Dell's Gaming Monster 478
Carpoolio writes "TechTV has a good first look at the new Dell Inspiron XPS -- the company's first foray into portable gaming systems. The notebook -- a beast at 9 pounds -- puts the company squarely against the likes of Alienware. The price tag is steep, too, at $3,350. Are you buying?"
Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:5, Insightful)
(spit-take)
What what what??! You really have no idea what level of technology the rest of the world is actually using.
A mobile Radeon 9700 is more than powerful enough to play any fps at the native resolution of this laptop. I have a brand new laptop with a 2.4ghz non-Extreme P4 and the same res. screen as the XPS and I can play UT2K3 and Max Payne 2 at native resolution at around 60fps with a Radeon 9000. So your statement is clearly ignorant, and false.
There's nothing wrong with buying a 17" Powerbook if that's what you want, but you're fundamentally misunderstanding the market for the Dell XPS if that's what you'd think that audience would want. Mac people always say "or just buy a Mac" for pretty much every situation, as if their machines work best for everything. The simple fact is the XPS would be a far better gaming machine than a 17" Powerbook - it has a faster CPU and it has a faster graphics card (and it's upgradeable). The PC market is a specialized market, with a lot of different machines for different purposes. The whole point of a gaming laptop is to have a laptop that's good for playing games, not to have a laptop that's a catch-all device with gaming as merely one of the possible functions. This is not a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none... this is a master of one trade, and that's it.
That said, I wouldn't buy an XPS myself. It's fugly, for one thing. And heavy, and unnecessarily expensive. When I can play games like those I listed above at good frame rates at native res. on my $1,200 widescreen laptop that doesn't weight 9 pounds and also looks better than the XPS, what the heck am I spending $5,000 on? Which is not to say I think these things are silly for everyone, I am just not their target market. I do have a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none machine. If I really had some extra cash to waste, I'd at least go for something like this [alienware.com] or even this [voodoopc.com]. At least they're somewhat portable and don't look like they were designed in 1989.
Re:Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:3, Interesting)
Either you're mixing up frame rate with refresh rate, or you actually mean that while 60 fps is a little too low for the really 31337 gamerz, higher frame rates don't make that much of a difference on an LCD. There's no way that an LCD would make a low frame rate more tolerable in any way, except if the fps were _really_ low (like 10) and the LCD was bizarrely, absurdly crappy and blend the single fram
Re:Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:5, Funny)
serious gamer
Isn't this an oxymoron, you know like, "work party", "pretty ugly", or "microsoft works"?
Clever. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Clever. (Score:5, Funny)
9 pounds?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:9 pounds?! (Score:5, Funny)
Nah the british couldn't figure out how to make it leak oil.
Ouch (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ouch (Score:4, Interesting)
"You can come as close as you want without bad things happening as long as you don't actually touch it. You could even be a pixel away."
Unfortunately, people in the real world have larger "personal spaces" than people in GTA3. Whoops.
Ouch indeed (Score:4, Informative)
Besides for that much, I'd go for something with better ruggedness, like a thinkpad, or a powerbook.
Emachines???? (Score:5, Funny)
Emachines? Respectible? Good lord! You must be kidding. Put down the crack pipe!
Re:Emachines???? (Score:4, Informative)
I just bought the M6807 [emachines.com] about a month back, and I was very impressed with the raw speed and quality of the display for the price.
They've completely fixed up their support, too. I called once about a minor issue (turned out to be a weird power management setting) and the hold time was about 5 seconds--I was extremely impressed. I heard they just got bought by Gateway, though, so who knows how long the good times will last :(
It's the power consumption that'll kill ya... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's the power consumption that'll kill ya... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It's the power consumption that'll kill ya... (Score:5, Funny)
No wonder its 9 lbs!
Re:It's the power consumption that'll kill ya... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's the power consumption that'll kill ya... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's the power consumption that'll kill ya... (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's too much (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of the joy in high-end PC's (and that is an oxymoron for me) is building them.
If I have that kind of money to blow, then its going to be a trip to FRY's hands down.
Re:No, it's too much (Score:3, Insightful)
But rolling-your-own laptop is not exactly something you can do with a trip to the enthusiasts store.
I'd love to roll my own laptop or PDA the way I can with a desktop - but that's just not the way the bits are sold.
Re:No, it's too much (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to update some components at times when I need to squeeze every bit of power out of the system. For instance, I will often buy a next-generation graphics card when it's line is brand new, but hold off replacing the CPU, Mobo, and RAM. This way, there's a constant rise in FPS and system speed, without having to throw down a big chunk of change for a new system every year.
There is also the visual appearance of your machine. There's no point in replacing a stylish Lian Li case you spent a lot of time working on with a dremel or adding sound dampening materials to. If the case looks good, functions well, etc -- then it can remain a fixture on your desk until the ATX standard is no longer used. The same goes with your PSU, assuming you get one that is of premium quality and has enough wattage to safely power a system for several more years.
I often refer to the cost of upgrading my gaming system to upgrading my secondary computer, which will inherit all of the main system's components. Any parts that aren't immediately used go into the closet as spares, loaners, or freebies for friends.
None of this is possible with a $3300 laptop. When you want a better video card in 2 years, then you have to go spend another $3k for a whole new laptop. None of the parts, except for the HDD will likely be useful. Even then, a 7200 RPM 60GB drive won't be something you will want to put in a brand-new laptop in a couple of years. You could stick it on Ebay and hope some sucker bids more than it's worth.
Re:No, it's too much (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No, it's too much (Score:3, Informative)
Alienware graphic chipset upgrades (Score:3, Interesting)
At least Alienware is offering a video module that you can change yourself [alienware.com].
I'd love it if an OEM produced a standard form-factor laptop that could swap all (or most) of the components, even if it was bulkier/heavier. More people are using laptops as desktop replacements (or 2nd computer) and would like this (I've counted 10+ at our office who would buy something like this if it were available and so
I'm not buying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, if I get a laptop I'd rather get one that isn't wasting cpu cycles on a >ghz cpu and crazy graphics card. I'm a gamer, sure, but thats not what laptops are for. LCDs suck for gaming, as does laptop keyboards, and requiring a real usb mouse.
LCDs are fine for gaming (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'm not buying... (Score:5, Informative)
There is a market out there for these notebooks, but I would rather have a clevo of some sort (sagers appear to be the best), but I guess some people would want to pay more for Dell...
PS. LCDs are pretty good for gaming these days, the LCD gaming problems were with the older ones.
Re:I'm not buying... (Score:3, Interesting)
Would I buy it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Would I buy it? (Score:5, Funny)
That is a LOT of money! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That is a LOT of money! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That is a LOT of money! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That is a LOT of money! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, the end guy is hard.
Re:That is a LOT of money! (Score:3, Insightful)
Gaming Laptop
Gaming on a Mac [redvsblue.com]
Size _doesn't_ matter. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Size _doesn't_ matter. (Score:3, Funny)
The fact that you've got to roll the damn "laptop" down the concourse instead of carrying doesn't make it a desktop replacement; it makes it a fucking expensive desktop with inferior parts.
Re:Size _doesn't_ matter. (Score:3, Funny)
Complaints stopped, and the execs had to carry more bags and more total weight to bring all the crap they brought before.
Man, are people annoying.
ouchy (Score:5, Funny)
at that price point it had better come with a firewire vagina.
Re:ouchy (Score:5, Funny)
As long as it isn't scsi, I guess it would be ok.
It's pronounced SCUZZY (Score:5, Funny)
It better not be ultra-wide, either
Re:ouchy (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure it's going to be asked (Score:3, Insightful)
What kind of Real World battery life would you get?
And I agree gaming on a laptop blows goats, squishy keyboard feel, odd layouts and (at least up to this point) iffy graphics cards put them firmly in the MAME, not DOOM3, category.
Re:I'm sure it's going to be asked (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm sure it's going to be asked (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm sure it's going to be asked (Score:3, Funny)
Judging from the comments on the article, it's more of an Apples to Dells comparison.
Re:I'm sure it's going to be asked (Score:3, Interesting)
But your question about battery life is a very important one. Maximum life doing minimal activities (firefox, ssh, e-mail) or a lightweight game (non-3d) it only lasts about 20-30 minutes on the battery.
Now... most of the time when I take my laptop with me, I'm not ru
Mmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
What I want to know is, why is it you can buy a laptop with that flat panel installed, but you can't buy an LCD monitor for your desktop PC that can do that?
-JDF
I would settle for a 1600x1200 17" LCD... but find (Score:2)
There is a serious disconnect between LCDs on laptops and desktop in regards to pricing.
The only real concern is ghosting, even on 20ms displays it gets noticable.
Re:Two reasons... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Several at dell.com (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever coworkers look at my screen, their initial reaction is always "everything's so small! Why don't you make your screen bigger?"
If display makers are going to have trouble explaining that it's the things on the screen that are smaller, not the screen... I can't imagine how they'd try to sell a 15" 1920x1200 display to those jackasses.
Re:Mmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bought one of those as a demo laptop. Problem is, no-one over 40 can read the screen. And those are the people with the money!!
whoops
wow. (Score:3, Insightful)
i feel bad looking back at the $2000 I spent on my gaming rig that now is worth $1000...
anyone know how fast can one build a mini-atx gaming rig and for what price? I presume the biggest limitation is heat: processor + vid card in a small space is not ideal. any small form factor cases with lots of fans?
Re:wow. (Score:2)
I can build one in about two hours.
[ *RIMSHOT* ]
Thank you, I'll be here through Sunday. Tip your servers, they work hard for you...
choice of processors (Score:3, Insightful)
High ghz P4s just aren't interesting anymore (I have a 2.6 P4 OCed to 3.2 and it is quite boring actually)
I just bought an Alienware Area-51m (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously... what's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
For literally a little over half the cost you could custom-build a desktop gaming monster machine; 10k RPM drives in RAID-0 with an Athlon64, more RAM than you know what to do with, and a video card that outpowers that entire damned notebook.
Dell seems to be aiming at a really small target market with this machine: people who are serious gamers but also need to travel and also have so much money that they can piss it away on a laptop that's already underpowered by the day's gaming standards, and can't be given any meaningful upgrades in the future.
And to top it off, it weighs a ton, probably has the heat issues even low-performance laptops do, and it doesn't even look as nice as the Alienware competition.
Really... I just don't get it.
Re:Seriously... what's the point? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an electrical engineer, and need to do some pretty resource intensive simulatons. I also work with 11x17 sized drawings.
Currently I have a laptop, but the performance is somewhat lacking. Even so, there's no way I'd give it up and switch to a desktop.
At the end of the day, I hit a button, pull a lever and take all my work home. This morning, I spent the first four hours working at home via the company's VPN.
With my laptop and a VPN connection, putting in a 60 hour week on a critical project no longer means that I have to spend 60 away from home.
I couldn't give a rats ass about the weight or battery life of my laptop. I use it on my desk at home and my desk at work.
If someone was willing to double the width and weight of my laptop in excange for twice the sceen area and processing power, I'd go for it in a heartbeat.
And as for price, it's not that big of a deal when you consider the cost of my time waiting for a simulation to finish or the price of the software that I actually run on the laptop.
When my laptop is obsolete, they can pass it on to someone in finance, shipping, or wherever.
Right now, I'm looking at an HP ZD7000 series "notebook." Sure they're huge, but that mean they actually have a decent sized keyboard, and a nice big display. As long as I can carry it with one hand, it's portable enough for me.
Am I buying? (Score:2)
But it is VERY tempting to have this puppy for pure "HAHAH I GOT ONE AND YOU DON'T" factor
Price discrepancy? (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember reading a review for an IBM T41P the other day -- the reviewer's test machine retailed at something like $5500 CAD. Very few people can afford these monstrosities; most of us go for the $2500 "bare bones but still a Mercedes" IBM notebook instead.
it's under 3 grand (Score:5, Informative)
New Inspiron XPS Starting at $2599 After $250 Mail-in Rebate
Pentium(R)4 w/HT Technology 3.4GHz,15.4 WUXGA
512MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
60GB 7200 rpm Ultra ATA Hard Drive
4X CD/DVD burner(DVD+RW/+R) including Sonic RecordNow and MyDVD LE
$2,849
2600 bucks is actually fairly well inline, and a huge difference from 3,300 in the makes-the-eyeballs-bulge dep't.
Re:it's under 3 grand (Score:5, Informative)
Also, after note the "after $250 mail-in rebate", which I dont think TechTV included - they reported the actual out-of-pocket cost.
Sorry, dude (Score:3, Informative)
Athlon64 3200+
1G RAM
200G Maxtor HD
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
DVD ROM, 1 Gigabit Ethernet
The total was $1,280 (including shipping)
So why would I want to pay almost 3x to get a 9 pound monster? The 2K+ premium for (semi)portability is simply too high...
Re:Sorry, dude (Score:3, Funny)
Whoa (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe one of the optional accessories will be a lead-acid car battery with adapter and carrying case!
Not for the Price (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not for the Price (Score:5, Informative)
check out Sager notebooks, a good site for them is Pc Torque [pctorque.com]. This particular company even allows you to order it without an operating system.
You'll notice that the cases are completely identical (Sager and Alienware). A lot of them seem to buy the base components from one company. If you remember Liebermann Computers [go-l.com] (a lot of people thought they might be a hoax with some of their products), even their laptops look the same.
You'll get the same specs, and probably practically the same system for far cheaper. Bottom line: Alienware is not a good price/performance ratio, especially for notebooks.
$3,350 (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a AW (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife bought mine for me and we had to change the order two times to get something that was actually instock. It still took over a month to get here and when I did get it the backlight switch failed with in 2 weeks. Oh and it came preinstalled with a MS RPC virus...
Re:I have a AW (Score:5, Interesting)
Notebooks are not your only choice. (Score:3, Informative)
Same performance, much cheaper: (Score:3, Informative)
Sager np5680 [pctorque.com]
And for under $2000, you get almost exactly the same machine. Its a highly respected brand, also, they just don't have the marketing fluff of Dell or the other big guys.
The only difference I see, is the video card (9600 vs. 9700), and no DVI out on the Sager. For $1K, you can keep your DVI
Add in Win XP as an os, to add $250, and you are still $1k cheaper. Or go free, with Linux, your choice.
I'll take the Ferrari (Score:3, Funny)
Gaming laptops (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gaming laptops (Score:3, Funny)
Compitition is good... (Score:3, Interesting)
[* The Rule of Hard: Any task that is or precieved to be too dificult will be avoided.]
But portable systems like these laptops are much better and with XP, the network is plug and play (usually) (Also, wireless networking is great). All you have to lug around is a backpack and setup is as simple as taking it out, plugging in the mouse and turning it on.
Performance wise, my only issue is that some games do not render quite right on my Area51m and an occasional few don't work at all. They work fine on my desktop so I would have to say that there is a difference between the PCI and the laptop version of a card. Fortuantely, they were odd games that I did not need to have portable.
laptops make crappy gaming systems (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have this kind of money it might be better to build a monster gaming station at home and a moderate gaming laptop that is cheaper and has longer battery life for the occasional game on the airplane away from home.
Here is What Comparisons of Laptops and Desktops a (Score:4, Insightful)
My computers slowly grow obsolete and get thrown out while still in a working state, but it's hard to forsee current systems becoming useless any time soon. I've been through dozens of monitors, keyboards (especially) and mice though.
The display on my 2 year old Compaq laptop has gone bad once already, the lettering on the keys is now unreadable from use. Both my laptop and desktop systems are quite useable from the perspective of "horsepower", but the laptop will much sooner become useless without one form of expensive repair or another.
In the mean time there is a store near me that will practically GIVE me an old style 17-inch monitor and NEW keyboards and mice are priced in the teens.
So, what's wrong with this picture?
What's wrong is that laptop keyboards should have developed an industry standard form factor and connection standard long ago. Likewise, the small card that is the video card for my laptop should be easily replaced, and easily connected to the monitor, which should also be easily replaced. At that point I'd have no problem justifying $3000 or more for a machine that I could be confident would last (with some easy end-user repairs and upgrades) for many years to come. Further integration of IO devices as is the case with notepad computers is insanity. Of course, if you have an unlimited money supply (spending your companies money for instance) insanity is par for the course.
I'll stick with my desktops and use the laptop in emergencies until the peripherals issue is addressed. (For any company that wants to implement this, please contact me for information about where to send the royalty checks.)
Wary of Dell's "new" v1.0 Offerings (Score:3, Interesting)
So in the future, I'm wary to buy any series/model from them that's "brand new", especially if it's a laptop. Seems like they iron out the kinks and them release a newer revision (8100, 8200, etc.) that works pretty darn well.
Athlon64 laptop (Score:3, Informative)
The cost is... Absurd. Even for a top-end gaming laptop.
Let's see. For $2,500 [hypersonic-pc.com], I can get an Athlon64 laptop which:
1) Dominates [anandtech.com] gaming performance (games, you know, the point of the Dell laptop's existance)
2) Will run for more than 45 minutes on battery, becaues of Cool'n'Quiet technology. Mine runs for about 3 hours on battery. Honestly, a high end Pentium IV in a laptop? While we live in infinite battery land, why not add a 21" CRT monitor?
3) Isn't a Dell laptop.
Or, if I still like Dell (they aren't bad for the price sometimes), and am not one of the 95% of the world's clueless that still believes the CPU clockspeed = performance, I can buy a Dell Inspiron 8600 with a 1.7GHz Pentium M (which is very close or equal in performance to a 3GHz Pentium IV in most tasks), with an ATI Radeon 9600 Mobile and 1GB of memory, for about $2,600.
I have to say, this new Dell laptop is clearly targetted towards complete idiots with too much money on their hands. It isn't even a "just for rich folks which can afford the finest things in life" unit, because those "rich folks" can get a hell of a lot more laptop [voodoopc.com] for the price, and not have the cheap stigma that is attached to every Dell laptop (except the admittedly very good Dell Precision series (which is made by the same ODM that builds some of IBM's laptops).
The real question is... (Score:3, Funny)
No (Score:4, Funny)
Never. Will not touch an x86 ever again.
And certainly not from Dell.
Re:It's still cheaper than a Powerbook (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's still cheaper than a Powerbook (Score:2, Informative)
Except for SPEED BABY! Wooooooooooo!
Re:It's still cheaper than a Powerbook (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's still cheaper than a Powerbook (Score:3, Informative)
Dell: 9 motherfucking pounds. Mac: 5.6 pounds. That's an enormous difference, many people would simply be unable to carry the Dell with them wherever they go. Anyone who says otherwise is just trying to pretend to be macho. Why don't you drag around a destop with you if you don't care about weight?
Dell: ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 128 MB Mac: ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 64 MB.
Re:Dude... (Score:3, Informative)
*sigh* i shouldn't feed the trolls...
Re:Dude... (Score:3, Funny)
The person who told you that spelling doesn't matter was wrong.
Re:Im NOT buying (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had my laptop for over three years now, and plan on getting at least another year out of it. And it means that I can do stuff anywhere in my 3-story house I want to. I can bring it on the road to get programming in when my wife is driving. I can watch DVDs in hotel rooms. It's got a lot of uses, but the fact that I'm not tied to a specific location at home is the reason I have it.
(Now, I wouldn't buy this laptop... Inspirons have low build quality, and I don't want a 9 lb luggable. But that's no indictment against other laptops.)
Re:Im NOT buying (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, I can't see spending over $3k for a portable gaming machine. That's what the WinXP desktop is for!
Re:Im NOT buying (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, my desktop w/ 19" monitor works great when I'm on the plane. Sure, I get a few funny looks from the flight crew, but I can't understand why anybody would bother with a laptop when desktops are so much cheaper.
It's also really cool using a desktop while in the john.
Re:Im NOT buying (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'd put my money on a Sager (forgot price diff) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Alienware (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Subwoofer batteries (Score:5, Funny)
Great for playing acid rock.