Dell XPS M1710 review

Dell XPS M1710 Overview

The Dell XPS M1710 is the latest premium gaming notebook from Dell that replaces the current XPS M170. The M1710 has a 17" widescreen and comes in a choice of two colors, "formula red" or "metallic black". On the inside it houses the 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo processor, up to 4GB of RAM and the icing on the cake -- the latest and greatest nVidia Go 7900 GTX graphics card with 512MB of memory. If you like to do serious gaming or simply have the fastest notebook money can buy right now, this notebook is for you!

System: Dell XPS M1710 (Red color lid)
Processor: Intel Core Duo T2600 (2.16 GHz)
Memory: 2GB @ 667MHz - 2 DIMM Slots (2 x 1GB) (Max Ram 4GB)
Hard Drive: 100GB capacity at a speed of 7200 RPM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX with 512MB DDR memory
Screen: WUXGA Truelife (1920 x 1200)
Optical Drive: 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW/+R) with Dual-Layer
OS: Microsoft MCE 2005
Wireless Card: Intel 3945 (802.11b/g)
Battery: 9-cell lithium ion recharegable battery
Ports / Slots: 5-in-1 Memory Card Reader, DVI-D, VGA video output, S-Video, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), 6 USB 2.0, Express Card slot, Modem, Ethernet/LAN, Microphone in, Headphone out

The Dell XPS M1710 design is, in a word, brazen. In daylight the striking red or metallic black lid will catch the eyes of just about anyone nearby. In the dark, if you stand far enough away this thing looks more like a UFO as the lights glow in a somewhat eery yet cool manner. I'll let the pictures of the light display the M1710 emits tell the story, the light colors are configurable with up to 16 color options for each light via a Dell included QuickSet program:

Outside of the lid and lights, the rest of the look is silver. I'm used to seeing a black keyboard on Dell machines, but this one sports a more sleek looking silver keyed look, which is nice and fits the design well.

You'll notice the XPS M1710 has somewhat of an industrial look and this is true to the actual build of the notebook. The M1710 is very sturdy; it uses an all magnesium-alloy case on the top and bottom. The keyboard and palm rest area is made of a thick rugged plastic. This results in strong overall physical protection of the notebook, worry-free of case cracks appearing or problems with excessive flexing. The hinges are constructed of steel, Dell claims they have been tested for up to 20,000 cycles (openings and closings) to assure freedom from loosening and wobble. Honestly, the lid on this notebook is possibly the strongest I've tested on any notebook, it does not flex at all and is stronger protection than even the renknowned ThinkPad notebook line. The hard drive has a StrikeZone shock absorber for small drops and bumps for protection in small drops.

There is one part of the build that's lacking, the plastic on the bottom of the LCD is easy to bend and flex. It's not likely that you would be touching this area often, but still worth noting to keep the review honest. The area above the keyboard where the status lights are is also somewhat flexible.

The weight of this notebook isn't as bad as you might think. I've run across seventeen inch screen notebooks that make you groan just picking them up to move from one surface to the next. The XPS M1710 is quoted as being 8.8 lbs by Dell, I weighed both the M1710 and its power adapter together and the total came it at just over 10 lbs.

I benchmarked the first level of FEAR from the moment my character stepped out of the car until the end of the first checkpoint. A 1600x1200 resolution is certainly within reach for the Go7900GTX. It is playable all around, with only certain scenes causing the framerates to drop into the low 40's/high 30's. Despite averaging 59 FPS with 2X AA, there are a few scenes where the frames drop under 35 for a few seconds. It's still playable at these settings, but I would recommend leaving it at 1600x1200 because the performance is more consistent. I would only add anti-aliasing at this resolution if you had a dual-graphics card SLI or CrossFire desktop. Playing FEAR at these settings, without a doubt, is incredible. You can't ask for any more out of a single-card system, desktop or laptop.

Heat and Noise:

The Dell XPS M1710 has a very efficient and quiet cooling system. Not only is it quiet, but it also is has a very smart design. Dell has split up two of the most heat-producing components in the notebook, and placed them on opposite sides of the computer. The processor is on one, and the video card on the other, both using separate fans and heatsinks. This is very effective at cooling the M1710, because heat is spread out and has more room to escape.

Even after hours of gaming, the surface of the notebook only gets mildly warm, nothing to worry about in the least. The palm rests remain cool at all times. No part on the surface gets hot to the touch. The bottom, however, does. Directly in the center is the RAM compartment. It is perforated to get ventilation, but still remains very warm. It is somewhat uncomfortable to touch. The bottom right side also gets very hot. It's not unexpected to have the bottom of the notebook heat up, given how powerful the internal components are.

This is the quietest notebook I have used to date. Even at full tilt, it is hard to tell the fans are running. At idle, it has to be completely silent to hear the soft trickle of warm air coming out. Very, very impressive!

Keyboard, Touchpad and Buttons:

The keyboard on the XPS M1710 actually looks and feels quite a bit different to all other Dell notebooks I've used. The keyboard keys are not black, as they so typically are, but rather a silver color that blends with the rest of the case color. The keys are also more springy and have more travel than is typical with a Dell notebook, which is to my liking. The keyboard actually turns out to be extremely usable and has a nice feel, and while the M1710 is not meant as a productivity tool for Office Applications, I'd be quite happy doing a lot of typing on this notebook. There is no flex to the keyboard, it is built very sturdily. In addition, the palm rests are extremely solid. Since the battery lies underneath the palm rest area, this would explain the sheer solidness of the area (a good thing).

At the top of the keyboard there resides two functional buttons, the Media Direct button allows you to quickly boot to a Linux OS that allows you to play media (see OS section for more) and then there's the rounded power button located at top center.

Dell XPS M1710 keyboard

The touchpad is very cool with the XPS lighting, but more importantly it's actually a decent size and works well with scroll zones on the right side for vertical scroll and on the bottom for horizontal scroll. Again though, if you're using this notebook more for gaming and entertainment then the touchpad won't cut it for accurate input control, you'll need a game controller or high precision mouse.

At the front area are located handy media buttons for play, stop, skip and volume up/down. These buttons work in both Windows and the Dell Media Direct quick boot application

Input and Output Ports:

The port selection on the XPS M1710 is about as good as you can ask for, 6 USB 2.0 ports is better than many desktop machines and you have all the video connectors you could want with the VGA out, DVI and S-Video out connector. You could gripe about not having a PCMCIA slot if you have old accessories you'd like to use with this, but the ExpressCard is fast becoming the default expansion slot for notebooks -- hopefully accessory makers will catch up soon by making more cards that fit this slot, right now the selection is a bit limited.

The external TV Tuner is an option for the XPS M1710 and if you have the Windows Media Center Edition OS it might be a nice add-on since you could record live TV.

Wireless:

The XPS M1710 comes with an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 card, supporting A, B, and G bands. It is one of the newer cards in the mini PCI-express format, versus the older mini-PCI format. It is much smaller and consumes less power.

I had some major wireless-related problems early on with the XPS. I could connect to my Netgear 802.11g router fine, but I had fluctuating speed issues. Gaming was nearly impossible over wireless. After about twenty minutes of being connected, I had additional problems -- I would lose my connection, and the small WiFi light would begin to flicker. This was odd, because I set the wireless card to not turn off and to stay at maximum power. It flickered for about one minute, then went off. From then on in, I could not access anything to do with the wireless connection or the settings of the wireless card -- as soon as I did, the system would freeze. The only way I could restore the wireless was to do a full restart, and then I would have the same problems.

I attempted to uninstall the wireless card drivers and software and reinstall them, updaing the drivers, changing network keys, and so on. How I eventually fixed it was by completely uninstalling the wireless adapter, and letting Windows install the wireless card. It now works great using the generic Windows wireless software. On a system of this caliber, I should not have to fool around with the wireless to make it work -- it should perform flawlessly right out of the box. Hopefully, this will only be an issue on the review unit and not on future systems, we conferred with Dell on this issue and they had not heard such reports and emphasized this is a pre-production unit.

Battery and Power:

The battery is a 9-cell located at the front area of the notebook, which is a little different to the normally far back positioned location. The battery has a nice feature in which you can push in on it to light up 5 green LEDs to display how much charge is left, this works whether the notebook is on or off.

4400mAh dell high quality inspiron xps m1710 battery Specs..

Battery Type: Li-ion

Voltage : 11.1V

Capacity : 4400mAh

Color : Black

Dimension : 209.40 x 71.80 x 19.80 mm

Net Weight : 467.77 g

Dell inspiron xps m1710 Laptop Battery fit OEM Part/Number: dell 310-6321 , 312-0340 , d5318 , replacement for dell inspiron 6000 , inspiron 9300 , inspiron e1705 , inspiron xps m1710 notebook battery...

The dell inspiron xps m1710 battery has a gauge that lights up to indicate charge level when you push in on it, this works if the notebooks is on or off for a quick way to check charge

Now, if you're buying the XPS M1710, there's probably a good chance that you won't be spending a lot of time on battery as it's more of a desktop replacement gaming style machine. But if you do, the battery life is respectable for a computer with this much power. With the screen brightness at 6/7 (near maximum, keep in mind), wireless at full power, and while surfing the Internet, I clocked the battery power to be two hours and five minutes. That's not bad at all. You could certainly add more time if you turned down the brightness.

The power adapter that comes with this notebook is rather huge, to say the least. It weighs about 1.6lbs and is only slightly smaller in length to a DVD (see picture below).
The power adapter is large, almost the size of a DVD in length and much thicker

Operating System and Software:

You have three choices of an OS: XP Home, XP Professional and XP Media Center Edition. The operating system I got is Windows Media Center Edition 2005. This is basically Windows XP Home with media center software on top. I didn't get a TV tuner with this unit, but is an option for configuration with the XPS M1710 (external USB solution, not integrated).

At the top of the keyboard you see a "Media Direct" button that allows you to push and quickly boot to a Linux based OS in which you can view photos, play DVDs and Music located on the hard drive, media card, external USB storage or from a DVD

Unfortunately the XPS M1710 comes with the typical amount of garbage software that I'd imagine gamer types will cringe at. Then again, techno savvy gamers would be the first to wipe a system and reinstall the OS to their liking, so maybe it's not such a big deal. Software such as Yahoo Music, McAfee, AOL, Corel trial image software are on there to name a few and will pop up and try and get you to subscribe/buy the software.

One nice thing you get with the XPS M1710 is the Media Direct functionality that allows you to quickly load up the machine to play music, view pictures or watch a DVD. You do this by clicking the "Media Direct" button on the front of the laptop. The first time you do this it takes a minute to boot and configure, but after that it's a quick 15-seconds to getting to an application that allows you to play music and other media. I was impressed by the interface and ease of use, all of the media buttons on the front work just as they do in the actual Windows bootup.

The conclusion is quite simple for the M1710: If this were the state fair and the contest were for best performance notebook, then the blue ribbon would go to the XPS M1710. The coolest thing being, you could even adjust the lights on the M1710 to blue to match that ribbon!

Pros:

Unmatched 3D performance, fantastic for gaming or high-end 3D tasks
Cool and quiet, even when gaming for hours
Very cool looking, especially the lights -- could be mistaken as UFO from a distance
Great keyboard
Nice screen, very bright and good colors
Cons:

Wireless problems, for this pre-production unit at least
Area below LCD and top of keyboard has some flex
No PCMCIA card slot for any accessories you had for older notebooks
Want it? Show Dell the money! Premium notebooks command a premium $$ price.