Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2/Dell XPS M170
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Dell's Inspiron XPS Gen 2 is a laptop manufactured by Dell, Inc. It is intended for the high-end gaming market. The laptop is available with a 17-inch widescreen 1920x1200 resolution screen and Pentium M processors in 2.0, 2.13 and 2.26 GHz configurations. The screen is coated with a technology called "TrueLife" which improves clarity and can enhance gaming, photos or DVDs, though it does increase visible reflections. As far as graphics processing goes, it is available with a GeForce Go 7800GTX or GeForce Go 6800 Ultra from graphics hardware manufacturer nVidia. Both with 256 MB GDDR3 RAM and support for Shader Model 3.0. Available hard drives range from 60 to 100 GB at either 5,400 or 7,200, and memory can be configured at 1 GB or 2 GB of Dual Channel DDR2 533 Mhz RAM. Either a DVD/CDRW or a DVD+R writer can be installed, but is not easily removable. It comes equipped with 2 front speakers and a 1 inch subwoofer on the bottom. The Gen 2 is a Centrino platform which requires wireless, and thus the Gen-2 has a selection of Intel wireless products which all offer 54 Mb/s with some minor differences (such as 802.11a and Bluetooth). As for ports, the Gen 2 provides 6 USB 2.0, a PCMCIA slot, a firewire, an SD card, 1 mini audio jack, 1 microphone jack, 1 ethernet, 1 modem, and both VGA and DVI outputs.
Importantly the cooling solution is very robust with large copper heat sinks visible through slots in the back. The Pentium M processor runs very cool (25 °C to 30 °C) under normal load and tops out at around 60 °C. The nVidia GPUs run considerably hotter even in lower power mode and run around 45 °C but can exceed 70 °C under full load.
Visually the machine has a metallic plastic cover and inside with contrasting black borders. The machine has customizable "perimeter lighting" in the XPS logos on the lid, in the speakers and in the intake vents on the sides. These lights can be changed to any of 16 available colours or be turned off completely. The tracking pad provides both vertical and horizontal scroll regions and a fairly responsive default settings which are all configurable. The two mouse buttons are solid but a little noisy. The audio controls are placed on the front which allows them to be accessible when the lid is closed. Unfortunately when placed on the lap these controls may not be easy to access. The overall weight of the machine is slightly less than 10 lb (4.5 kg). Which when combined with the power supply is roughly 12–13 lb (5.5 to 6 kg). However, it is still several pounds lighter than previous models in the same DTR class.
