A week after adding its budget-priced Inspiron laptops to the list of delayed systems, Dell blamed paint problems for the logjam, the same explanation it used almost a month ago for shipping snafus with the top-of-the-line XPS M1330 laptop.
In a post to the Direct2Dell blog on Friday, Dell’s digital media manager, Lionel Menchaca, repeated what another executive had said in early August about the higher-priced XPS.
“I know that many of you have seen the blog posts about the XPS M1330 delays, but many customers are asking for details behind the Inspiron delays,” said Menchaca.
“Colour options are the main source of delay on Inspiron notebooks. Basic colors like black are easier to produce. Premium colors and finishes like we use on the Inspiron models introduce complexity into the process, and that’s holding things up.”
The Inspiron 1720, 1721, 1520, 1521 and 1420 models — all launched in late June along with the M1330 — can be ordered in eight hues, including basic black or white, as well as brown, red, blue, green, pink or yellow. Dell has tagged the line with the marketing slogan “Yours is Here.”