best one to say.

Sorry, I don't have the digital camera at the house right now, just used my phone.

LOL we had an old LCD Widescreen (SiliconGraphics) monitor with the card sitting at the office a few months ago, nobody was using it so I asked if I could borrow it to try 3 monitors. WOAH it's almost too much LOL. :)

Anyway here they are if anyone cares:

http://208.0.164.12/JSF/3monitors.jpg

Pretty neat.. How does that work? Do you have 2 graphic cards in your computer, with one card running one monitor and the other card running 2 monitors? Also, is it possible to run 2 lcds in digital mode? I think my graphics card can run 2 monitors but if I remember correctly, it only has one digital output so I would have to run one of the monitors in analog mode.

Pretty neat.. How does that work? Do you have 2 graphic cards in your computer, with one card running one monitor and the other card running 2 monitors? Also, is it possible to run 2 lcds in digital mode? I think my graphics card can run 2 monitors but if I remember correctly, it only has one digital output so I would have to run one of the monitors in analog mode.
I have the ATI All In Wonder 9600XT, it runs the 2 dell LCD monitors. It is an incredible video card! The built in TV Tuner is GREAT, MUCH better than WINTV (I had that before). Does everything a TIVO or DVR does and more. It will save to VCD, MPG, etc., does "see through desktop" (makes the tv channel your desktop image, transparent), has a radio, plays DVDs very well, etc. The other monitor is running off of another video card that it came with.

Regarding digital output, well these 2 Dells supposidly will do DVI but I don't have the cable for it. I'm not 100% sure that this card will do DVI even on 1 of the outputs but I am assuming it will at least do 1, I just need to look into it. Right now it's just hooking up the 2 monitors with standard video cables. I am about to go look on ATI's website to research this actually, supposidly the DVI looks way better.

Apparently this card also could do HDTV if I had the right monitor, now that would be something!

Ok, thanks for the info. Also making a tv show your desktop wallpaper sounds neat. I didn't know you could do that.

I have an ATI card too but it doesn't have a built in TV Tuner. However I don't think cards can record hdtv from a digital cable signal. I think they can only record from "over the air" hdtv.

If they could record hdtv from a digital signal, then I'd think about getting hdtv. I would record hdtv shows to an external hard drive, then at night, when I'm ready to hit the sack, I'd plug the external hard drive into a laptop, connect the laptop to a nice lcd monitor, and swing the monitor overhead, using an arm like the one at
http://www.lcdarms.com/LCDarms/7601-14.asp