Dell's Gaming Monster

Carpoolio writes "TechTV has a good first look at the new Dell Inspiron XPS -- the company's first foray into portable gaming systems. The notebook -- a beast at 9 pounds -- puts the company squarely against the likes of Alienware. The price tag is steep, too, at $3,350. Are you buying?"

Comments

Would I buy it?

[heironymouscoward]

No. For entertainment, give me a cube PC and a projector. Just as portable, ten times the fun and cheaper.

Size _doesn't_ matter.

[normal_guy]

When pricing laptops, the executive types always pick the smallest size. You wouldn't believe the amount of thought that went into extra power vs. 8 extra OUNCES. The younger game-playing employees always price out the laptops with the most power, knowing that an extra few pounds means _nothing_ when you're rolling it down the concourse. To me, it's all about desktop replacement.

Mmm....

[foxtrot]

WUXGA+ screen, which is 1920x1200 pixels.

What I want to know is, why is it you can buy a laptop with that flat panel installed, but you can't buy an LCD monitor for your desktop PC that can do that?

-JDF

I just bought an Alienware Area-51m

[TerraFORM]

..and I'm very happy with it. P4 3.2GHz desktop proc, 1 GB PC 3200 RAM, 128 MB ATI 9600 Pro, 60 GB 7200RPM HDD, 16.1" XUGA TFT, XP Professional. I bought it because I like to GAME. Sure, powerbooks are great and are beasts in their own right, but very few current OL games are supported and that is the ONLY reason I didn't go Mac. Alienware is certainly expensive, but you get what you pay for. They really know how to engineer their systems for optimal cooling. Dell realizes Alienware's success (witness AW is on Forbes' list of the fastest growing businesses this year) and is entering the foray. Methinks that they'll do well initially, but the quality that gaming systems require may or may not be met through Dell's uber-assembly line format.

Price discrepancy?

[Txiasaeia]

Interesting how the base unit is $2799 *CAD*, and yet the reviewer emphasises the (obviously tricked-out notebook's $3350 USD) huge price tag.

I remember reading a review for an IBM T41P the other day -- the reviewer's test machine retailed at something like $5500 CAD. Very few people can afford these monstrosities; most of us go for the $2500 "bare bones but still a Mercedes" IBM notebook instead.

Re:Heh, a beast at 9 pounds

[Clover_Kicker]

Here, take a walk down memory lane: http://www.firstibmclone.fsnet.co.uk/

Compitition is good...

[way2slo]

Hopefully the compitition between these high powered portable game systems will force the price down a bit. $3k for any system is a bit much, I 'd say. However, portability is worth a little extra price. I was pondering a system like this for a while and ended up going for an Area 51m from Alienware. It's sweet! Yeah, I paid through the nose, but I use it all the time on business travel, let alone ad-hoc LAN parties at my friends, so for me it was worth it. If the price can come down a grand or so, I would probably be able to talk some friends into them which would really open up the possibility of some nice LAN parties. Seriously, most people I know do not want to take their desktop and monitor all over creation just for one evening is too hard*; for them to do.
[* The Rule of Hard: Any task that is or precieved to be too dificult will be avoided.]
But portable systems like these laptops are much better and with XP, the network is plug and play (usually) (Also, wireless networking is great). All you have to lug around is a backpack and setup is as simple as taking it out, plugging in the mouse and turning it on.

Performance wise, my only issue is that some games do not render quite right on my Area51m and an occasional few don't work at all. They work fine on my desktop so I would have to say that there is a difference between the PCI and the laptop version of a card. Fortuantely, they were odd games that I did not need to have portable.

Re:Seriously... what's the point?

[theLOUDroom]

I'd love one.

I'm an electrical engineer, and need to do some pretty resource intensive simulatons. I also work with 11x17 sized drawings.

Currently I have a laptop, but the performance is somewhat lacking. Even so, there's no way I'd give it up and switch to a desktop.
At the end of the day, I hit a button, pull a lever and take all my work home. This morning, I spent the first four hours working at home via the company's VPN.

With my laptop and a VPN connection, putting in a 60 hour week on a critical project no longer means that I have to spend 60 away from home.

I couldn't give a rats ass about the weight or battery life of my laptop. I use it on my desk at home and my desk at work.

If someone was willing to double the width and weight of my laptop in excange for twice the sceen area and processing power, I'd go for it in a heartbeat.

And as for price, it's not that big of a deal when you consider the cost of my time waiting for a simulation to finish or the price of the software that I actually run on the laptop.

When my laptop is obsolete, they can pass it on to someone in finance, shipping, or wherever.

Right now, I'm looking at an HP ZD7000 series "notebook." Sure they're huge, but that mean they actually have a decent sized keyboard, and a nice big display. As long as I can carry it with one hand, it's portable enough for me.

Re:I have a AW

[Str8Dog]

You can read the entire sordid tale here.

Re:Ouch

[Lord_Dweomer]

You know.....its funny you should mention GTA3, because the other day I was driving in the parking lot outside of the grocery store when a woman and her child started to walk past the front of my car (no crosswalk or stop sign, I swear!) and while it was near impossible for me to hit them, I came much closer than the lady thought comfortable and she proceeded to give me a salty look and say something which I didn't hear. Later on I realized that I have developed such a mentality from driving games where:

"You can come as close as you want without bad things happening as long as you don't actually touch it. You could even be a pixel away."

Unfortunately, people in the real world have larger "personal spaces" than people in GTA3. Whoops.