Dell plans radically designed 13-inch XPS notebook
updated 01:50 pm EDT, Mon June 4, 2007
Dell XPS m1330 Leak
Dell is planning a major reworking of its smallest XPS gaming notebook, according to freshly leaked press material. The 13.3-inch M1330 will phase out the smaller but thicker M1210 while also bringing several of the latest notebook technologies that have been absent even in the company's flagship M1710 and M1210 systems. The design represents a major change towards minimalist style: the M1330 should be less than one inch thick and will turn to a slot-loading DVD-RW drive instead of Dell's historical tray drive while still cutting weight to 4 pounds.
Its display will be the first of any Dell notebook to incorporate an LED backlight, which can be optionally outfitted to the display to improve the brightness, color accuracy, and battery life of the PC underneath. A traditional cold-cathode (CCFL) display will be standard for basic versions. HDMI output will also be a relative newcomer to the line for playing movies on modern HDTVs.
The new XPS should also represent one of the first systems outside of the business-minded Latitude series to see Intel's Santa Rosa architecture, the company says. Virtually all the new Core 2 Duos will be available with speeds up to 2.4GHz; the M1330 also inherits the 802.11n wireless and GMA X3100 graphics (on basic models) that come with the platform.
Dell will also separate the PC from the rest of the current XPS series through the inclusion of unique customization options. A 128MB GeForce 8400M GS will provide some of the first unified shader graphics for Dell's consumer systems; the compact system will also represent the first XPS to have a solid-state hard drive in the form of a 32GB flash disk, which will optionally replace the magnetic storage that tops out at 250GB. Fingerprint reading is also unique among the firm's gaming PCs.
None of the publicly available information from the leak confirms a release date or pricing, though the images are described as early renders and point to a release which may be as much as a few months away. [via Engadget]
