Updated at 11 p.m. PST with information about Apple.
Dell is doing its part to usher in the age of the super-sized solid-state drive. For the first time, Dell laptops can be configured with the newest large-capacity SSDs from Samsung.
Back in the day (last January), laptop buyers were stuck with a Henry Fordesque choice: order any solid-state drive you want with your laptop as long as it's 64GB.
What a difference a year makes. On Friday, Dell quadrupled this to 256GB. The Samsung SSD is now available as an option on Dell's XPS M1330 and M1730 laptop lines. Apple announced a 256GB SSD option on its MacBook Pro on January 6.
Dell added a 256GB solid-state drive option to its XPS M1330 and XPS M1730 laptops
(Credit: Dell)Upgrading from the base XPS configuration with the 256GB SSD will add $400, Dell said Friday. And Dell said the SSD will "be available on additional laptops in the coming weeks."
Dell has also added a 500GB hard disk drive option that will add $150 to the base configuration price.
Solid-state drives are generally faster at getting data than hard-disk drives (and in some cases, much faster), but pricing is a hurdle for consumers. SSDs still command a premium, but that premium is shrinking. SanDisk said last week that it will begin offering a 240GB SSD for $499. SSDs with this kind of capacity had been priced well over $1,000.
Dell will offer an Nvidia dual graphics chip upgrade for 17-inch XPS M1730 gaming notebook owners--but stepping up won't be a cakewalk for MediaDirect users.
Dell XPS M1730 notebook with Nvdia 8800M GTX
(Credit: Dell)The upgrade from the Nvidia dual 8700M GT to dual 8800M GTX graphics is in the works and will likely be released later this month, according to Dell.
Some users were upset when Dell upgraded the graphics in newer models of the M1730 to the 8800M GTX. The XPS 1730 with the 8800M GTX earned a score of almost 13,500 in 3Dmark06--which is about a 49 percent performance gain over two 8700M GT cards in the same notebook.
"In other words, games like Crysis, BioShock, Far Cry 2 and Age of Conan will scream," Dell said.
There will be two options. One will be done with an "installation package" and the other will be a "do-it-yourself kit."
"Considering the number of screws holding this beast together, most people will probably want the installation," Dell said.
There is one gotcha though. "MediaDirect 3.3 is not compatible with the driver for the (new) Nvida card," Dell said. MediaDirect is a Dell technology that enables a user to watch DVD movies, slideshows, or listen to music without having to boot the complete XP operating system. MediaDirect is installed in a special partition on the hard disk drive. When the computer is off, pressing the MediaDirect button will boot the MediaDirect partition instead of XP.
Dell said that the MediaDirect "incompatibility means that the MediaDirect software needs to be upgraded. Unfortunately, the upgrade will require a reformat and reinstallation. Beyond that, it will also require you to repartition the hard disk to make room for the new version of MediaDirect, which is a bit larger. Data loss has been a major concern for the engineers working on a solution. At this point, it would appear that there's really no way around wiping the drive to make the upgrade work with every feature."
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