How do you buy an X50V. Rant & Rave...

[dyno]

I would like to purchase an Axim X50v. I have an internet connection and a credit card. Should I be able to purchase an X50v through Dell? Maybe not!

1st purchase attempt I ordered the X50v on special offer at 15% off + free delivery and TV card thrown in. + ordered accessories such a extra large battery. After reading in forums about large battery not fitting in some cases, contacted Dell only hours later to change order for standard battery. Tech support Advice - "Dell cannot amend an order" so I needed to cancel. (Have to wait upto 72 hours to get cancel authorisation) then recreate order.

Recreated order and was confirmed online as still having offer of 15% off. However Order confirmation arrived next day now not showing offer price and was £85 more than I agreed during purchase. Customer services reported a billing problem and cancelled order. Asked me to recreate order again.

Decided a third attempt to purchase but use the order phoneline instead. What a mistake! The salesman has no real knowledge of the products on offer and kept specifying that I wanted the Tom Tom GPS package. (err no...I mainly use public transport and can find my way to the railway station OK without GPS. LOL) He had no knowledge of the 15% off offer being shown online. (I Recommended he visit www.dell.co.uk for details) but he then instisted in contacting Sales (Thought he was), then phoning me back in 10 mins. No phoneback yet. Been 40 mins.

Half the problem is that some reps spoken English is quite poor and a conversation near impossible at times. When I compained about my discount not being shown on my order, the rep kept reading out my order and did not understand what a discount offer was!!!
Some outsourced call centers within India have actually provided a good service to me in the past. (Not that im happy about this outsourcing situation) However Dell seems not to have the high standard which is required when the customer base your serving is North American\European English speaking countries.
Guess i'll have to order the Ipaq 4700 instead. Will probably get it by the weekend as well........
Stop Press. Just got call back by another Dell Sales person. She is Indian but her level of English was very good. She was also very polite and helpfull. Hurray!! Because of this have gone ahead and managed to place order. She's has even given me her name and personnal extension number incase of problems. Order placed. Lets hope it turns up working.

Ipaq on hold for now as X50v is my prefered choice.

[tpet]

I'm in Canada, and we also had a hell of a time ordering the X50. Our first order was placed back in November, they were suppose to send us a confirmation and it never came. Hubby waited until first week or two of December before following up, they indicated the order would not come on time for Christmas .. so he cancelled it

January 11 we placed yet another order and I'm still waiting for delivery

I have one comment GREAT products ... crappy customer service and delivery!

[dyno]

I'd hate to think how much custom Dell are loosing. I was torn between the X50V and IPAQ 4700. I could get the IPAQ with next day delivery at a reasonable price if you look around. When Dell give you a 14 day estimate at delivery times, ridged ordering system, and Dell's reputation at poor customer service, there isn't much to keep you with the Dell brand. Only semi-reasonable pricing and HOPEFULLY a good piece of kit.
Lots of people have given up ordering Dell's due to timescale and ordering probs. Im willing to wait until delivery date, but any further holdups and im taking the IPAQ route.
Surely as Dell are the only suppliers of their kit, they should keep up with their competition and provide a service similar to other online retailers. eg. 3 day delivery times, courier options etc.
Long leadtimes for bulk orders may have been acceptable when dealing with companies, however when you deal with 1 off orders from the public, people want the goods within a couple of days, have the flexability to add\remove from orders not dispatched and have a reasonable tracking system.
If amazon.com took 72 hours to give confirmation of an order, then a 2 week delivery date for something that was instock, nobody would use them. Luckily they don't ,but Dell should look into their ordering and delivery system otherwise they stand to loose lots of custom.

Hopefully with Christmas out of the way, there will not be too many back orders to hold up my delivery.
Good luck for anyone still awaiting an order.