House of Dell | The Unofficial Dell Weblog, with News, Reviews, and Information.

(Source: PC World)

Dell may not be famous for being very creative, but you must admit that the newly launched Dell XPS M2010 is pretty unique. For one, although it features a 20.1″ widescreen display, the hinges on the display also serve as handles - proving a sort of portability to the system.

Of course, considering that we are talking about a 20.1″ monitor, a Core Duo Intel processor, up to 4GB RAM, eight built-in speakers with a sub-woofer, and a slot-loading DVD drive, weight will be a clear obstacle to its so-called portability.

In any case, it does look pretty good, both feature and design-wise. And yes, I dig its detachable Bluetooth keyboard as well.

More information and reviews on the Dell XPS M2010 here.

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(Source: bit-tech.net)

Like the Dell XPS 700’s design but hate its innards (and concomitant price level)? Well, now you can actually purchase a barebones system from Dell, and customize it as you wish without having to worry about voiding the original warranty like on full-featured Dell systems (not that a barebones system would have any sort of relevant warranty anyway).

For example, the Dell XPS 700 DIY kit starts at only US$1,120, which includes the cool chassis, power supply, an Intel motherboard, 512MB of RAM, and an Intel 930 processor.

But at the time of writing of this post, the URL for Dell’s new DIY section of their Dell.com store has yet to be disclosed.

[News via ExtremeTech]

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(Source: bit-tech.net)

Remember the concept systems we saw at E3? Well, the details, at least for one of them, are here. The red figure-of-eight XPS we saw earlier is the Dell XPS 700 - a full-featured gaming desktop, or at least one with the potential to be one of “the best pre-built systems in the world” according to bit-tech.net.

With the potential to slot in a dual-slot graphics card and two PCI slot cards (the PhysX card anyone?), the XPS 700 could very well become as beastly as its Renegade XPS 600 older brother. Of course, let’s not forget the possibility of four 500GB HDDs and 2GB of RAM.

However, as usual, with great power comes sacrifice. Monetary sacrifice. At least US$2,050 of it. And that’s just for the basic black and grey model. The relatively cooler Formula Red model starts at $2,622. Of course, you’ll get a 1-kilowatt power supply capable of powering a set of Nvidia’s Quad SLI graphics cards with that.

More information and reviews on the Dell XPS 700 here.

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The announcement that they were close to a deal came out in February, but it’s only this week that we have official confirmation that Google and Dell have finally reached an agreement for Dell PCs to come pre-installed with Google Pack.

The exact details of the deal are still unknown, but we do know that this deal is supposed to be “the first” of several agreements between the two giants. Whether this fact is good or bad for us consumers is debatable of course. After all, we clearly do not need a new Microsoft.

[News via Reuters]

(Source: Dell)

In an effort to remind the most demanding users of the superiority of its product line, Dell has launched two new workstations, with the Dell Precision 690 being the more powerful of the two.

The Precision 690 comes equipped with up to two Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5000 series (64-bit) processors, up to 64GB of DDR2 RAM (yes, 64GB) via optional memory risers, and even a 512MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 graphics card if you have the cash to splurge. It can also be fitted with up to 5 hard disk drives, i.e. 4 SAS and 1 SATA (boot).

Of course, “up to” and “potential” are words that are pretty much useless to most consumers since only madmen would pump their workstation with tens of thousands of dollars of RAM. So, we think it is more important to note that the Precision 690 starts as low as US$1,729, don’t you think so?

More information and reviews on the Dell Precision 690 here.

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It has been revealed that Dell will open two stores this year in Dallas’ NorthPark Center and New York’s Palisades Center. Yes, stores - 3,000-square-foot ones with display products. But it will not be abandoning its direct sales model as these stores will not contain inventory at all.

Instead, customers are supposed to use these stores to see and try Dell products before they place orders through Dell’s web site, on Dell computers in the stores themselves.

This move comes as a natural addition to Dell’s marketing line-up given the success of Dell kiosks inside retail shopping malls and Sears stores, which allow customers to see a few items, and place orders.

[News via ZDNet]

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(Source: bit-tech.net)

Following up on the cool paint jobs we saw on the Dell XPS Renegade 600 (both the original flame-red design and the recent X-Men design) are the visually strong designs of Dell’s XPS concept systems unveiled recently at E3.

Among the concept systems revealed were an airbrushed notebook decorated predominantly in dark blue, and a sleek tower desktop with an interesting figure-of-eight design.

[News via bit-tech.net]

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There was intense speculation earlier this year about a Dell-AMD partnership, though the final verdict of that round of guesswork was that an AMD shocker would be unlikely.

But it seems that our early guesswork was probably the last thing on Dell’s mind as it has recently announced that it would start using AMD’s Opteron processors in its high-end servers by the end of 2006. Although Dell will still sell Intel-powered servers, this move is set to reduce Dell’s absolute reliance on Intel for its top-of-the-line servers.

Whether this announcement comes as an attempt to assuage investors after its poor earnings showing recently or as an attempt to salvage its reputation among corporate buyers that have clamored for AMD servers since their rise to fame, we have no idea.

But whatever it is, the announcement has been proclaimed as a positive one for Dell - with analysts arguing that this shake-up will do wonders for Dell’s growth prospects and shareholders pushing up Dell’s share price. Me? Well, I’m all for more competition in the microprocessor space, and AMD’s recent successes definitely constitute as Good Competition.

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(Source: Dell)

Dell has announced that it will be giving away an exclusive collector’s edition X-Men XPS gaming desktop, plus an exclusive online viewing of a 7-minute preview of the new movie. But the exact model of the PC isn’t stated in their press release. So, from the stated $10,000 value of the PC, I am assuming that it is one of those XPS Renegade 600 gaming PCs that sold out a month back.

Now, I doubt that there’s a very high chance of winning the XPS, but for a shot at one of these uber-exclusive gaming PCs, I’d suggest giving Dell’s sweepstakes a try. For those who have forgotten the specs of XPS Renegade, here’s a brief recap: Quad NVIDIA® SLI graphics cards featuring four GeForce® 7900 GPUs and an Intel® Pentium® 965 Extreme Edition Dual Core processor. Of course, let’s not forget the cool paint job.

So, if you happen to be interested, visit Dell’s sweepstakes website.

Edit: Dell’s sweepstakes website confirms that the Dell XPS up for grabs is an XPS Renegade.

[News via Dell]

More information and reviews on the Dell XPS Renegade 600 here.

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Dell must be feeling the heat from all the press surounding its failure to meet its Q1 profit forecast recently. At least, the press thinks that way. We actually have full-scale coverage from news organizations like the Economist and CRN, but I presume this is barely the tip of the iceberg if Dell misses another profit forecast.

Anyway, this pressure might be getting to the head of Dell’s competitors as well. We have Hewlett-Packard claiming that it is striking some serious blows to Dell’s dominance - citing its success at luring a number of big businesses away from Dell.

And… that’s it. Yes, that’s all we’ll be talking about concerning this issue until the next quarter (at least).

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