Brand new Dell XPS L701X Touchpad NOT working straight out of the box!

Hello,

I just received my brand new XPS L701X (ordered from UK, shipped by dell from China). As soon as I started it up and got to the Windows 7 setup screen, I noticed that the touchpad was not working (mouse pointer stuck in one corner). I plugged in an external USB mouse and got through the Windows setup.

Then I went onto Dell's site and downloaded latest Synaptics driver for the laptop and installed it just fine and rebooted. Still no luck. The buttons are working fine (once I move mouse pointer to a link using external mouse, I can click using left button below touchpad, or even right click to get menu).

After a while I discovered that if I put my thumb down sideways on the touchpad and start moving my thumb very very fast, the pointer will suddenly click into action. If I then slow down my thumb movement, the pointer continues to move at normal speed. But as soon as I lift my thumb, and then try to use the touchpad normally, it becomes unresponsive again (I can repeat the thumb movements to kick the pointer into action again).

I am pretty certain that this is NOT a software issue. I put in an Acronis boot disc and booted the laptop from it (so, eliminating Windows). It brings up the graphical interface for Acronis and the touchpad behaves the exact same way as I described above (only very fast movements with thumb's side will kick pointer into action).

Is this definitely a hardware issue? Is there something wrong with BIOS/firmware (I tried to update laptop BIOS as well, but it said it was up-to-date).

I have to say I'm quite disappointed. This is my third Dell (first one purchased in UK, previous two were from US, which were both made in Malaysia and not China). I did not expect something with such an obvious defect to pass the quality testing before being shipped out (unless it has been damaged during shipment... but I doubt that).