I ordered the beast from Gateway. It's an M275, sort of a blend of a notebook PC and Tablet PC. Gateway sells it as a Notebook, but I bought it because it is a tablet. Huge, crystal clear screen! I don't say this often but this beast is sweet.
Anyway, I had ordered it three weeks ago, and the educational rep got back to us with a quote two mondays ago. I ordered it the same day, and was told shipping would be 3 weeks (arriving after TechEd was over). My boss pleaded to see if anything could be done, and the rep said that, since the system was built overseas, the delivery date was set to this monday (the day after I left for TechEd) and there was nothing to be done about it.
Yesterday, I got a bill for the machine, so I followed up to see whether it had been shipped yet. Wowsers. Shipped from Shanghai, China on Tuesday afternoon, and checked into Anchorage, AK on Tuesday morning. I did the timezone math and decided that there was nothing wrong with that data. This morning at 4:00 AM, the tablet was checked into Chelmsford, MA after stopping yesterday in North Carolina. By noontime, it was in my grubbly little paws.
Yippee. Now to get it primed for TechEd.