02/12, 12:15am
We review Dell's smaller XPS performance notebook
The 13- to 14-inch notebook screen size is currently one of the hottest areas of competition right now: it's where Apple, HP, and others start off their higher-end models. Dell has certainly been one of the most active in this space and has brought its high-end XPS line to that space through the 14z. We'll check in our Dell XPS 14z review whether the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the Sony VAIO S, or comparable rivals will feel the strain.
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01/26, 3:00pm
Dell hopes XPS 13 picked first based on design
Dell is trying an unusual strategy to try and steer ultrabook buyers towards the XPS 13 on Thursday. Nicknamed the Ultrabook Challenge, the demo campaign Thursday amounts to a blind taste test for the thin-and-light notebooks. Starting in San Francisco first, those at the corner of Chestnut and Scott, and later at Fisherman's Wharf, are being asked to pick an ultrabook based on "look and feel" with all the branding covered up, ostensibly to avoid bias.
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01/13, 6:00pm
Dell XPS 13 tested on the show floor
We've at last had a first-hand look at the upcoming Dell XPS 13 on the CES show floor. The ultrabook on an initial glance bears more than a passing resemblance to the MacBook Air, down to the side port layouts and the single-piece, multi-touch trackpad; there's no question of who inspired the design. It remains something of its own beast, however, and the combination of aluminum (mostly on the lid) as well as a tightly constructed body give it a much more premium feel than we're used to from Dell.
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01/11, 5:30am
Latest Dell XPS 13 gets ultrabook tag, $999 price
Dell has rolled out its new XPS 13 ultrabook, a 13-inch notebook in a 12-inch form factor. The XPS 13 is highlighted by its edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass display and a thin bezel framing its HD WLED 1366x678 display. It also incorporates a full-size backlit keyboard and pairs second-gen Core i-series processors with fast SSDs.
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11/30, 6:45pm
Dell at CES 2012 shifts away from home focus
Dell is whittling back one of its staple practices at CES in a sign of a reduced focus on the home for 2012. New leaks Wednesday hinted to AllThingsD that the company would drop its near-traditional occupation of a whole floor at The Palms off of the Las Vegas strip in favor of the hotel suite invites and meeting rooms common to companies that don't have major products to unveil at the show. If would instead attach itself to a keynote from one of its partners, implying Intel or Microsoft.
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11/15, 6:35pm
Dell sees effect of iPad, rivals in Q3 2011
Dell reported a tough summer quarter on Tuesday evening that showed the deeper impact of tablets and rivals. Its revenue was almost exactly flat over a year ago, dipping slightly to almost $15.37 billion. Although its net profit was up 17 percent to $893 million, its consumer group that covers its home PC business saw a six percent drop in revenue and was joined by problems in its public sector PCs and services as well as nearly flat growth in all but its international field, which covered developing countries.
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11/01, 12:30pm
Dell XPS 14z starts at $1,000, tops out at $1,300
Dell's supermodel-thin XPS 14z notebook is now up for sale. It starts at $1,000 and includes a 2.4GHz Core i5 processor, a 64-bit copy of Windows 7 Home Premium, and a 14-inch, 1366x768 display. That 0.9-inch thick body also houses 6GB of RAM and a 500GB, 7,200RPM hard drive, along with a dual-layer DVD reader that can burn CDs or single-layer DVDs.
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10/24, 9:30am
Dell XPS 14z billed as thinnest
Coming quickly on the heels of new MacBook Pros, Dell has formally launched the XPS 14z. Its system is conspicuously targeted at Apple's 13-inch notebook and uses LG's Shuriken panel tech to get a 14-inch, 1366x768 screen into the size of a 13-inch design. Unlike the exaggeration of the XPS 15z, the 14z is genuinely thinner at exactly 0.9 inches and lighter at 4.36 pounds.
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09/29, 4:35pm
Dell promises XPS 14z in a few weeks
Dell once again staked out a position against Apple Thursday with word that it would launch the XPS 14z. A 14-inch version of the XPS 15z we reviewed earlier, it will stay under an inch thick with the screen size. Dell bills it as the "world's thinnest fully-featured laptop" at 0.9 inches, attempting to once again challenge the MacBook Pro for the title among systems with optical drives.
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09/14, 12:55pm
ASA in UK rebuffs Samsung claims to thinnest phone
Samsung suffered a minor but symbolic loss to Apple on Wednesday after the UK's Advertising Standards Authority rejected a Samsung request. The independent regulator denied Samsung's attempts to have Apple pull its "world's thinnest smartphone" claim for the iPhone 4 on the grounds that the Galaxy S II was thinner. While most of the Android phone's body is thinner at 8.7mm, the bottom bulge for the speaker and the top one for the camera made it considerably thicker at 9.9mm and didn't beat Apple's consistent 9.3mm.
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08/16, 5:25pm
Dell Q2 2011 shows effects of iPad, economy
Dell on Tuesday epitomized the tough conditions for Windows PC builders with flat results and a poor outlook. Its overall revenue, as well as its home and large business PC revenues, were up just one percent over a year earlier. While its net income was up 60 percent to just over $1 billion, the company warned that its summer performance would be flat and lowered its growth expectations for the whole year, down from five to nine percent to just one to five percent.
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07/10, 5:55pm
We review the Dell XPS 15z
Dell has often been associated with capable but often workhorse systems, but it has regularly tried to go after the premium audience dominated by Apple: the Adamo line was a clear shot across the bow of the MacBook Air, for example. It's coming back to this arena in a very different way with the XPS 15z, a 15.6-inch system that promises more of the style of a Mac (in this case the MacBook Pro) with a mainstream price. We'll gauge in our XPS 15z review whether it's successful as a Windows notebook and whether it might collect a few would-be or current Mac users along the way.
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06/01, 11:35pm
Windows 8 at Computex gets performance specs
Microsoft has used its presentation at Computex in Taiwan to show off Windows 8 and detail newly toughened requirements. The OS' flexibility was such that it was shown on anything from a basic tablet up to performance notebooks, such as a Dell XPS or a future HP dv6 running AMD Llano that will ship later in the spring. ARM-based prototypes were on view at the same time and even included a quad-core NVIDIA Kal-El notebooks and tablets that could use hardware-accelerated HTML5 rendering, much like an x86 system.
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05/24, 10:40pm
Consumer Reports has Apple top new notebook charts
Consumer Reports' refreshed notebook rankings [sub. required] gave Apple the top spot in virtually all notebook rankings. As of late May, the updated MacBook Pros led the 15-inch category with 76 to 78 points versus Dell's XPS 15 at 73 points, while the 17-inch models just edged ahead of the HP dv7 (79 points) with 80 and 81 points. All of the 13-inch models placed second at 70 to 72 points, but they were only topped by Apple's own 13-inch MacBook Air, which leapt ahead at 76 points.
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05/23, 7:50pm
Dell XPS 15z already on sale in Australia, more
(Update: US pricing) Dell skipped formal announcements and gave Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and Taiwan sales of the XPS 15z. The design is supposedly the thinnest 15-inch notebook in the world at 0.97 inches and is also light, at 5.5 pounds. Its design is less conspicuously based on the MacBook Pro with a black palmrest but still has numerous similarities, down to the five-dot battery life indicator, grilles, and backlit keyboard.
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05/22, 11:05pm
Dell XPS 15z leak gives Tuesday release
A leak late Sunday confirmed that Dell's XPS 15z would formally launch on Tuesday. The 15.6-inch system had already been teased and its $999 price leaked but now had a relatively close announcement. The WSJ also backed suspicions of a heavy Apple influence with an assertion that the 15z was made to "better compete against Apple's popular Macbook [sic]" and that it would be the thinnest notebook of its size "on the planet."
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05/13, 6:55pm
Dell hints at XPS 15Z with cues from MacBook Pro
Dell in a new Facebook teaser on Friday gave clues to its new ultrathin notebook and raised serious concerns about its originality. Without giving clues as to features, it showed the XPS 15Z, a 'thin, powerful, intuitive' shape which borrowed very heavily from Apple's unibody MacBook Pro. The design shares the same all-silver frame and black bezel, patterned speaker grills on either side of a chiclet keyboard, and even a five-dot, button-activated battery indicator.
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05/05, 5:00pm
Upcoming Dell XPS 15z notebook spotted online
Images of an upcoming Dell notebook, the XPS 15z, have shown up on the web thanks to Mobile-Review. Not much is known of the computer, other than that it sports a 15.6-inch screen. Processor choice will include the latest Core i5 and i7 chips from Intel.
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02/22, 5:00pm
Dell outs redesigned XPS 15, 17 notebooks
Dell has just announced changes to its XPS notebooks, including the XPS 15 and XPS 17. The exteriors have been freshened up and now house Intel's Huron River mainboards and Sandy Bridge-era dual- and quad-core processors paired with NVIDIA graphics. A newly available XPS 17 supports 3DTV natively, including 3D Blu-ray discs. The regular version of this notebook has NVIDIA's Optimus live graphics switching to improve battery life.
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02/21, 2:30pm
Dell XPS 14 axed to use tech in future ultrathins
Dell started off the week with word that it was dropping the smallest of its new XPS line, the XPS 14. It sold beyond estimates, but the company decided in the switch to Sandy Bridge-based Core processors to "re-focus" its strategy by bringing some of the user feedback on the 14-inch notebook into "future thin and light products." The resulting spinoff would happen sometime later in 2011, Engadget heard.
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02/02, 1:35pm
Faulty Sandy Bridge mainboards halt PC sales
Alienware, HP and MSI have stopped selling computers powered by Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors due to a design flaw in the chips. Intel said performance of the SATA2 ports on the mainboard can degrade over time. HP and MSI will hold back products with the chips, and Alienware removed the buy page for its m17x gaming notebook. HP, apart from pulling some of its models, will also delay a business product demo scheduled for February 10 in San Francisco.
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12/22, 1:55pm
Hybrid Audio sues Apple, Dell and HTC
Hybrid Audio LLC late Tuesday joined in a spate of recent lawsuits by suing Apple, Dell and HTC. The Tyler, Texas-based complaint accuses all three of violating a patent for processing MP3 songs using a tree-structured array. The lawsuit claimed that Apple's iPad, iPhone 4, iPod nano, iTunes and MacBook Pro all violate the patent; Dell's Adamo, Alienware, Inspiron, Studio and XPS systems have been similarly named, as have its Aero smartphone, the Streak tablet and HTC's Evo 4G.
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10/22, 5:15pm
Dell to focus on three brands, kills Adamo, more
With the premium Adamo XPS notebook discontinued and the more recent introduction of XPS notebooks, Dell has rebranded its lineup for greater simplicity. According to Engadget, there will be only three core brands, including Inspiron, XPS and Alienware. Each will be aimed at users who require different performance levels, with Alienware being the top-rung offering.
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10/21, 11:25am
Dell in campaign to drop cheap image, hit Apple
Dell chief marketing officer Paul-Henri Ferrand today said his company was spending "hundreds of millions" on a marketing campaign to improve its image and better compete against Apple. He wanted to swing the company's focus away from price above all else and towards more upscale systems like the new XPS line. The executive added that it would come with a shift to mobile devices, with both the seven-inch Android tablet and the Inspiron Duo netbook/tablet hybrid due on Monday.
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10/21, 8:55am
Dell redesigns XPS notebooks for 2010
Dell today overhauled its high-end notebooks on Thursday with an entirely new XPS line. The systems are all more refined with aluminum lids and palmrests, and they now carry JBL 2.1-channel speakers as well as the first webcams officially greenlit by Skype. NVIDIA's Optimus live graphics switching and 3DTV Play over HDMI are both core features, and certain models support Intel's WiDi (Wireless Display) to push video without cables.
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10/14, 3:20pm
Toshiba unveils Win 7 PCs with no clutter
Toshiba on Wednesday updated its notebooks with Windows 7 and a rare promise among Windows PC makers. The company promises that all of its systems running the new OS, including its touchscreen models, will go without any icons on the desktop except for the default Recycle Bin. System performance should get a boost as the PCs will run as little software in the background as possible, in many cases only running anti-virus tools.
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05/06, 8:25am
Dell WiMAX Studio Notebook
Dell this morning said it had added a WiMAX choice for three of its higher-end home notebooks. The Studio 15, Studio 17 and Studio XPS 16 will all have a $60 or less upgrade that offers 4G speeds on either the Clearwire or Sprint 4G networks in Atlanta, Baltimore and Portland. In peak conditions, this lets the portables connect at up to 13Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream. Typical speeds are still faster than 3G with downloads between 2Mbps and 4Mbps.
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04/09, 10:20am
Dell XPS 630 Liquid Cooled
Dell today extended its more exotic cooling options to the XPS 625 and XPS 630. The two now have the option of replacing their fan-based cooling with an Asetek liquid cooling system that reduces the noise of the system while simultaneously increasing the possibilities for overclocking the main processor. Choosing the option is deemed particularly useful for all of the XPS 625 line as well as custom-ordered versions of the 630, as both AMD's Black Edition chips and Intel's Core 2 Extreme are unlocked and allow easier speed boosts out of the factory.
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01/09, 12:50pm
Dell Notebooks CES 2009
Dell today at a press conference at CES revealed the Inspiron Mini 10 (not yet pictured), its third netbook. While only slightly larger than the Mini 9, the new portable is more advanced than either the smaller model or the Mini 12, including through its display. The namesake 10-inch screen is sharper than on other netbooks and produces a 720p (1280x720) resolution closer to full-size notebooks. The system also incorporates a multi-touch trackpad that not only helps with scrolling and zooming but also the ability to jump to a home screen or automatically scroll the contents of a page.
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01/08, 12:35pm
Dell XPS 625
Dell today used CES to launch its first gaming desktop to use AMD processors in place of Intel's. The XPS 625 mid-tower shares the same custom-lit aluminum case as the XPS 630 but switches to an AMD 790FX-based mainboard and can be equipped with one of several overclockable Black Edition processors up to and including the 3GHz, quad-core Phenom II just introduced at the same time. All video card picks are equally AMD-based and scale up to dual Radeon HD 4850 cards in CrossFire mode.
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01/07, 8:45am
Dell Studio XPS Notebooks
Dell today held an early, low-key launch for its promised Studio XPS notebooks. The 13-inch Studio XPS 13 and 16-inch Studio XPS 16 are both treated as Dell's new upscale competition against the MacBook and come with a new black-and-silver trim as well as new, edge-to-edge display and a revamped keyboard unlike the company's other models.
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12/24, 2:55pm
Trigem LLUON B2
Averatec's Korean home brand Trigem on Wednesday introduced the LLUON B2, the company's first large-sized all-in-one computer. In contrast to the earlier, Atom-based A1, the new model is targeted more closely at the high end occupied by the iMac or XPS One 24 and carries a 26-inch, 1920x1200 display in an upscale black design. The system uses its extra room to carry a 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad desktop processor versus the mobile chips of some challengers.
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11/25, 4:35pm
Dell XPS 1340 coming soon?
A product page for the XPS 1340 notebook PC on Dell's website hints at the upcoming release of the laptop, which could happen as early as this week. While the product page is incomplete, it does reveal the notebook will have a 64GB solid-state drive that will fit into the bay sized for traditional 2.5-inch hard disk drives. It's the same SSD as Dell uses in the XPS M1330 in overseas markets, and the XPS 1340 is likely to be an update of the XPS M1330 model.
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11/19, 7:50am
Quad Core iMac in January
Apple is waiting on a special round of Intel chips to update its iMacs with quad-core processors, according to claims by PC makers. The California company is reportedly hinging its move on a new set of desktop Core 2 Quad processors due in January that are specifically power-optimized for all-in-one desktops, dropping the thermal peak power from a too-high 95W down to 65W. They would have the same performance characteristics as existing processors and include a 2.33GHz Q8200 with 4MB of Level 2 cache, a 2.66GHz Q9400 with 6MB of cache and a 2.83GHz Q9550 with the full 12MB of cache.
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11/17, 9:35am
Dell Studio XPS and 730x
Dell today quickly seized on Intel's Core i7 debut by launching two new systems, including one completely new line. The Studio XPS upgrades the regular Studio desktop with features friendly to gamers and high-end media with Core i7 processors and dedicated video as the baseline. They further exploit the new Intel hardware with three memory sticks that both up the minimum storage and also the available bandwidth.
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11/11, 10:30am
Dell XPS 430
Dell on Tuesday silently released the XPS 430, the latest incarnation of its mid-range media desktop. The new update to the glossy black tower system pushes it past 4GB of RAM for the first time and gives even the base XPS 430 a full 6GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 RAM (up from 800MHz DDR2) in stock trim. Also new are recent-generation Core 2 Quad processors at the baseline that trade some Level 2 cache for a faster 1,333MHz system bus.
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11/09, 11:00pm
Dell MP3 Player Scuttled
Dell's plans to relaunch into MP3 players have been shelved in what may be a permanent cancellation, according to claims made by the Wall Street Journal late Sunday [subscription required]. Alleged sources say that at least one miniature player scheduled to launch alongside a media jukebox and sharing suite from Zing has been delayed past its original fall target while the software alone goes ahead. The unnamed device is currently postponed "indefinitely" and so may not be released at all, the reported insiders note.
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10/30, 10:05am
Dell XPS One 24
Dell today upped the stakes for all-in-one PCs with the launch of the XPS One 24. The system ups the size of the PC to 24 inches and gives it a new, edge-to-edge 1080p (1920x1080) display with a 16:9 ratio that should make it ideal for watching Blu-ray movies at native resolution. The update also brings a major speed update with a 2.33GHz Core 2 Quad as well as the option of a GeForce 9600M GT for video that makes it a better fit as a gaming system or for heavy-duty HD video decoding.
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10/07, 9:45am
HP and shift to 13in 16-9
A design decision from HP could lead much of the notebook business to making small 16:9 aspect ratio displays, according to alleged tips from manufacturers. The American PC builder is purportedly set to focus much of its energy on portables with 13- to 13.9-inch LCDs in the significantly wider proportions starting from the fall, pulling much of the industry with it by making the extra-wide displays common. The shift is said to be prompted by the lower price of making 13-inch screens versus 14-inch equivalents with the same ratio.
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08/13, 3:15pm
Dell to End Separate XPS
Dell is phasing out its distinct XPS line in favor of its regular brands, the company has revealed today. While not explicitly saying it will discontinue the XPS label outright, the name will now be folded into the Inspiron and Studio systems as a high-end trim level. The stylized Studio line will effectively replace the XPS for most purposes, Dell's worldwide marketing chief Mark Jarvis says. The official doesn't provide a motivation other than to suggest the move is part of "brand consolidation" that trims the number of labels at Dell.
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07/25, 4:10pm
Dell Fixes NV Video Bugs
Dell this afternoon provided a list of its notebooks affected by a chronic graphics chip flaw as well as a firmware fix that should reduce the risk of the problem. The company is the first known PC vendor to do so and says that its new updates modify the fan behavior on each of the notebooks to make sure they remain cooler than normal and thus prevent the heat problems that trigger the failures.
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07/20, 9:40pm
Dell Studio 15 Review
Dell has often enforced a hard split between its entry-level (Inspiron) and high-end (XPS) home notebooks, but that distinction is blurred with the Studio series: the new line should in theory be the best of the breed with the more upscale design and performance of the XPS but the customization normally reserved for Inspirons. The Studio 15 achieves many of these goals, though whether it can lead its class or simply fair well among fellow Dell PCs can be found out in Electronista's full Studio 15 review.
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07/03, 12:25pm
Dell Studio 15 Hands On
Electronista has just received Dell's new Studio 15 notebook for testing, and it's clear from the outset that the system will be a decided step up from not just the Inspiron line but also the XPS M1530 reviewed just a few months ago while offering features and performance that simply haven't been an option for much of the gaming-oriented XPS system's lifespan.
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07/02, 4:00pm
PDF gets ISO certification
The PDF format has officially been granted ISO certification, the latter organization has announced. Although its original creator and main proponent, Adobe has handed control of the format over to ISO, which is now in charge of both publishing the specifications for PDF 1.7 and updating and developing later versions. The transfer may be most significant for third-party developers, who will have open access to PDF, making it easier to support in graphic and word processing apps.
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06/25, 4:45pm
Dell intros 8800M upgrade
Dell recently began offering the GeForce Dual 8800M GTX upgrade kit to users who purchased the company's XPS M1730 notebooks before the end of January. The chip can now be purchased separately and turns the portable PC into a more viable gaming and entertainment platform, with features such as smooth HD video playback, dual DVI ports, and a maximum 2560x1600 external resolution support. Before now, and since January, the only way to get the XPS M1730 with the 8800M GTX was to order it as an option in a new notebook.
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06/21, 7:15pm
Dell Extends XP Sales
Dell today issued a last-minute stay on its XP cut-off date and has posted notice that it will continue selling some of its systems with the older Windows operating system until June 26th at 7AM Eastern, or four days before Microsoft's mandatory date for switching most computers to Vista. The extension applies to three variants of the Inspiron 530 desktop that start from $549; a special version of the XPS 630 gaming system also comes with Vista Ultimate but makes XP Professional the default installation.
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06/18, 2:25pm
Dell XP Downgrade
Dell is charging some customers as much as $50 to switch from Windows Vista to XP on their systems, according to the company. Buyers picking a system from the company's Vostro business line can choose to install XP Professional instead of Vista Business but must pay an additional $50 beyond the price it takes to upgrade to Vista Business itself. Users face a reduced fee for the downgrade if moving from Vista Ultimate but still pay more than for the upgrade to a higher Vista edition than what comes preloaded on the system.
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06/15, 9:00pm
Dell Inspiron Studio Leak
Dell's next new PC line should bridge the gap between the Inspiron and the high-end XPS line, says new leaked documents obtained by Engadget. The Inspiron Studio will visually mimic the XPS M1530 but add the customization options of the Inspiron 1525 line, extending from the multi-colored lid options to a new set of palmrest art prints designed by artist Mike Ming. The look is intended to take the Inspiron upscale while leaving the existing Inspiron lineup to budget systems.
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05/19, 9:30am
Dell XPS gets 320GB 7K HDD
Dell on Monday became the first PC builder to ship a new generation of hard drives with updates to its XPS notebook line. Each system will have the option of a 320GB Seagate Momentus 7200.3 drive that should bring desktop-like performance without a significant hit in storage; the 7,200RPM speed and doubled 16MB of cache should all but eliminate the bottlenecking that often occurs during game loading and other intensive tasks. The disk also provides a level of shock protection to avoid damaging the disk in most falls.
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05/14, 12:35pm
Dell denies XPS phase-out
Dell has no plans to eliminate its XPS line of computers, a company representative says. On Monday the Wall Street Journal reported that Dell intends to phase out four of its XPS gaming systems, on the basis that they are eating into sales of its newly-bought Alienware division. Dell is said to be in tough financial circumstances, having lost its former dominance in PC sales to chief rival HP. In April the company revealed plans to fire at least 8,800 people, and close its desktop manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas.
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