Dell's Adamo XPS Not Actually Dead, Just Very Confused

Last week we reported that Dell's Adamo XPS was apparently dead after it vanished from the company's website, online store, and was listed as out-of-stock everywhere but a handful of Best Buys. It didn't make sense for Dell to have canceled the product just three months after shipping, but customer service reps at both Dell and BB were reporting that the Adamo XPS had been discontinued. Customers interested in still buying one were advised by Best Buy to order immediately.


Dell contacted us after our original story and promised to get back in touch over what was going on with the ultra-thin laptop. A company rep posted a blog entry addressing the disappearing/reappearing notebook over at Direct2Dell. In addition to announcing that the Adamo XPS is once again for sale, the rep states:

When folks discovered we had removed the Adamo XPS from online a couple of weeks ago there was some speculation that we had discontinued the product - this is not the case...To avoid customer issues with longer lead times for online purchases, our intent was to point customers to key retail partners until we were able to build up sufficient supply...In retrospect we could have done a better job communicating externally- and internally -that the Adamo XPS was still available at select Best Buy stores and on bestbuy.com. Unfortunately, lacking full information, some of our own sales reps incorrectly told customers the product was no longer available -something we've corrected.

We're glad that the Adamo XPS is back on sales, but the communications cock-up was even more muddled than Dell is admitting. It wasn't just Dell's customer support claiming that the laptop was canceled—Best Buy said it was as well. When CrunchGear originally shopped in-store availability, they found exactly one laptop in New Jersey and none in "Detroit, Flint, San Francisco, SoCal, Denver, Phoenix, Philidelphia, Boston, Minneapolis, upstate New York, or New York City."

God only knows what caused this snafu, but it was likely more than a poorly worded sentence in a company email. The XPS-flavored Adamo is back on Sale at Dell as of this writing with an estimated ship date of 4/8/2010. Oddly enough, adding an external DVD-RW delays the ship date a full 11 days to 4/19/2010. We spot-checked some other models to compare shipping dates; Inspiron and Studio models are listed as shipping between 3/29 and 4/5/2010. Core i3/i5 models trend towards the later dates, Core 2 Duo or Celeron systems tend to ship earlier. The two standard Adamo models, Onyx and Pearl, are both listing at 3/29/09 with an external DVD-RW, leaving us a bit curious as to why the this option shoves the XPS back so much.

Oh well. It's available. Want it? Go buy it. And Dell, if we might offer a word of advice, we suggest an "Out of Stock" button next time.