Well, I am happy to report that Dell has come through! After a week and a half and several follow up calls from Mitch -probably the best person Dell has- letting me know it was being built and was on it's way, the new computer arrived. (I have 10 days to send back the old one, free shipping.) It looks almost identical to my previous one. I noticed a few small scratches, but they had warned me it would be refurbished.
Then I checked the components.
After telling me the specs would all be the same, they sent me the new one with double the ram, a larger hard drive, and a more powerful processor. Dell really wanted to make me happy.
So there it is; hopefully the whole story. The good, the bad, and the ugly. It's been pretty frustrating overall, but for now Dell deserves some credit for going above and beyond. Well done.
