Dell multicolour laptops: XPS M1330, Inspiron 1520 and 1720
Dell has flown us out to Marbella to look at some XPS and Inspiron laptops -- it's a hard life -- and it turns out they're all lovely and multicoloured. But are they Vaio killers?
Dell launched a new range of Inspiron laptops yesterday at a swanky event in Marbella. The laptops include the 15.4-inch Inspiron 1520 and 1521, the 17-inch Inspiron 1720 and 1721, and the cream of the crop, the XPS M1330. Why should you be excited? Because they're available in different colours! Oh, and they have other cool stuff, too.
The Inspiron offerings come in a range of metallic finishes -- Jet Black, Alpine White, Espresso, Bubblegum Pink, Midnight Blue, Ruby Red, Spring Green and Sunshine Yellow. Each of these looks slightly sexier than the many-coloured Sony Vaio C series laptops we reviewed earlier in the year, although the soft, undulating lights in the demonstration room may have had something to do with their extra appeal. That, and the Spanish beer Dell fed us.
Lights or no lights, the XPS M1330 is undoubtedly smoking hot. It's available in black, white and an absolutely gorgeous red colour that will have you drooling openly. Everything about the laptop screams premium, from the slot-loading DVD (or Blu-ray) drive, to the fingerprint reader -- which not only allows secure logins, but can can launch different Windows applications depending on which finger you swipe.
Dell says the XPS M1330 is the thinnest 13-inch laptop in the world, but we don't believe a word of it. It's wedge-shaped, so although the front edge may be the thinnest in the world, the back edge -- with the hefty nine-cell battery (four- and six-cell batteries are available) -- also makes it the bulkiest 13-inch laptop in the world.
There's plenty of specs appeal to match the sex appeal. Dell has yet to confirm concrete details, but the Inspirons are available with wither Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon X2 processors, and a variety of memory, hard disk and graphics solutions. The top-end XPS M1330 will ship with an Intel T7700 CPU running at 2.4GHz, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive (a 32GB solid-state version will be offered) and an Nvidia GeForce Go 8400M GS graphics card.
Yes, you can watch out for a full review of both soon. If you can't wait -- they're available to buy pretty much right away from the Dell Web site. -Rory Reid
Update: A Dell XPS M1330 review is now on the site