I just bought a Dell laptop with windows 8. While trying to "Finish setting up my account setup", I click on "resend email" and automatically get an email saying "We were unable to send you an email. Try again later".

What can I do to solve this issue?

Hi,

As my understanding, you issue is that the Microsoft account was failed to setup due to the error We were unable to send you an email. Try again later.

In order to identify your issue, please help to clarify this question: which site did you use to set up a Microsoft account?

Then, lets start your windows in Clean boot mode, and try to apply the Microsoft account again. As this issue can be caused by third part conflict or security service preventing.

How to perform a clean boot to troubleshoot a problem in Windows 8, Windows 7, or Windows Vista

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135  

Please let me know the test results and post the screenshot of this error message here for further research.

Hope these could be helpful and keep post.