Dell Rolls Out Flashy New Gaming Notebooks

New laptops feature NVidia graphics and Intel mobile technology.

Tom Krazit, IDG News Service

SAN FRANCISCO-- Dell today introduced two new powerful notebooks that are designed for gamers, multimedia enthusiasts, and other consumers attracted to flashing lights and shiny cases.

The Round Rock, Texas, PC maker has updated its Inspiron XPS gaming notebook with Intel's Sonoma notebook technology and a new graphics card from NVidia that is available only from Dell for now, said Gretchen Miller, director of mobile marketing for Dell's Product Group, at an event here for analysts and media. The company also announced the Inspiron 9300, which comes with a 17-inch display designed for watching television or movies.

Dell's primary customers are corporations, which usually don't purchase notebooks with gaming performance in mind. But Dell has introduced several consumer products that revolve around the PC industry's strategy of bringing digital media content to consumers through PCs with Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system, which is available on both notebooks. The operating system is designed to allow users easy access to movies, games, and music files stored on their PCs.

For Gamers Only

The new Inspiron XPS Gen 2 notebook will appeal mostly to gamers willing to spend extra dollars for the best performance, Miller said. It comes with the most powerful Pentium M processors available from Intel and the chip maker's new Alviso chip set with support for the PCI Express interconnect technology and DDR2 (Double Data Rate 2) memory. Intel introduced Sonoma, an update to its Centrino mobile technology, in January.

The notebook also features NVidia's GeForce Go 6800 Ultra graphics card, packed with 256MB of dedicated video memory. This card is available only through Dell at present, said Dan Vivoli, vice president of marketing with NVidia. The combination of the new Intel technology and NVidia's graphics technology has turned the Inspiron XPS into the most powerful gaming notebook ever tested by NVidia in its labs, he said.

Dell has redesigned the casing for the notebook with what it calls an "armor shell," using military terms to describe the exterior of the unit. In product literature distributed with the announcement, the company informs prospective users that the notebook includes a "brushed gun metal display back for protection against the enemy and a perimeter lighting package to intimidate the enemy." Users can set multicolored lights built into the base of the notebook to flash various patterns, Miller said.

The Inspiron XPS costs $2749 with the Pentium M 760 processor at 2 GHz, 512MB of DDR2 memory, NVidia's graphics card, a 60GB hard drive, and Windows XP Home Edition. The Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system is available for an additional $39, and Dell is offering a $500 rebate off the total cost for a limited time. This notebook is available immediately on Dell's Web site.

Dell hopes the machine will attract the gaming community, but people in that group tend to build their own systems from scratch or purchase PCs from smaller vendors with historical ties to the gaming community, such as Alienware or Voodoo Computers. Also, the gaming community is one of the largest supporters of technology developed by Intel's main rival, Advanced Micro Devices.

No AMD PCs

Dell chief executive officer Kevin Rollins appeared to close the door Wednesday on any chance of Dell building an AMD PC in the near future, ending months of public flirtation with AMD. Dell evaluated AMD's Athlon 64 processors for the Inspiron XPS and Inspiron 9300, but the performance of Intel's and NVidia's technologies outperformed similar AMD technology on well-known benchmarks such as 3DMark, Miller said.

Other benchmarks from enthusiast Web sites have suggested that the Athlon 64 outperforms Intel's technology. Individual benchmarks can be very subjective depending on the applications used to test the processor's performance, but the gaming community has historically been on AMD's side, and has been one of the smaller chip company's major sources of strength.

Miller acknowledged AMD's appeal to the gaming community in an interview after the Dell event, but said Dell remains committed to Intel at present.

Inspiron 9300 Specs

The other notebook introduced today, the Inspiron 9300, features a 17-inch wide-screen display and buttons for DVD and TV controls built into the base of the unit. It is much more affordable than the XPS at a starting price of $1599, and it includes the Pentium M 760, 256MB of DDR2 memory, and a 40GB hard drive. The 9300 will be available in mid-March.

Dell also announced a new portable music player, the Dell DJ 30. It comes with 30GB of storage and supports Microsoft's Windows Media DRM 10 (Digital Rights Management version 10) technology, which allows users to download music from industry-approved Web sites such as Napster's service. It costs $299, and is available immediately.