Interstingly, although the ATI digital cable tuner (DCT) is not listed with the XPS 430s yet, the 430 comes with digital cable support included (as evidenced by the version of Vista). For those unaware, b/c of cable industry regulations a PC has to have a special bios to work with DCTs, and PCs that are compatible are marketed as having Vista with digital cable support.

The 420/430 SKUs are listed at the following link and I've compared the available OS's below.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-xps-430?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

XPS 420 32-bit (1 SKU):
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium w/ Digital Cable Support SP1 [Included in Price]
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate w/ Digital Cable Support SP1 [add $150 or $5/month-1]

XPS 420 64-bit (2 SKUs):
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-Bit

XPS 430 (2 SKUs):
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/Digital Cable Support, 64-bit [Included in Price]
Genuine Windows Vista™ Ultimate w/Digital Cable Support, 64-bit [add $150 or $5/month-1]

Based on this a) someone can buy the 430 from Dell and use DCTs from elsewhere (buy them online or use ones you already have) and b) I'd expect Dell to add the DCT tuners to the 430 configuration options very soon.

Base price of the 430 is a lot more than the 420 though, so I hope they either keep the 420 around or drop the 430's price to match the 420.

Couple notable points around TV tuner options for the XPS 420 & 430:

1) The XPS 430 does not list the ATI digital cable tuners as an option. In fact, neither does the 64-bit XPS 420. Dell is behind the curve here as HP.com has offered the ATI digital cable tuner + 64-bit OS for about a month now on the m9400t and d5100t Elite Pavilion desktops.

2) The XPS 420 with 32-bit still lists the dual digital cable tuner as an option but it costs $533. WTF! Dell has charged ~ $370 for dual DCTs with the XPS 420 for the longest time. Then - bam - Dell drops a nearly 50% price increase?!?!

Now granted a single DCT costs b/w $230 - $270 most other places (eBay, google shopping, HP.com). But Dell's price always made it more attractive, and the XPS 420 has been the HTPC of choice for most folks. That may seriously change considering Dell has upped the DCT price and it still is only 32-bit.

Only potential upside I can imagine is if there is a shortage of DCTs either because a) they are finally gaining more market share or b) cable labs & ATI are getting ready to release bidirectional DCTs (BOCRs).

Regardless, Dell's price increase won't help adoption...

So how would you setup one of the tru2way TVs with an existing DVR (e.g. comcast, tivo 3 series, HTPC)? I'm assuming the TV has to talk straight to the cable company for tru2way, b/c the current DVRs don't support it. Would you have to output from your TV into one of the DVRs? Would you have to split the signal into the DVR and TV? Tru2ways give you the ability to ditch the cable company box which is nice.... but having a DVR is a much higher priority.

Thanks!

This has made the frontpage of Google News and MSNBC.

@allen Gragg and the question about Cingular becoming AT&T...

When AT&T sold AT&T Wireless to Cingular a couple years ago, Cingular supported AT&T users on the AT&T system and Cingular users on the Cingular system. Obviously it made sense for Cingular to move to one system for synergistic (cut costs, hopefully improve quality) reasons. I was an AT&T wireless customer and I've lived through some of those changes including migrating to a new website for logging into my account, mirating to new voicemail system, and finally being told they were no longer issuing new AT&T phones to former AT&T customers - instead when I added my wife to my account, she got a cingular phone on cingular's system.

So two years have passed and now AT&T is buying BellSouth and gaining control of Cingular (since AT&T also aqcuired Cingular's other parent company SBC). As far as "Cingular becoming AT&T" my understanding is that this is purely a branding/marketing change. I don't think Cingular's systems (cell network, data network, etc) will change.

A FAQ is at http://www.att.com/customer_merger/Common/files/pdf/CingularWeb.pdf.

This thing would be awesome for watching TV at tailgates or by the pool...however price needs to be cut in half. $1000-$1300 for a 17" LCD screen, an antenna, and a battery? Ridiculous. Get to $499 and we'd be talking.

Can anyone explain to me why GPS products are so outrageously expensive? They're usually several hundred dollars, when all they are is small screens, some chips, and a tiny amount of installed memory. It just seems someone should be able to come out with a $300 portable GPS device. Seeing how you can buy a USB GPS device when you buy the top version of Streets & Trips for around $100, it can't be that the GPS technology is that expensive. Plus many cells phones are starting to include GPS.

dalminator is correct. Rated/marketed peak speed on thumb drives does not guarantee they will work with ReadyBoost.

ReadyBoost Q&A - http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx

daliminator2000 is correct. A high speed rating on a thumb drive (100x, 150x, etc) does not guarantee whether the thumb drive can work with Vista's ReadyBoost feature. See http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx for more technical details.

Prices start at $1499 according to http://www.oqo.com/store/shop.cgi/op/op_index.html.