Dell is taking steps to promote Alienware PCs on its Web site as the PC maker tries to collaborate more--rather than compete outright--with its Alienware unit.
Dell has added the Area-51 m9750 to its gaming laptop Web site, according to a Dell company blog.
Dell Web page features new Alienware game notebooks
(Credit: Dell)"The Alien invasion has continued, with the addition of the Area-51 m9750 to the Dell gaming laptop Web site lineup," according to the post. The 17-inch notebook offers two 512MB GeForce 8700m GT cards as an option.
The blog also notes: "It was never really in the cards to do away with the XPS gaming products early, but instead to integrate the development teams from both Alienware and XPS...The XPS isn't going away, though it may go in new directions as hinted by the XPS One and the slimline XPS m1330."
A Wall Street Journal report had stated that Dell would quickly kill off its XPS line, which Dell later denied.
The starting prices for two featured Dell XPS M1730 notebooks are about $600 and $1,100 more than the starting prices for two featured Alienware systems on Dell's notebook gaming page.
An Area-51 m9750, for example, starts at $1,399. But add a 17-inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 screen, an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 2.33GHz processor, another gigabyte of memory (for a total of 2GB), and a 160GB 7200 RPM hard disk drive, and the price jumps to $2,524.
This brings the Alienware notebook a lot closer to the Dell 17-inch XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition in price ($2,599) and features. Interestingly, the Alienware m9750 notebook is not available with 45-nanometer Intel T8300, T9300, T9500 (or X9000 Extreme) processors. Dell does offer these processors.
Dell issued a statement on Tuesday night, saying the XPS brand will live on but that more resources will go into Alienware.
Part of Dell's statement takes issue with a Wall Street Journal report.
"Dell XPS and Alienware are both great brands...and both will live on," spokeswoman Anne Camden said in a blog. "But we are going to expand our focus on Alienware. We are going to invest like crazy in product development, design, and engineering to propel Alienware as the premier gaming brand in the future."
Camden emphasized that XPS is a premium, cutting-edge brand--beyond just a game PC label. "XPS remains an important Dell brand with its heritage of premium performance...In the last year, XPS has expanded well beyond a gaming brand--look at the XPS One, our first entry into the all-in-one market, the XPS M1330, an industry leading ultraportable or the XPS 420 desktop, designed for multimedia activities."
But the statement also takes issue with aspects of The Wall Street Journal report. "XPS gaming systems will remain an important part of our gaming product portfolio. We don't plan an early phase-out of these systems, as the WSJ incorrectly stated, and in fact will continue to refresh them to keep them on the front edge of gaming," Camden said.
"We want to lead in this market. Simple, really. So that's why we're investing so much in the gaming systems of the future--we want those on an Alienware or XPS to reign supreme."
So Dell appears committed to XPS laptops, even those that excel at gaming.
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."
The new face of Dell gaming.
(Credit: CNET)The Wall Street Journal reported this morning on Dell's plan to stop competing with itself. Rather than selling both high-end XPS gaming PCs as well as similar products from Alienware (which it acquired in 2006), Dell will shift all of its gaming energies at Alienware, including providing Dell R&D resources. As the Journal also noted, this shift will mirror the move that Hewlett-Packard made when it acquired Voodoo, although in that case HP immediately involved Voodoo in developing HP's BlackBird 002. The Dell-Alienware relationship has seen each brand operate under its own silo, with little product development cooperation thus far.
We're told that Q1 of next year is when we finally see the fruit of Dell and Alienware's first full collaboration, so think CES 2009 or thereabouts. As for what happens with XPS, Dell told us that it will retain the brand as a luxury line, but it won't be tailored to gaming. Its XPS One all-in-one desktop is a good example of what Dell has in mind for XPS moving forward.
UPDATE: Dell Inc. will begin phasing out its line of XPS desktop game machines, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Alienware gaming system: Dell XPS game PC line ate into Alienware sales
(Credit: Alienware)(Note: Dell made a statement Tuesday night--after this article was posted--explaining how Dell's XPS line and Alienware systems will coexist.)
This will effectively leave Alienware as the sole high-end PC game offering from Dell which acquired the Miami-based game system maker in 2006.
Dell's XPS game PC line "ate into" Alienware sales, according to the report.
Alienware competes with brands such as Hewlett-Packard's Vodoo PC line and Falcon Northwest.
Alienware is also expected to bring out redesigned systems based on new materials that go beyond the longstanding Alienware design (photo), according to the report.
Game PCs can cost as little as $1,000 but typically range from $2,000 to $5,000 and feature high-end Intel and AMD quad-core processors and graphics chips from Nvidia and ATI Technologies.
Dell notebooks will be available in retail stores in India for the first time, the company said Tuesday.
The company hinted that it would make this move last week, saying it planned to increase its presence in China and India, two of the world's biggest emerging markets for computers. Dell already has a relationship with one of China's largest retail chains, Gome.
Some Inspiron notebooks will be sold through Indian retailer Croma.
(Credit: Dell)In the announcement, Dell said it plans to offer Inspiron desktops and notebooks, and XPS notebooks through Indian electronics outlet Croma. Dell has a presence in India, but prior to this announcement, only via direct sales channels where customers could call or order a PC online.
The move to make its PC available in retail stores follows a strategy the company began laying out almost a year ago when it first announced it would offer some PCs through Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. Since then the Texas PC maker has added U.K. electronics retailer Carphone Warehouse, Bic Camera in Japan, Gome in China, Staples, and Best Buy.
Dell XPS M1730: now with Penryn.
(Credit: CNET Networks, Inc.)Those of you hunting for the latest technology in Dell's 17-inch gaming laptop will be pleased to learn the M1730 has received its Penryn update. Since Intel announced its new 45-nanometer chips last month at CES, they've been ever so slowly making their way into systems. Dell is replacing the T7700 and the T7800 Merom CPUs with the T9300 and the T9500 Penryn chips, respectively. There will be no price differential between the older Merom chips and their Penryn replacements.
Dell's XPS M1730 laptop now lists two Penryn CPU options, the 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo T9300 and the 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T8300 (which has half the cache, 3MB, of the T9000-series chips). The two Penryn chips cost less than the Core 2 Extreme X7900 and Core 2 Duo T7800 options. (Expect the T7800 option to soon be replaced by the T9500.)
Dell's XPS M1330, which got Penryn last week, boasts three Penryn chips, the T8300 and the T9300 plus the 2.6GHz T9500. The T8300 sells for the same price as the T7500 chip, which is a generation behind and clocked slightly slower but serves up more L2 cache. I say you sacrifice that extra 1MB of cache and get the new chip, if deciding between the two. Better yet, spend an extra $125 for the T9300, which is faster and serves up 6MB of L2 cache. The T9300 would seem to reside in the price-performance sweet spot.
Dell has told us that the Latitude line would also be getting a Penryn update this month, but there is still no sign of the new chips on Dell's business laptops.
Ubuntu on the XPS M1330: Give it about a week, denizens of the U.S.
(Credit: CNET Networks, Inc.)Dell is expanding its open-source offerings. The XPS M1330 laptop is now available with Ubuntu in Germany, the U.K., France, and Spain. On its Direct2Dell blog, Dell instructs would-be U.S. purchasers to "hold on a week or so."
Currently, the Inspiron 530 desktop and Inspiron 1420 laptop are the only two Dell computers to come preloaded with Ubuntu 7.10. While those looking to put Linux on a higher-end XPS model can always go the self-install route, purchasing a preloaded Ubuntu config saves you the cost of having to purchase Windows.
[Via Engadget]
Microsoft and Dell are seeing Red.
The two companies planned to announce on Friday that they were teaming up to offer three (Product) Red PCs, supporting the charitable effort that benefits women and children affected by HIV and AIDS in Africa. However, their news dribbled out early, after the New York Times' John Markoff mentioned the plans on the paper's Davos blog.
Dell plans to slather its all-in-one desktop PC, the XPS One, in red. The two are also teaming up on Red versions of the XPS M1330 and XPS 1530 notebooks, which, should be noted, were already available in red paint. The difference will be a special version of the operating system.
The PC is Red on the inside, too, with a special edition of Windows Vista Ultimate edition that includes specially themed desktop wallpaper and sidebar gadgets.
Most importantly, the two companies will donate a portion of the proceeds to the (Product) Red effort, a total joint contribution of $80 for each XPS One, and $50 for each notebook, directly to the Global Fund for each special edition PC purchased.
The move is a personal victory for Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who has been a big proponent of (Product) Red, but it has been Apple that has been first to the market with its (Product) Red iPods. Gates told CNET News.com at last year's CES that he was trying to get his company on board with the effort.
Dell will also offer a (Product) Red printer, the 948 all-in-one printer. Dell will make a $5 contribution to the Global Fund for each purchase.
CNET News.com's Ina Fried contributed to this report.
Dell's XPS M1730 'World of Warcraft' Edition
(Credit: Dell)Hot on heels of Dell's slim-and-snazzy XPS M1530 and the uberpowerful M1730, the company's latest high-end laptop is the XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition. Yes, it's basically the same 1730 we liked so much a couple of months ago, but this time it's dressed up in exclusive World of Warcraft designs on the wings, LCD back and hinge cover, with WoW original artwork desktop backgrounds and screensavers.
Naturally, there are Horde and Alliance version, and if you have no idea what we're talking about, that's probably a good thing. For your $4,499, you start with a 2.2GHz T7500 Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, and SLI Nvidia 8700 graphics, and you can upgrade from there.
Also included are the retail versions of World of Warcraft and the Burning Crusades expansion (which you probably already have), a "Making of WoW" DVD, a selection of Warcraft novels (sorry, no Kindle versions), a soundtrack CD, and a package of Blizzard goodies, including an in-game pet and a coupon for a custom action figure based on your WoW character. [More photos after the jump.]... Read more
