XPS Laptops - The Next Generation

480 points posted to XPS products by rkolling 07/12/07

With the XPS M1330, it looks like Dell is in the process of redoing the XPS series and creating unique platforms rather than optioning up basic Inspiron or Latitude platforms. Given the Insipron, Vostro, Latitude, and Precision lines, I hope Dell really tries to make the XPS laptop line a unique, definitive, state-of-the-art statement. The cachet would provide a halo effect for the other Dell products as well.



I hope Dell offers a light weight 15.4” (well under 6 lbs) or a light 17” (at less than 7 lbs.) form factor XPS. It would be good if such machines could combine magnesium and carbon fiber construction to achieve light yet robust construction. I like the roll cage approach used by Lenovo in the lids to their ThinkPad models since it gives the wireless device antennas good access to the wave stream while affording light weight and strength. While the gamers may like 17”, I find the 15.4” travels easier and is also easier to open up and use on an airplane flight than a 17”.



I would opt for a premium, LED-lit, 1920X1200 WUXGA screen driven by a top of the line Nvidia 8700 series video card with 512 MB (or more) of RAM that can play HD content from a Blue Ray drive as well as games. Hopefully the screen would have great brightness, color gamut, contrast and response time. The high water mark in laptop screens seem to be the Sony’s. I hope Dell can equal or exceed that mark.



I like the way the M1330 includes various ports and jacks such as dual headphone jacks. To the M1330’s port layout I would add 2 more USB ports and a dual link DVI port to drive the Dell 3007 series of 2560X1600 displays when hooked up directly (as well as via the docking station).



The CPU should have 4 GB of RAM with Vista and hopefully Dell can twist Intel’s arm to offer a Santa Rosa 7700G CPU that can be overclocked. The 7600G in the XPS M1710 can be easily overclocked to 2.83 GHz with negligible impact on battery life or fan noise. Anything over 2.83 was a very different story, however. 2.83 represents a .5 GHz increase over the stock 2.33, a substantial 20+% increase. I of course would like the computer with the Intel draft-N wireless and the internal cell phone network wireless cards as well as with Blue Tooth and gigabit ethernet.



I would suggest a 64 GB SSD option – 32 GB can be a little skimpy with today's applications and voluminous files. This should lower weight, increase battery life and eliminate a typical laptop point of failure – the hard drive. Perhaps a package could be offered with both the SSD plus a conventional 7200 rpm hard drive. The conventional hard drive could be deployed inside the machine, ideally, along with the 64 GB SSD and then removed when not desired or needed. Alternatively, the conventional hard drive could be swapped for the SSD or also connected to the laptop via an adaptor through a USB port to perform back-up, offloading of unneeded files or downloading needed files to the SSD.



That’s my $.02.