Slashdot Mirror
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?"
I remember back when that would've been a super lightweight notebook.
Aaah...it seems Dell is going after the coveted gamers-who-leave-the-basement demographic...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
At nine pounds thats the cheapest machine I've seen in ages - or are we not all talking British?
For that much money, I think I'd rather own a car
Marty! This thing must take One-point-twenty-one-Giga-watts!
blarg.
..But I'm open to donations.
Personally, if I get a laptop I'd rather get one that isn't wasting cpu cycles on a >ghz cpu and crazy graphics card. I'm a gamer, sure, but thats not what laptops are for. LCDs suck for gaming, as does laptop keyboards, and requiring a real usb mouse.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
No. For entertainment, give me a cube PC and a projector. Just as portable, ten times the fun and cheaper.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
is $3350 cheaper than the $1599, $1999, or $2999 powerbook? Or the $1099 iBook G4? Oh yeah, I forgot it comes with a pentium, so I guess it's cheaper than all of them.
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.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
at that price point it had better come with a firewire vagina.
If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
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
..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.
With the speed that hardware becomes outdated and unsuitable for gaming, coupled with the inability to upgrade anything terribly performance-enhancing on a laptop, why on earth would anyone spend the money on a machine like this?
For literally a little over half the cost you could custom-build a desktop gaming monster machine; 10k RPM drives in RAID-0 with an Athlon64, more RAM than you know what to do with, and a video card that outpowers that entire damned notebook.
Dell seems to be aiming at a really small target market with this machine: people who are serious gamers but also need to travel and also have so much money that they can piss it away on a laptop that's already underpowered by the day's gaming standards, and can't be given any meaningful upgrades in the future.
And to top it off, it weighs a ton, probably has the heat issues even low-performance laptops do, and it doesn't even look as nice as the Alienware competition.
Really... I just don't get it.
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.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
i can't seem to find where poster got the 3,300 price tag. From dell.com:
New Inspiron XPS Starting at $2599 After $250 Mail-in Rebate
Pentium(R)4 w/HT Technology 3.4GHz,15.4 WUXGA
512MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
60GB 7200 rpm Ultra ATA Hard Drive
4X CD/DVD burner(DVD+RW/+R) including Sonic RecordNow and MyDVD LE
$2,849
2600 bucks is actually fairly well inline, and a huge difference from 3,300 in the makes-the-eyeballs-bulge dep't.
If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
If you don't pay for disposable technology, what computer do you buy? They're all worthless after a while. Sure, you can keep replacing components, but after a while, you've replaced everything anyway. What's the difference?
I've had my laptop for over three years now, and plan on getting at least another year out of it. And it means that I can do stuff anywhere in my 3-story house I want to. I can bring it on the road to get programming in when my wife is driving. I can watch DVDs in hotel rooms. It's got a lot of uses, but the fact that I'm not tied to a specific location at home is the reason I have it.
(Now, I wouldn't buy this laptop... Inspirons have low build quality, and I don't want a 9 lb luggable. But that's no indictment against other laptops.)
I have an Alienware laptop and would gladly trade it in to get one from Dell. Alienware can take up to 2 months to deliver anything you order from them. They have no way of verifying what is in stock and what is not, this includes their phone sales people. They have a 15% restocking fee on all returns. You have to send the machine in to them to get repairs which can take up to 2 months as well.
My wife bought mine for me and we had to change the order two times to get something that was actually instock. It still took over a month to get here and when I did get it the backlight switch failed with in 2 weeks. Oh and it came preinstalled with a MS RPC virus...
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
Hey, there are plenty of great games for the Mac! Breakout, superbreakout.... photoshop.
IMO, buying a laptop is the height of stupidity.
Yeah, my desktop w/ 19" monitor works great when I'm on the plane. Sure, I get a few funny looks from the flight crew, but I can't understand why anybody would bother with a laptop when desktops are so much cheaper.
It's also really cool using a desktop while in the john.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
It better not be ultra-wide, either
Agreed. My friends and I all build all our own systems, and most take some sense of pride in having a nice, custom system once it's done.
I tend to update some components at times when I need to squeeze every bit of power out of the system. For instance, I will often buy a next-generation graphics card when it's line is brand new, but hold off replacing the CPU, Mobo, and RAM. This way, there's a constant rise in FPS and system speed, without having to throw down a big chunk of change for a new system every year.
There is also the visual appearance of your machine. There's no point in replacing a stylish Lian Li case you spent a lot of time working on with a dremel or adding sound dampening materials to. If the case looks good, functions well, etc -- then it can remain a fixture on your desk until the ATX standard is no longer used. The same goes with your PSU, assuming you get one that is of premium quality and has enough wattage to safely power a system for several more years.
I often refer to the cost of upgrading my gaming system to upgrading my secondary computer, which will inherit all of the main system's components. Any parts that aren't immediately used go into the closet as spares, loaners, or freebies for friends.
None of this is possible with a $3300 laptop. When you want a better video card in 2 years, then you have to go spend another $3k for a whole new laptop. None of the parts, except for the HDD will likely be useful. Even then, a 7200 RPM 60GB drive won't be something you will want to put in a brand-new laptop in a couple of years. You could stick it on Ebay and hope some sucker bids more than it's worth.
Yeah... I'm a gamer and I laugh when i see people with alienware laptops. Knowing that alienware's best laptops are just rebadged sagers for a higher cost.
Hmmm... Pie...
...or you get something that's nearly identical to an Alienware for far less...
check out Sager notebooks, a good site for them is Pc Torque. This particular company even allows you to order it without an operating system.
You'll notice that the cases are completely identical (Sager and Alienware). A lot of them seem to buy the base components from one company. If you remember Liebermann Computers (a lot of people thought they might be a hoax with some of their products), even their laptops look the same.
You'll get the same specs, and probably practically the same system for far cheaper. Bottom line: Alienware is not a good price/performance ratio, especially for notebooks.
I guess the confusion expressed by the idiots here on /. is a good example of the reason these screens aren't marketted.
Whenever coworkers look at my screen, their initial reaction is always "everything's so small! Why don't you make your screen bigger?"
If display makers are going to have trouble explaining that it's the things on the screen that are smaller, not the screen... I can't imagine how they'd try to sell a 15" 1920x1200 display to those jackasses.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
You can upgrade the graphics chipset on Dell laptops.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Hey, there are plenty of great games for the Mac! Breakout, superbreakout.... photoshop.
Yeah, the end guy is hard.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
Emachines? Respectible? Good lord! You must be kidding. Put down the crack pipe!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
*Subwoofer integrated into battery*
Great for playing acid rock.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!