Should I Buy a Dell XPS M1710?

The Dell XPS M1710 has been updated for the holiday season with the new GeForce Go 7950 GTX, making the Dell XPS M1710 the only laptop with this ultra-advanced graphics card. This allows the Dell XPS M1710 to maintain its position as the top of the mobile gaming machines.

Not only does the Dell XPS M1710 look coll with fiery red lid with gray margins that have a light up XPS embroidered in, it works wonderfully as well. With a nice full sized keyboard, and a generous touchpad with scroll zones in it, the Dell XPS M1710 is perfect for a gamer. Not only does the Dell XPS provide great graphics and comfortable keyboard design for the gamers, it also has all sorts of shortcuts in place to help you go through your media and entertainment. It has a small button at the top (with the on/off button) that will take you directly to the Dell Entertainment Center, a rip-off of the Windows Media Center.

With the 17inch screen and 1900x1200 resolution capabilities, you might have some trouble with the size of the text on some sites. However, the Dell XPS M1710 does offer an extra port where you can plug in a larger screen for better view. There is one more extra feature that the Dell XPS M1710 has - flashing lights that flash different colors based on what you're doing on the screen. For example, as you get hit in a game, the lights might flash red, and when you're playing music, the lights might flash silver/green based on the settings and the kind of song being played.

It also has a lot to offer for the media junkie. You can play Cds and Dvds on the Dell XPS M1710 without rebooting the computer using the Dell Entertainment Center button. There are also a number of buttons that control the volume, the tone, play, rewind, fast forward and so on located on the front facing strip at the bottom of the laptop center. There are also a number of extra peripheral options that the Dell XPS M1710 offers with headphone, microphone, VGA, DVI, S-video-out, four pin firewire and six abundant USB 2.0 ports. The different networking options offered by the Dell XPS M1710 include a 56kbps modem, 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g wireless connections, and an optional Bluetooth option. Some more extra features are the ExpressCard slot and a 5 in 1 card reader, though the lack of a PCMCIA card slot is unexplained.

With all these great things going for the Dell XPS M1710, there still are some things to keep in mind. First of all, this is an expensive machine, totaling over $3000 for its standard configuration. Second, it's a desktop replacement and weighs in at 10.4 lbs with the power brick and won't be easy to lug around everywhere. Also, if all you want to do is play games, then a much better option would be to just get a desktop PC which would cost less than a third of the Dell XPS M1710.

However, if you're looking for the best of the best laptop gaming machines, then look no further than the Dell XPS M1710.