Dell's new Inspiron 9300, their first Media Center Edition laptop

The trail Toshibas' Qosmio series of Windows XP Media Center Edition laptops paved is becoming increasinlgy traversed—the latest to follow in their path is Dell's Inspiron 9300, the followup to last Christmas's Inspiron 9200, and their first Media Center Edition enabled laptop to date. The multimedia-centric portable will feature a 17-inch XGA+ or UXGA TrueLife (1152 x 864 and 1600 x 1200, respectively) display, 533MHZ dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM, your choice of an ATI Mobility Radeon X300 or 256MB Nvidia GeForce Go 6800, MediaDirect (their name for their pre-boot DVD/media playback option), DVI-out (still rare on PC laptops these days), S-video, 1394, and six USB 2.0 connections. Oh, and in case you were wondering about its integrated tuner, don't worry, they didn't include one. That's right, you have to tune via USB (not to worry, they'll sell you one for a mere $200). See, selling a Media Center PC—a laptop no less—with no tuner makes you remember that it's Dell we're talking about here.

[Thanks, Phil]

[Cumulus @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Shouldn't it be 1920 x 1200 for UXGA on a widescreen like this, like the 9200 has as an option?

[Jeff @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

What a chunky monkey that machine is. And I don't mean that in the ironic, street slang, positive sense.

[Carmi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Nicely put: that's a pretty major oversight for this class of hardware. Nichel-and-diming the end user is not the optimal means of ensuring this new platform - which is really what it is - is accepted by a fairly demanding type of buyer.

We'll probably see more misfires like this from a number of vendors before the final and accepted feature set becomes common.

Carmi
http://writteninc.blogspot.com

[jzderf @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Someone help me out here (I haven't been keeping up)...but what makes a machine a "Media Edition", specifically, whats different about the OS thats different from XP Pro?

[AD @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

It's pretty good value - tuner would have been better though. Not as sweet a looker as a Toshiba, Sony or Apple but hell ... you don't buy Dell 'cos you're in love with their sense of style.

[Jon S @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

The screen options are actually 1440x900 for the XGA+ and 1920x1200 for the UXGA. The UXGA is rumored to be the "glossy" truebrite style of display. Not sure about the XGA+.

The machine is actually light for a 17" notebook.

[Minuk @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Anandtch has a quickie review of this laptop here: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2356

At first glance it looks like if you're a serious gamer on the go it performs on-par or better with a desktop system of equal spec.

[Patrick Smith @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Wrong notebook Minuk

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

You all must be cracker apple lovers. I say that because you are bashing a machine that has the option of a nvidia 6800 go 256mb gpu in it, which will spank the shit out of any apple in existence. have fun kerry lovers.

[teco70 @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

anyone had any 3D AutoCAD experience on the 9300 yet? wondering how it might compare to an openGL card on the precision M70, and whether the performance difference would be worth the extra cost (more than double with only spec difference the graphics card)

[Jeffrey Leow @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Actually the 9300 is a lot of machine in a relatively portable pkg. I agree that Dell is a real nickel & dimer - no tuner - and only an external USB2.0 option. Actually since it's an external option, you can buy the tuners from outifts like Hauppauge (Dell's supplier) or Teac or AverMedia. My unit arrives this week - will update you.

[Jeffrey Leow @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Here is a British review on the Inspiron 9300:


http://www.walkeral.plus.com/9300.html

JL