It was a really smart move not launching their Dell Mini’s yesterday. As it turns out this launch was for their business Laptops only.

These are laptops in the Latitude and Precision family.

The launch event got more coverage than normal because people were interested in the mini.

The good news the overall perception of the revamped Latitudes was very positive and Dell get to put on another show when the mini’s do eventually launch.

I watched the events unfold live and it was fascinating watching all the links appear on the web within moments. The whole event was well organised and the tip of the hat to new media (twitter) was a nice touch.

I feel sorry for Microsoft.

Above is Dell showing off their latest August 2008 hardware designs running a 2001 Microsoft operating system.

Why I care about Latitudes?

The Latitude E Series replaces the Latitude D Series. I supply and support the D-Series and have done so for many years. So the E Series and I are bound to get acquainted. I like everything I see so far.

At 5pm UK time Dell should be knee deep in announcing new products.

Update: No Mini Netbooks in today’s announcement.

If you want to follow the madness in real time try:-

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=dell

On the subject of twitter. Dell have opened a twitter account to solicit questions about these new products.  See: Digital_Nomads

I shall update this post with a summary of the announcements.

First up CNN money have released some shots of the new Dell Latitude re-design.

Latitude Links:

http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/dells-latitude-redesign-photos-14/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10014386-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave

Engadget: Dell announces new Latitude E series

http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/08/dell-outs-ult-1.html

Direct2Dell Blog Contains Video: Link

Latitude Product Page is up (contains some nice video): http://www.dell.com/latitude

Dell Latitude Press Kit: Link

Sounds Bites

“Latitude now comes in various colours including red, blue and even pink”.

“Latitudes with backlit keyboards”.

“Latitudes to have “Latitude On” For instant access

“Dell Claim to have a Latitude Battery that can last > 19 hours on the E6400″.

The smaller E4200 and E4300 will be available in the coming weeks.

E4200

E5400

E6500

Precision Mobile Links:

Link: Dell Mobile Precision Laptops Get an Update

Link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2327896,00.asp

Sounds Bites

“Precision Mobile now has Quad Core and Terabyte options”.

When companies revamp their product lines they change product names which make it difficult to figure out which new model replaces the old one.

So I made the table below mapping the old to the new.

This comes from some early information and is subject to change/error.

The Latitude product line is due for a refresh very soon. The D-Series family has served me well and is a great choice for a business user.

Here are some step by step instructions for upgrading the bios in your Dell Laptop.

Visit www.support.dell.com and select "I’m Looking for Drivers and Downloads".

Select your machine type (Laptop / Desktop) Then your family model, then the specific model within that family.

Once you arrive at the main page for your hardware expand the bios section and click the link Dell - Bios

Next Download your Bios file.

Bios files are typically small so should download quickly.

Once downloaded, come out of everything and make sure your laptop is on mains power. Then run the bios file you downloaded.

It will confirm the current bios level and tell you want number it’s going to upgrade too.

The last prompt you will see is this one.

When you click ok your laptop will immediately reboot, it will then perform the bios upgrade on a DOS like white screen and then reboot.

It may take longer than usual to load the Bios the first time it’s run, So leave it. It should only be a moment or so.

Then your laptop will boot windows and the upgrade is complete.

I posted here about the Nvidia mobile graphics cards that Nvidia themselves reported as “failing in the field at higher than normal rates.”

Dell have now announced the list of possibly affected laptops and has issued Bios Upgrades that change the fan profile.

These include the

Inspiron 1420

Latitude D630 and D630c

Precision M2300

Vostro 1310, 1400, 1510 and 1710

XPS M1330 and M1530

What do end users need to do?

Well you basically download and install the Bios update. The change to the fan profile will probably mean the fan’s kick in earlier to keep the system cooler. Step by Step Instructions are here.

Some people have commented (on the direct to dell blog) that this isn’t really an acceptable solution.

Tip1: If you purchased one of the above laptops with only 1 years warranty I would definitely contact Dell and upgrade your existing warranty to 3 years to give you some additional protection. Upgrading the Bios can only do so much.

Tip2: Normally I would recommend installing this immediately but in the comments of the conversations below there have been some people with bios install problems. I would hold off for a couple of days then check for any known problems.

Link: NVIDIA GPU Update for Dell Laptop Owners

Other online Conversations about this topic.

Dell explains NVIDIA GPU issues, throws out BIOS updates to help

http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/10090995/Replace_All_Faulty_Nvidia_Laptop_GPUs

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/07/25/nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx#comments

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=dell+nvidia