dell
Alienware M11x Ultra-Portable Gaming Laptop Launched
February 3, 2010
The latest release from popular manufacturer Dell’s gaming branch, is the ultra-portable Alienware M11x compact gaming laptop which they recently showed off at a Dell-Alienware gaming event after it’s initial appearance at CES 2010.
This is an extremely eye catching machine as it’s really pushing the boundaries of gaming PC’s. Usually, when you consider a gaming machine, you tend to think of either a more bulky laptop with a full size 17 or 18” display (such as perhaps the Alienware M17x gaming laptop), or a bulky desktop roaring away underneath a neon lit desk. However, Dell is out to change that opinion with their latest Alienware branded 11” portable gaming laptop that weighs in at around 4.5lbs.
In terms of specification, this thing is far from a lightweight. Designed for gaming, you expect decent performance and that’s exactly what you get. The processor, just a standard Intel Core 2 Duo (1.3GHz). But the real power within comes when you dig a little deeper. Up to 8Gb of DDR3 memory clocked at 1066MHz will provide extremely good capabilities with regards to multitasking with power hungry applications.
Continue reading »Delicious 3D Gaming Discussions With Dell’s Alienware
January 29, 2010
When you get invited to an event to play games and talk about the history, development and future of games, you turn up. The other day, I was lucky enough to meet and hang out with some of London’s games bloggers/writers, not to mention Adam Griffin from Dell UK and Michael O’Dell of Team-Dignitas. The purpose of the event? Well, Dell will soon be releasing some new hardware – the Alienware M11x – and aside from that they’re seriously looking into 3D gaming options for hardcore gamers. Discussion, gaming, pontificating, and a little bit of furious ‘let’s just agree to disagree’ ensued.
After poking around and playing Flatout Ultimate Carnage viewed on the Alienware OptXTM AW2310 3D monitor, it was clear for everyone to see that this next year will be inundated with everything 3D. Pubs are now showing football matches in 3D and there will be more 3D films released in 2010 than any year previous. All fingers point to people simply wanting more of the multi-dimension action right up in their faces. But, what makes this viewing experience so different and more appealing than what we already have?
Continue reading »Dell Mini Inspiron 10 Netbook (Atom N450) Announced
December 31, 2009
In the crowded world of netbooks, Dell have always been a major contender, with their Mini series and we’ve written two reviews here on Zath for the Dell Mini 9 netbook.
With a new year, comes a new netbook from Dell. The new Dell Mini Inspiron 10 netbook will be released early this month and Dell are offering a variety of options as always.
In terms of performance, it is the same as always, 1.6Ghz N450 Atom processor, 1Gb DDR2 RAM and the option of either 160Gb or 250Gb hard drives. Not much improvement since the last model there, however they also give you the choice between 3 and 6 cell batteries with the latter providing up to 9.5 hours of battery life. This puts it right up there with its greatest competitors in terms of endurance.
Continue reading »Dell Inspiron Zino HD – Small Media PC
November 18, 2009
What happens when you take a standard desktop computer, shrink into a neat, smooth, compact form just smaller than a shoebox and make it shiny and white? Well the Apple Mac Mini of course, but what if you then give it some more exciting colours, add a load more customisation and make it that little bit cheaper? The new Dell Inspiron Zino HD.
Looking a little like a Mac Mini that’s let itself go, the Zino HD was officially introduced to the world today boasting versatility “… enough to handle tasks from basic computing chores to driving a big-screen, high-definition video media centre” and colours to “add flair to any room in the home”. So with claims like that it’s definitely worth a look at.
Continue reading »Dell Adamo XPS – The Latest ‘Thinnest Laptop’
November 11, 2009
If you recognise the name ‘Dell Adamo XPS’ and it’s not because of the recent hype it’s probably due to the original “Dell Adamo” machine that went under that name and was released back in March and proudly took the title as being the thinnest laptop around which somewhat took the wind out of Apple’s Air’s sails – by about 0.11 inches to be precise.
Well the race for the thinnest laptop has been a little quieter since then, and this probably down to the fact that most manufacturers have realised most people actually can’t tell the difference between 0.65 and 0.76 inches, and even more importantly aren’t willing to pay hundreds of pounds for the difference. But Dell have seemingly been undeterred by this opinion, and have really pulled the stops out with the Dell Adamo XPS – the new thinnest laptop.
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 5: File and Software Compatibility
October 23, 2009
The majority of testing I’ve been doing with Windows 7 has taken place on my Unibody Macbook. Every time I install Windows on one of my OS X machines, one of the first things I do is install Mac Drive so that I can read files from my OS X partition. You can imagine my surprise when on first boot, my ‘E’ drive, also known as ‘Snow Leopard’ was visible in Windows Explorer, with every file on the partition visible.
Functionality is limited, as from what I can tell from testing, you can only read from the HFS formatted partition – whenever I try to write to it, I receive an error message telling me that I don’t have the privileges to write to the drive. Even so, being able to read from my Mac’s partition without third party software in Windows is a very nice addition to Windows 7 for us Mac users!
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 4: Performance On Less Powerful Hardware
October 22, 2009
A lot of people are going to be upgrading from Windows XP straight to Windows 7 over the coming months, but not everyone’s going to get a brand new PC to go with their brand new operating system, so how will old hardware running an OS written 10 years ago cope with Windows 7?
According to Microsoft, the system requirements for 7 are a 1GHz processor capable of 32-bit or 64-bit; 1GB RAM if you’re installing the 32-bit version of Windows 7 or 2GB RAM if you’re installing the 64-bit version; 16GB hard drive space for 32-bit, or 20 for 64-bit and a DX9 graphics card. These requirements are almost identical to the stated requirements for Windows Vista, although if you wanted to keep your sanity when running Vista, you probably needed better specs than what Microsoft recommended…
Continue reading »New Alienware Area 51 Gaming Computers and Gaming Peripherals
September 27, 2009
Earlier this week we brought you three of the new Alienware M15x and Aurora gaming computers releases and now we’re back with six more – the Alienware Area-51 and Area-51 ALX Desktops, the Optx 21.5” monitor and Tactx Gaming mouse, headset and keyboard!
New Alienware M15x and Aurora Gaming Computers
September 24, 2009
Since they were established in 1996 Alienware have become pretty much synonymous with ‘high-end gaming systems’ and as this niche has grown so has the company to the point where they were acquired by Dell back in 2006 and you could say that they have now eclipsed the Dell XPS desktop gaming PC range.
Focusing on both ‘enthusiast’ and ‘hardcore’ gamers the systems that Alienware create have gained a reputation for being of both high quality and price, as well as distinctive – the sci-fi theme implied by their name runs through to the design of the machines which are always undeniably sleek and futuristic.
Continue reading »Dell Mini 9 Netbook Review
July 29, 2009
You may have read The Average Windows Nerd’s recent review of the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook, however I thought I’d write-up a quick review of my opinion of this while I could and to outline what I’m planning on doing with it!
Of the netbooks that I’ve had the chance to look at and use in the past, I would say the first thing that strikes you is the build quality of Dell’s offering – it’s certainly a sturdy piece of hardware which has been designed quite well…at least externally, when it features a rounded corners and a cool looking shiny finish – although as with anything like this, it’s an absolute fingerprint magnet.
Continue reading »
