I’m all for PC’s taking different form factors and these look nice (I think) not sure about the wood effect one.

PC Mag has one in for review and give it 3.5 out of 5.

As their review points out this is in direct competition with Apple’s Mac Mini.

The Dell Studio Hybrid can however be configured with a blu ray drive and output HD over HDMI so this becomes interesting for those wanting a tidy/small PC based HD experience.

Link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2326614,00.asp

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Nvidia have announced that some of their Laptop video cards are failing at higher than normal rates.

From their press release:-

"Separately, NVIDIA plans to take a one-time charge from $150 million to $200 million against cost of revenue for the second quarter to cover anticipated warranty, repair, return, replacement and other costs and expenses, arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems. Certain notebook configurations with GPUs and MCPs manufactured with a certain die/packaging material set are failing in the field at higher than normal rates."

However they haven’t disclosed which are the affected products/models.

That isn’t good enough. We now know there is suspect Nvidia products on the market but unwitting customers are likely to be buying affected laptops as I write.

The bad news is this directly affects OEM’s like Dell who for example offer Nvidia video cards in their:-

XPS, Latitude, Precision and Vostro product lines.

Until we know which Nvidia products are affected how confident can consumers be!

Tech Tip: If this issue is a concern consider the Dell Studio laptops as these come with ATI based video cards.

Tech Tip: I always recommend 3 years on-site warranty, as this would cover you for this type of issue.

It is believed Nvidia have told OEM’s to issue software based updates that force the hardware cooling and fans to kick in earlier to combat these issues.

So a quick look a support.dell.com reveals a July 1st 2008 update to their XPS M1330 running  Nvidia GeForce 8400M series cards.

This is significant as Dell are notorious for never updating their 3rd party video drivers.

Make of that what you will. This of course could be completely unrelated.

One way to find out would be for the companies selling the technology to tell us.

Link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1215037160521.html

Updated 15/07/2008

This product has just been released so multiple reviews  will trickle in over the next few days.

Bookmark this post for easy to access to the collected reviews.

Studio 15

PCMAg.com:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2321784,00.asp?kc=PCRSS02129TX1K0000530

C-Net (includes Video)

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-studio-15/4505-3121_7-33107339.html

ZD Net

http://review.zdnet.com/laptops/dell-studio-15/4505-3121_16-33107339.html

Studio 17

Notebookreview.com:

Link: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4471

LaptopMag.com

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/dell-studio-17.aspx

Official Product Link:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/laptop_studio?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

Related Links on this site: View all posts in Dell Studio

With Dell it can be hard to keep up with their branding and positioning.

Their current portfolio consists of:-

Inspiron/Vostro/XPS/Latitude/Optiplex/Precision etc

Today they add Studio a laptop range.

The good news is Studio laptops appears to be targeted at the middle ground. I am not a fan when Dell try to do things on the cheap (Vostro).

Studio laptops come in 15″ and 17″ form factors.

If had to guess who these were aimed at I would say people who want performance but get put off by the XPS gaming brand.

The specifications look decent and the aesthetics are all in place.

The video card seems seems the obvious departure from the Nvidia based XPS range. The Studio laptops ship with an ATI 256mb Mobility Radeon HD 3450.

If you are interested in the Dell Studio then bookmark the link below for a round up of the product reviews as and when they become available.

Link: View all posts in Dell Studio

UK Dell Studio Link:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/laptop_studio?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs