I was feeling left out!
I ordered my XPS1710 back in early August. Every week, within 48 hours of the due date, it would slip back by another week. Every week I rang them up and whined about it and was given assurances and promises. But all I could find online were complaints about the 1310 being out of stock - I was feeling left out!
At last, it's admitted there is a problem with the 1710 as well. It's too late for me, I cancelled my order after the 5th delay and broken promise a few weeks ago, and now have a nice Toshiba, delivered the next day from Dabs (well, it should have been if Amtrak hadn't screwed up but that's another tale). I suspected something was up with the 1710s because Dell were more than happy to let me cancel this £2K laptop order without even making a vague attempt to convince me not to, which is not like them at all!