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(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

This is painful alright - to customers, Dell, Apple and even Sony. Virgin Atlantic recently announced that all Dell and Apple laptop batteries would be barred from usage in-flight. This means that unless the seat you’re in has “In Seat Power Supplies” (ISPS), you’ll have to dump your notebook batteries in your checked-in luggage.

One wonders whether other airlines will follow suit. After all, we’re talking about a multi-million unit battery recall (you might remember that Dell alone recalled 4.1 million batteries) - which will for sure take quite a while to complete.

FYI, if you own a Dell laptop, check out the website dedicated to the recall to see whether your laptop batteries are affected.

[News via The Mac Observer]

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A ~50% fall in net profit, and a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation is usually more than enough to make a corporate executive quake in his/her shoes. But it seems the Powers That Be aren’t done with Dell’s management just yet.

According to a BusinessWeek feature, Dell recently reported that the federal probe of its finances had widened, and it would not only drop a proposed stock buyback plan but also delay filing quarterly documents with the SEC.

But that ain’t all, so I suggest giving the BW feature a run through if you have some time to spare. Of course, that’s if you haven’t been burnt out by the recent deluge of “Dell’s in trouble” reports.

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(Source: Dell)

Along with three new Dell Dimension desktops, the relatively small and slim Dell XPS 210 desktop was unveiled yesterday.

With a nice sliver finish, the 4-foot-tall XPS 210 supports up to an Intel Core 2 Duo processor - though Pentium D processor options are still available for those on a tighter budget. Given its small form factor, it can be installed in either horizontally or vertically.

It ships with Windows Media Center by default, and has a starting price of US$1,190 - which does look a bit high until you consider the fact that this price includes 1-year of priority XPS service support.

[News via Dell]

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(Source: Dell)

As part of a four desktop rollout, three new Dell Dimensions were unveiled, i.e. the Dimension E520, E521 and C521 (pictured).

The E521 and C521 are both AMD-based PCs, with support of up to the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processor, while the E520 is an Intel-based one, with support of the newly-released Core 2 Duo processor.

While all come with Windows Media Center by default, they are all touted as Vista-capable. Nothing special really, but then, price is really all that matters, and Dell has certainly ensured a pretty high degree of competitiveness on that aspect via their starting prices of US$719, US$329 and US$359 for the E520, E521 and C521, respectively.

[News via Dell]

Read more news and reviews on the Dell Dimension C521 desktop.

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(Source: NotebookReview.com)

Being one of only two workstation-class notebooks in Dell’s catalog (officially at least, since a couple of XPS-class notebooks could probably pass as workstations), the Dell Precision M65 certainly has to be a strong offering, but how strong?

According to NotebookReview.com’s recent review, the M65 offers “…an excellent combination of workstation performance (including OpenGL compliance), solid build and businesslike appearance, in a 15.4″ notebook package that doesn’t preclude limited portability.”

As expected, performance, build and OpenGL graphics were plus points, though the M65’s relatively weak GPU was a definite drawback. But if the combination of a 1.83GHz Core Duo T2400 processor and 512MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 350M isn’t enough for you, then the sub-US$2000 price tag should compensate.

Overall, the 15.4″ machine gets a thumbs up and a solid verdict: “Though I don’t need OpenGL graphics, and any number of other business-class machines would probably have been fine, everything about this particular notebook suits me and the resolution alone has made me forget about the little bit of time, effort and money involved in replacing the e1705 and getting everything else sorted out. In addition to being a replacement for the e1705, this notebook is also a fine successor to the T40, and that’s just what I was looking for.”

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(Source: bit-tech.net)

The oh-so-delayed Dell XPS 700 finally falls into the hands of a review site, which is none other than bit-tech.net.

It’s a pity, however, that despite having the yet-to-be-released nVidia nForce 590 chipset, performance of Dell’s gaming monster failed to match bit-tech.net’s own custom rig - mostly due to Dell’s pathetically slow memory. The XPS 700’s design received mad props though.

Overall, they conclude that, “Dell has done what many thought would be beyond it - created a decent gaming system that hardcore enthusiasts would be happy to have on their desk. The engineers have nailed the industrial design and the core internal design, but the guys haven’t quite managed to get the components and the pricing right. But for all our ragging on the component specifications, Dell has really got the core of this system spot on, and for that it earns our Recommended award. However, we hope Dell takes our comments on board and sorts future machines out with the kind of components that will really make the Core 2 Duo processor shine - and at the right price.”

Read more news and reviews on the Dell XPS 700 gaming desktop.

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(Source: PCMag)

…according to NotebookReview.com’s monthly list, at least. Compared to last month, the 15.4″ Dell Inspiron e1505 has risen one spot to No. 2, beating the 13.3″ Sony Vaio SZ. It’s now second only to the 15.4″ Toshiba Satellite A105.

Dell also has a second entry on the list, with the XPS M1210 at No. 10 (previously at No. 5).

For those interested, at No. 4 is the Lenovo ThinkPad T60, while at No. 5 is the Apple MacBook.

Read more news and reviews on the Dell Inspiron E1505 notebook.

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University of Michigan’s American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) results were released last week, and they point to a 5.4% increase in Dell’s consumer satisfaction scores since last year. This is against an increase of only 2.5% for Apple (though Apple’s scores are still 5 points higher than Dell’s).

This is certainly the way to go for Dell, and is definitely a good follow-up to Dell’s B+ score in the recent Laptop Magazine tech. support investigation.

[News via Direct2Dell]

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Dell recently announced a heavy ~50% fall in net profit, which though significant, is only “slightly” greater than the 30% it forecasted internally and within the average forecasts of most analysts. This fall is attributed to greater competitive pressures and “more aggresive pricing in a slowing market”.

More worryingly (at least to the stock market) is news of an informal SEC investigation on how Dell’s handles its accounting. Further details on the investigation have not been revealed.

These two pieces of news come in the wake of a large-scale battery recall involving 4.1 million Sony-manufactured notebook batteries - though somewhat compensated by news that Dell could possibly begin pumping out AMD-based notebooks by Q4.

[News via Reuters]

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(Source: PC Advisor)

1.86 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 15″ LCD screen, 60GB HDD and 512MB DDR RAM. Which notebook? Well, the title of this post tells it all, but without it, I doubt anyone would be able to point me a model. The Dell Latitude D520 is just another 15″ laptop, with nothing particularly outstanding feature or design-wise.

But if that was all, PC Advisor probably wouldn’t have awarded it a 9 out of 10 rating for Value for Money in their recent review of the machine. Yep, as usual, it’s the price tag that brings the D520 to the fore. But admittedly, at £763 or US$1439 (including VAT) [before the traditional discounts BTW], it doesn’t really look it.

Anyway, their verdict? Well, “Provided you don’t want it to double up as an entertainment tool, the Latitude has everything that a good business laptop should have: a good turn of speed, long battery life and high build quality. The price tag should please, too.”

Read more news and reviews on the Dell Latitude D520 notebook.

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