I ordered a new laptop from Dell (yeah yeah yeah … I said I wasn’t going to buy another Dell).

The estimated ship date for the order is August 27th.

The order went from “Order Accepted” to “Boxing” in about 6 hours … and it’s been sitting in Boxing since then.

Of course I had horid thoughts about the box sitting on a Dell dock for 7 days just so they can meet their shipping estimate.

Turns out the computers are actually built in Malaysia … and when the order status shows ‘Boxing’, the computers are being shipped to the Dell distribution factility in Tennessee. Once in Tennessee it takes another day to be truly ‘Boxed’ up and shipped out.

Hopefully the new machine will be here by the end of next week.

As for why I’m getting another Dell … I use my laptop as my primary system … so I really need a port replicator … not one of those silly USB models either. I need a ‘hard point’ that I can permanently leave devices connected and still get full throughput on everything (lan, usb, etc). Unforunately there are relatively few systems that have port replicator capabilities. The IBM and Compaq models priced about the same as the Dell … and I’ve already got experience with the Dell hardware.

We’ll see how it goes.