I have had an offline on-going dialogue with Dell for a couple of weeks.

The short version of the story is I gave my  Dell XPS M1210 laptop to a client after his failed twice in a month. This left me with his older M1210 to get repaired for the 3rd time. (posts about this here).

I was also slightly worse off as the clients M1210 was a slightly lower spec than the one I gave him.

Jamie my Resolution Manager at Dell initially said as I elected to replace the Clients machine Dell were only obligated fix the broken laptop under warranty. I agreed.

However the next day Jamie called me and offered to send an engineer to replace the CPU, Screen and upgrade the Ram and the Warranty. This would bring the machine back into line with the one I gave away.

I was really pleased Dell offered me this but I was thinking this seems to be a lot of trouble to go to for the now repaired  2 year old laptop.

I then asked if I could perhaps get a discount towards a new machine. He enquired which one I was interested in, I said the Dell XPS M1530.

A day passed then Jamie called and offered a direct swap. My old XPS M1210 for a new XPS M1530.

That’s a pretty good deal, so I took it. Thanks Dell.

The guys over at PCMag.com have in for review the updated (Penryn) Dell XPS M1730.

Now a tricked out $4000 laptop is not your average piece of kit and the XPS M1730 stands at the top of Dell’s gaming/performance XPS range.

At 10 pounds its also not that portable. But these laptops are all about the performance.

The review works out at 4/5.

Link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2319843,00.asp?kc=PCRSS02129TX1K0000530

The starter price for the XPS 730 in the UK is £2499. For a machine with only 1 years on-site warranty that’s a pretty impressive price tag.

Hey go nuts, add in 3 years warranty and a 22″ monitor and the bill comes to £2883.

So the XPS 730 is clearly only for a select few.

As ridiculous as the cost appears to me, is this really any different to seeing some exotic cars on the motorway (Lamborgini, Ferrari or Bentley). The market exists for those so why not.

Links:

PC Mac Review Link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2289571,00.asp

Official Dell Link: Dell XPS 730

Direct 2 Dell: Post Link

The guys over at PC Mag seemed to like it. They gave it an editors choice award and 4 out of 5.

This is an mid-level machine for those not ready to commit to a XPS 7 series.

To be honest the case design is a bit too Star Trek for my tastes.

Maybe I am getting old but I have no clue who the target audience is for the above advert, teenagers with $1299 to spend I assume.

If I had to choose between the styling of the XPS 420 over the XPS 630, it would be the 420 all the way. Clearly the designers had slightly less testosterone. Neither totally satisfy.

XPS 420                   XPS 630

Link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2269812,00.asp

See Also: XPS 630 Desktop Coming Soon

I placed an order online on Friday 01-02-2008 for a Dell XPS 420

Now I have had a busy week with Children being born, Networks being installed, so I wasn’t in a mad rush for the PC.

So  I thought I wonder how my XPS 420 Order is progressing.

So I email my account manager (Paul A McBride), I instantly get an Out of Office message from him.

Contained in the Out of office email is the e-mail address of another contact at Dell. This Chap is Called Patrick Furlong

So I email Patrick asking for an update on my order only to receive an Out of Office from him as well.

But in this Out of Office it contained the details of yet another person Fiona Lacy.

So just for her hell of it I email her and ask for an order update.

I haven’t heard anything from Fiona.

If anyone at Dell can find out what is going on I would appreciate it.

The web order reference number is 292774

Right now I should be telling the world how Great the Dell XPS 420 is.