Dell XPS M1730 spotted in the wild?

It looks like Dell is finally readying a followup to its M1710 speedster with the XPS M1730. The 17-inch laptop will of course be packing some Santa Rosa muscle, but according to rumors Dell's also going to provide that new Core 2 Extreme X7800 chip for the real speed demons / big spenders out there. For graphics the base models will be getting an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GS card with 256MB of memory, with a 512MB GeForce 8700M GT waiting in the wings. Other rumored specs include 4GB max of RAM and a 512MB or 1GB Intel Turbo Memory option, Bluetooth 2.0, Blu-ray and that welcome numeric keypad addition. The word is this one will go on sale August 27th, and while the paint job is bordering on "crime against humanity," hopefully Dell will have a few more acceptable options to decorate this gaming beast whenever it does hit the market.

[Thanks, Matthias]

[Daniel Foster @ Aug 4th 2007 3:40PM]

That design is god awful. I hope Dell has plans for others.

[Homeboy @ Aug 4th 2007 9:53PM]

I second that. It's the type of styling and design I thought was cool when I was 13 years old plying Starcraft back in 2000. That XPS logo need redesigning too, looks to premature.

[Neebs @ Aug 4th 2007 3:40PM]

Looks nice. The paint would be ok if the red was removed and the keyboard was black.

[Jon Graft @ Aug 5th 2007 12:21PM]

My thoughts exactly. Take out the red and make the keyboard black and that would be one sick nasty laptop!

[Adam @ Aug 4th 2007 3:42PM]

Urgh... And after the M1330 and that prototype display I thought dell were finally getting the hang of design but that thing just looks like a suitcase...

[js @ Aug 4th 2007 3:57PM]

Dell had a contract with another company to design the M1330 (*cough* ASUS *cough*).

American-based computer companies design butt ugly laptops... with the exception of Apple of course.

[eh @ Aug 4th 2007 5:04PM]

More like the suitcase's inbred cousin.

[Richard Lai @ Aug 6th 2007 3:07AM]

@js: where did you find out about Dell's contract with Asus regarding the design of the M1330?

[joseraulnova @ Aug 4th 2007 4:19PM]

that must be the ugliest laptop ive ever seen

[kingofwale @ Aug 4th 2007 3:47PM]

the machine is a MONSTER! and no, I don't only mean the way it looks. ;)

please, just because it's a desktop replacement, it doesn't mean people won't bring it outside. I'd be ashamed to have this with me.

[chris @ Aug 4th 2007 3:53PM]

Leave it to Dell to build an ugly machine. I know my next laptop will be a MacBook Pro, but that's just my humble opinion.

[Derek @ Aug 24th 2007 1:34PM]

I hope you are planning to play any games on the Macbook Pro. It may look cool, but don't judge a book by its color!

[Mike McGregor @ Aug 4th 2007 3:58PM]

I really hate laptops that have keypads on the side.. it makes it even more unergonomic for typing on! keyboards should always be centred. thats my rant finished.

[bob e @ Aug 4th 2007 4:28PM]

The trackpad is off center due to the numeric key pad. It is centered around the main keyset. That makes sense.

I bought a Crimson M1330 myself.
This one is not much to look at I agree.

[Steve @ Aug 5th 2007 5:02AM]

I think Mike's point is that the "main keyset" is not centered in relation to the screen. So if you're looking straight at the screen, your hands will be shifted to the left, or if you're typing with your hands straight in front of you you'll have to look at the screen at a weird angle. Sounds uncomfortable, and probably won't work very well on a lap.

[AlexP @ Aug 4th 2007 4:06PM]

From beige to beige with carbon fiber and red accents!

GTFO Dell "design" team.

[eh @ Aug 4th 2007 4:22PM]

The size is forgiveable since its like a desktop but its just hideous looking. It looks so cheap. How can Dell finally make a good looking laptop with their XPS M1330 and then resort back to this monstrosity? Do they think gamers dont like tasteful things? Dell should be ashamed, this is seriously one of the ugliest things Ive ever seen and I wouldnt be caught dead with it in public.

[Andrew M @ Aug 4th 2007 4:27PM]

Why is the trackpad offset? I imagine that might be uncomfortable.

[Phil Perman @ Aug 4th 2007 5:07PM]

It means you can quickly go between typing and using the track pad without having to move your hands far. In fact if you use your thumbs on the track pad you wouldn't have to move your hands at all.

Also if it was centered I imagine your right palm would be resting on it while typing, which could cause quite a few problems.

[Michael Geary @ Aug 4th 2007 9:40PM]

The touchpad is positioned correctly. It is under the B key, where you'll see it on virtually any notebook. That centers it between your hands when you touch type.

[Andrew M @ Aug 4th 2007 9:57PM]

Ah. My bad; I didn't think about the number pad.

[Ayle @ Aug 4th 2007 4:40PM]

Aaaaah my eyes! Seriously I've never seen a paint job that ugly....

[Stevie Wonder @ Aug 4th 2007 5:04PM]

This is SO obviously a paint job on an m1720 made to look like it's the m1730. (Has Dell even decided on calling it the m1730? Not m1750?) This thing is so freakin' ugly, only a mother could love it. I highly doubt this is what Dell's high-end laptop will actually look like.

I mean, c'mon, it's a paint job, and a lousy one at that.

THIS IS NOT THE NEXT-GEN GAMING LAPTOP FROM DELL!

Everybody keep your pants on!

[Iria @ Aug 4th 2007 9:58PM]

It better not be ... first of all, the 8600 isn't as fast as the 7950 ... although it is DX10. What we need is an 8800 ...

[Mike @ Aug 4th 2007 5:25PM]

This design may well appeal to some people - I'm guessing the same ones that think that chrome spinners look good on a honda civic.

[Ellianth @ Aug 4th 2007 5:57PM]

It's an aircraft carrier. You can even see the skid marks from where many an airplane landed on it. Now the XPS m1330 is gonna have to tell lies at school and say it's adopted. Poor thing.

[Jay @ Aug 4th 2007 6:09PM]

Aside from appearence, Dell makes a very good computer... however I will never ever get a Dell ever again because their customer service absolutely SUCKS. Over an hour of holding, 3 hours on the phone with a person who doesnt know English and I still can't solve any problems. No more Dell for me.

[Chris @ Aug 4th 2007 7:05PM]

This is going to smell like fanboyism here but your description of Dell's support is night and day away from my experience with Apple's over the phone customer support. I've never been kicked around to different departments, I've never waited more than 3 minutes, and I've always had a native english speaker to talk to.

[Jackyshadow @ Aug 4th 2007 6:09PM]

So why do we need a Blu-ray drive on a laptop?

[AlexP @ Aug 4th 2007 6:49PM]

I'm going to lol if it has a VGA output.

[Daniel Foster @ Aug 4th 2007 7:58PM]

I have to agree with Chris. While I'm not a Dell fan boy either, their support is pretty good. I had a hard drive that died on a computer a few weeks ago that was almost to the end of its warranty. I was expecting to have to jump through hoops to get it replaced, but all I had to do was call them and say "My hard drive is dead. I ran such and such diagnostics program and it found such and such errors." and they replaced the drive without question for free! The whole phone call probably took no more than 5 minutes.

[Mr.Flowerpot @ Aug 4th 2007 9:27PM]

Looks awful...

[mattstl77 @ Aug 4th 2007 8:37PM]

Looks like the Apple Fanboys are coming out of the woodworks because of some hypothetical Dell Laptop!

It is not like the Mac is a decent looking machine. If anything it is mediocre all around.

[Chris @ Aug 5th 2007 10:39AM]

Funny because us Apple fanboys are supposed to be the ones obsessed with looks, yet you are the one that brought looks up. We were talking about customer service. The other comments about how this computer looks do not mention Apple so it's not fair at all to assume they are Apple fanboys.

[Chris @ Aug 5th 2007 10:40AM]

Also, there are people with good taste and people with bad taste. You fall into the latter group.

[Kevin O. @ Aug 4th 2007 10:12PM]

Hopefully dell let this one leak on purpose to see how people react... and hopefully theyll take note of the fact its hideous and go back to the drawing table

[kyler @ Aug 4th 2007 9:41PM]

the screen looks like a widescreen, but the base looks like a 4:3 ratio. i call bs

[Bob @ Aug 4th 2007 10:34PM]

I was really looking forward for the xps m1710 replacement notebook. That looks like a moldy, burnt, banged on with a hammer- roadkilled- piece of plastic!

back to the boring less powerful insprion again..........:(

[hugh @ Aug 4th 2007 10:33PM]

oh man, what is up with that? and why is the fingerpad so far on the left? thats not convenient at all. ugly.

[Johan S @ Aug 4th 2007 10:33PM]

512 MB of texture RAM is soo yesterday. Let's have 1 GB of texture RAM instead .. which is about quarter of the way to photorealism in 3D games at current resolutions.

[Peter R. @ Aug 5th 2007 12:16AM]

I'm seriously hoping thats just some prototype of the m1730, cause that paint job is really awful. Other than that the "rumored specs" are alright, but I'm hoping the actual upgrade to the M1710 comes with the new 8800M GPUs that should be out sometime this summer.

[Iam9376 @ Aug 5th 2007 2:37AM]

Ugliest.Laptop.Ever.

[Alex @ Aug 5th 2007 3:29AM]

I am sticking with my M90! That thing is fugly!

[Matthias @ Aug 5th 2007 11:40AM]

This is really photoshop I think... But the specs will be right I think

[ark_v2 @ Aug 5th 2007 11:48AM]

*logging in to Dell idea storm...*

[nikster @ Aug 5th 2007 12:40PM]

Dell can make an ugly laptop, we know that. But not even Dell would come up with the monstrosity pictured. I say it's fake.

[M@ @ Aug 5th 2007 10:51PM]

Fake for sure. It's a photoshop job, and not even a very good one.

[Nfinity @ Aug 6th 2007 4:51AM]

God that looks awful!

They need to apply M1330 design to the rest of the series. It's not brain science to make thin and nice looking laptops for Christ sake. Asus makes nice one, but they have a huge problem for not allowing me to customize it to my specs.

[KVM @ Aug 6th 2007 5:56AM]

Looks fake. Look at the closeups of the media keys on the original (Italian) site. Obviously they had a hard time Photoshopping them and gave up... I know we're all waiting to see this laptop, but I don't think this is it.

[Ken @ Aug 6th 2007 6:57AM]

1. Its very likely real just prototype. Its still ugly.

2. Preliminary specs tell me Dell has lost touch with this demographic. Super expensive CPU + yawn GPU = yawn. It's kinda like multiplying by zero. I would have waited for a better GPU, perhaps even from ATI.

3. No Mention of SSD, but they did mention Intel's bastard child "Turbo Memory" which has been proven to be shit.

4. How about a 15" performance laptop?

5. 4GB of memory is soon to be not enough.

6. No Quad Core

7. Dell lost a return customer looking forward to their next XPS rig.