Dell XPS M1710 Metallic Black 17-inch Notebook Review

Introduction and Specifications

You’ve seen it. Maybe you’ve even dreamed about it. Now get the most in-depth look at Dell’s latest gaming laptop! The 17″ M1710 Metallic Black with the GeForce Go 7900 GS looks impressive.

Most gamers are computer geeks who would sooner build their own computer with the parts and configuration they want, rather than having to be locked into a restrictive list of parts and upgrade components from large vendors. While this is predominantly true for desktop computers, in the laptop arena it’s hard to build your own custom laptop to meet your exact specifications. As such, many laptop vendors are starting to cash in on laptop units capable of delivering gaming performance.

The most successful company in gaming laptops is undoubtedly Dell. The popularity of their XPS series gaming notebook is truly astounding and the proof can be seen in many different notebook forums around the Internet today and the buzz preceding a new product launch.

On April 18th, NVIDIA launched their next iteration of mobile GPU with the GeForce Go 7900 GTX and GeForce Go 7900 GS (see our coverage for more detail), with it was a new Dell XPS notebook: the XPS M1710.

The M1710 has improvements over the predecessor M710 notably the Go 7900 graphics, but it stays true to the vision – offer a superb and unique gaming experience in a mobile form factor. We’re going to examine a Metallic Black Armor XPS M1710 configuration today that comes loaded with 2 GB of RAM, a T2600 Core Duo CPU, and a GeForce Go 7900 GS.

What about the Special Edition Formula Red or Go 7900 GTX?

We will not be reviewing the Special Edition Formula Red or the GeForce Go 7900 GTX today, but we will have that review for you later along with detailed comparisons of features and performance.

Specifications

The following table lists all the components you can get configured with the Metallic Black Armor XPS M1710 as of time of publishing. Dell’s options change periodically so you should check the Dell website to see their latest offerings with the M1710 (not to mention the frequent deals and discounts). The parts we received in our review M1710 sample is a mid-range configuration of the available options.

* Bold = what we tested.