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Dell announced their new small form factor laptop the Inspiron Mini 9 yesterday. According to their website, the small laptop is "your new best friend." A post on engadget.com revealed a link to the Direct2Dell blog announcing a US only promotion to purchase a Mini for only $99 with the purchase of a Studio 15, XPS M1530 or XPS 1330 laptop through 6 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9th.
Perfect, I need a new laptop, and have been pricing out a Studio 15 for about three weeks now. A second laptop for $99 more...bring it on! Yesterday, I configured a great (for me and my wife) 15, hooked up with 2.0 Core Duo, 3GB of memory, 256MB ATI graphics card, and free 2 day shipping. Under the Add My Software and Accessories tab, I added the $99 Ubuntu laptop, saved my cart and emailed it to myself (had to wait for Friday's paycheck.)
Well, Friday morning is here and my cart with the Mini 9 is no longer available. After a 10 minute wait to chat with a Dell rep (and a switch to Internet Explorer since chat wouldn't work with Firefox), the rep told me they are, "...communicating with our marketing department about this promotion...," and promised to call me once they have the details sorted out.
I will keep you updated as information becomes available. We here at Den Spitzhacke take this very seriously.
UPDATE:
After perusing the Direct2Dell blog, and reading the subsequent post on engadget, it looks like Dell has baited and switched us on this deal. They will only let you buy select laptops now. Funny, their posting on their blog didn't mention these specific laptops. The laptops had to be Studio 15s or select XPS's.
I don't want their overpriced, 3 year warranty, Studio 15 for $1048. I want my configured Studio 15 for $699. What gives Dell? How are you going to make this right?
UPDATE 2:
Well, after configuring and reconfiguring, I have finally got my Studio 15 and Mini 9. Luckily, through my employment, we have an employee purchase program. I built my Studio 15 to my specs, and the Mini 9 came up as an accessory. I could even customize it (and did!)
After some intense waiting for the checkout process to finish, I got confirmation of my two new laptops!
Judging by the fact that last night I could configure my own Studio 15 and add the $99 Mini 9, it seems that Dell will honor all Studio 15 purchases, eventually. I think they don't have their sales and marketing teams together yet. Be patient. I think Dell wants to make this right!
