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

(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: 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.”

Read more news and reviews on the Dell Precision M65 notebook.

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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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(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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(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

Unless you want your notebook to make the news (like the one pictured here), we suggest you take a look at the Dell Battery Return Program website. There, you’ll find a list of criteria for notebook batteries that qualify for Dell’s recently announced battery recall.

Around 4.1 million lithium-ion batteries are part of this recall, and under “rare conditions” these notebook batteries could overheat and explode uhmm… “…cause a risk of fire.”

‘Nuff said, right?

Note: Dell staff are keen to remind customers to use the number “0″ (zero) instead of the letter “O” when checking your battery.

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Not too long back, news that Dell would start pumping out AMD-powered notebooks by the fourth quarter (Q4) was broken to us. Now, we have news that those notebooks are likely to come with ATI Mobility Radeon graphics chips.

Of course, this isn’t particularly surprising given the recent announcement that AMD would acquire ATI for US$5.4 billion, but it does spell trouble for Dell’s two main partners, Intel and nVidia.

FYI, many notebook vendors already have AMD and ATI-powered notebooks (such as Acer with its stylish Ferrari 5000), but not only will this be a first for Dell, the World No. 1 notebook vendor, but also the first after the AMD-ATI acquisition announcement.

[News via Digitimes]

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(Source: NotebookReview.com)

We said so. After online news sites reported that Dell China screwed up by marketing incorrect specifications (it’s only one spec really) for its Intel Core Duo T2300E-equipped machines (of which the Inspiron 640m is part of), we ventured that it was only a matter of time that Dell would admit fault and start compensating those involved – even if an entire comsumer web campaign was required.

In fact, Dell has gone so far as to offer full refunds for those who are not satisfied with its admission of error. We think this is a great move, especially with the use of their weblog as the medium of communication with the international community.

It doesn’t change the fact that Dell China’s marketing department made a boo-boo, but I’m sure Dell’s willingness to communicate with their accusers (and link to them BTW) will please many the critic.

[News via Direct2Dell]

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released their initial list of 60 computer products deemed environmentally preferable. The products all came from 3 manufacturers, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and CTL Corp., and were either desktops, notebooks or monitors.

The list was part of the EPA’s Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) database, and will allow high-volume customers, such as universities, to consider environmental performance when making their purchasing decisions.

For laymen, this means that Dell and Co. will be getting some nifty preference from big customers being pressed to be “environmentally-friendly”.

[News via Waste News]

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(Source: NotebookReview.com)

You might call the XPS M1710 one of the most powerful notebooks in the market at the moment. I call it one of the most reviewed notebooks this year. Here’s the latest review of the 17-inch powerhouse by BIOS Magazine.

They loved the Intel Core Duo processor, the GeForce Go 7900GTX graphics card and the great display. But the fact that the M1710 was supposed to be a top-of-the-line gaming notebook prompted them to question why it comes only with a single graphics processing unit, no integrated camera or dual-layer burner on default.

Despite their objections, however, they arrived at a 9 out of 10 overall rating – one of the most favourable to the machine so far. Did I say that it even got BIOS’ Editor’s Choice award?

Read more news and reviews on the Dell XPS M1710.

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