Dell XPS M170 Review by LAPTOP Magazine

Dell's refresh of its XPS flagship not only re-establishes it as the premier mobile gaming rig on the planet, but adds a level of customer support that's above and beyond what you might expect from the discount PC king. That's the good news; the bad news is that you will pay a premium for the blazing performance and specialized customer support. The XPS M170 is still best in class for gaming performance and stylish design, but at $3,711 it hits the wallet harder than before.

Previously known as the XPS Gen 2, if the M170 looks similar to its predecessor, that's because they're identical. Dell decided not to mess with a good thing, especially when it comes to weight. At 8.6 pounds, the XPS is one of the lightest desktop replacement units available. That may be too heavy to lug through airports or take it to coffee shops, but it's a huge achievement compared to the 13-pound monsters that usually dominate this space. The light load is possible largely because Dell has custom built the motherboard and not relied on the stock factory design that virtually all other 15-inch gaming notebooks use, making it easier to slim the system down.

The silver gunmetal exterior and black accents match well with the theme of ultimate performance. The slightly curved edges have the illusory effect of making the M170 appear slimmer than it really is. The real fun of the XPS is undoubtedly the perimeter lighting. Six light-emitting diodes (LEDs) carefully placed around the chassis glow in one of 16 different colors that can be adjusted in Windows for type or intensity. Do they do anything special? No. Do they look cool? You bet.

The only major upgrade in this version of the XPS is the graphics hardware. The M170 uses Nvidia's GeForce Go 7800 GTX, the 110-nanometer version of Nvidia's top graphics solution released this summer that is finally appearing in notebooks. The 7800 has a 24-pixel pipeline, support for Direct X 9 Shader Model 3.0, and around 300 million transistors (all of which are good things). Its benchmark scores are nothing short of extraordinary: at 14,749 in 3DMark03, it shattered our previous record held by the old XPS by 24 percent. It's hands down the fastest mobile graphics processor out there.

Gaming performance is the best we've seen yet in a notebook. Playing the graphically intensive Far Cry on the High setting produced a whopping frame rate of 103 frames per second (fps), which pushes the ceiling five percent faster than its cousin, the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra.

The 17-inch, Wide-UXGA True Life display supports up to 1920 x 1200 pixels, which is currently the maximum possible combination of screen size and resolution for a notebook. The large display makes the M170 suitable for watching DVDs, and it's no coincidence that by default Dell configures the M170 with Windows Media Center, an operating system that's optimized for managing movie, photo, and music collections. For an extra $130 Dell will include a built-in TV tuner and remote control to make it a portable TV. A system with the graphics horsepower and physical display capabilities of the XPS shouldn't be left to idle on office applications, if you're interested in the XPS for a gaming machine, you should know that it's more than adequate as a media center as well.

Customer support is the other marquee feature of the M170. Dell has repositioned the XPS family as its high performance line of computers and provides four-star customer service to enhance the overall experience of owning one. Not only will Dell cut down the amount of time it takes to reach an XPS customer support representative, but XPS owners will be assigned a sales representative whom they can call anytime with questions. Depending on which support package you purchase, you can receive help over instant messaging, e-mail, phone, diagnostic software, or even at-home service (which is unparalleled in the PC business). Dell's outsourcing of customer support overseas has raised some complaints about quality, but for the XPS the company is really flexing its support muscles. A free 15-month subscription to McAfee Security Center is included as a bonus.

The downside to this specialized support and hardware firepower is they have upped the price. At $3,711, the XPS costs about the same as competing desktop replacement laptops. By itself that isn't a bad thing, but Dell is famous for its bargain prices and the last XPS was $600 less expensive, which made it a value deal in addition to being a powerhouse. The support is great, but the reality is that it's built into the price.

Considering that the appearance hasn't changed at all, the M170 is more an incremental improvement than a wholesale reformulation of the XPS line. The individual components are of the highest caliber, and for raw performance the M170 has no equal. Customers who want V.I.P. support will appreciate the red carpet treatment, as long as they don't mind paying for it. The XPS doesn't exactly meet its promise to be the Lexus of laptops, but you can't argue with the hardware stuffed into this beast. When it comes to gaming notebooks, the XPS is still the system to beat.

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Dell XPS M170

For big bucks you get blazing graphics, a menacing design, and V.I.P. support

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