dell

Two Dell laptops go for $12,000

Better luck next time, Sparky. Remember those two special-edition World of Warcraft Dell laptops we mentioned that were up for charity auction on eBay? In case you missed it (shame on you for not reading Crave more carefully), they were a pair of custom XPS M1710 gaming notebooks painted by artist Mike Lavallee and signed by Michael Dell himself.

The company announced the winners, Trip Hoover of Texas and Daniel Marinow of Germany, whose combined bids totaled nearly $12,000, according to Laptoping. So don't feel too bad. The proceeds went to the America's Second Harvest.

Dell selling Sony TVs through Web site

Dell has begun selling HDTVs from Sony on its Web site alongside its own Dell-branded TVs.

Shoppers looking for 46-inch or 40-inch LCD televisions on Dell's site will be able to purchase Sony's Bravia models. For example, the 40-inch KDL-40V2500 is listed on Dell's site for $2,199, less than it costs on Best Buy's Web site.

Dell, like most other PC companies, has been selling flat-screen televisions for several years. But also like those other companies, it hasn't had nearly as much success as it would have hoped. Dell is ranked 24th in the global market … Read more

Laptops front and center at Vista launch lunch

At this afternoon's Windows Vista launch luncheon in New York, members of an expert panel, including Dell CEO Kevin Rollins, AMD CEO Hector Ruiz, and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, waxed poetic about the new operating system and generally patted each other on the back.

More interesting to laptop enthusiasts was the slide show that opened the event, during which Vista's hardware partners were represented almost exclusively through laptops. In quick succession, we saw plugs for the first two Windows Vista laptops we reviewed, the HP Pavilion tx1000 and the Toshiba Portege R400 (both convertible tablets, interestingly enough), along … Read more

Dell gets rugged

As a CNET employee, I am often harassed by friends and family about "what to buy and where to buy it." I often tell them to visit our Web site, not me. Recently, folks have been asking me about my thoughts on rugged notebooks. The first brand that comes to mind is Panasonic and its "ToughBook" line of notebooks. Recently, Dell (yes, Dell) has gotten into the mix by offering its first rugged notebook, the Latitude ATG D620. It's a rugged version of its popular Latitude D620 notebooks, offering new casing, a shock-mounted hard drive, … Read more

This Dell laptop really is exclusive

Bill Gates isn't the only bigwig who's putting his John Hancock on limited editions. Not to be outdone, Michael Dell is signing a special line of his namesake laptops that feature an exclusive World of Warcraft theme, according to Laptoping. But unlike so many other so-called special editions, this one is truly limited--to only two, both for sale now on eBay.

"The custom-painted Burning Crusade Edition features (artist Mike) Lavalle's airbrushed re-creation of original composition from the new World of Warcraft expansion," according to the eBay listing. The XPS M1710 gaming laptop also has a … Read more

Craving a greener Apple

During his Macworld keynote speech, Steve Jobs played a congratulatory voice message from friend Al Gore on the droolworthy new iPhone, then used that device to locate the DVD of An Inconvenient Truth at the top of Amazon's bestseller list.

Outside the convention center's doors, however, Greenpeace activists handed out flyers painting Apple as less than hip to ecological problems, urging the company to remove toxicants from its products and set up free hardware recycling. Several blocks away, members of the environmental group also projected pictures of Asian electronics waste scrap yards onto a wall of the downtown … Read more

Dell announces a new 27-inch LCD monitor--and we've already tested it

This morning at CES, Dell announced its new 27-inch LCD monitor, the Dell UltraSharp 2707WFP. We were lucky to get our hands on an early review sample, and Matthew Wood from CNET Labs has already been able to do a lot of hands-on testing. We'll be following up with a full review of the 2707WFP--with a more rigorous performance analysis--after CES, but we've done enough testing to give some substantial first impressions. The Dell 2707WFP is available immediately with a hefty price tag of $1,400.

Design

We've liked a lot of Dell monitors in the past, … Read more

Dell offers Blu-ray with the XPS M1710

As more and more manufacturers get accustomed to working with Blu-ray technology, prices will eventually drop for the everyday consumer. Until then, prices will remain on the premium side. Dell became the second manufacturer, after Sony, to offer a Blu-ray optical drive option in a laptop by now offering it with their XPS M1710 system. This model is available in red or black and is sure to be popular with users.

Blu-Ray comes to Dell laptop

Traveling movie buffs can now watch the slate of Blu-Ray high-definition movies on a Dell laptop, for a pretty penny.

Dell announced the availability of a Blu-Ray drive for its M1710 laptop Monday. The most expensive version of that laptop--checking in at $3,699--is the only one that features the drive, which allows users to watch HD movies or burn discs with up to 50GBs of data.

Dell's horse in the Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD standards battle is clear, as the company is a founding member of the Blu-Ray Association, along with companies like Sony, Apple, Disney and Panasonic. Some … Read more