15.4 Inch XPS, Merom available in dell notebooks this thursday. (Un-official)

I had a chat with an XPS representative- Today, July 23rd, 2006. The conversation is hardly reliable, but I figured you all would want to hear about it anyway.

Initial Question/Comment: 15.4 Inch XPS in the future?
Rep Jeremiah: I have not been informed of any product with that. They is highly requested and we are working on it.
Rep Jeremiah: *they are highly requested.
You: I see,
Rep Jeremiah: Is there any other questions or concerns that you may have at this time?
You: Any idea when Merom processors will be available in your notebooks?
Rep Jeremiah: July 27th from what we have been told.
You: Wow, I knew they were being releases this week, but I didn't think they'ed make it into notebooks until at least august
You: *released
Rep Jeremiah: we have been told Thursday is the first day we can start selling those chips. There is not a verification if it would be on the 1210.
You: From your experience, do you think it would be more likely to see a 15.4 inch xps notebook within the next month, 3 months, 6 months or even year? Any rough estimate or guess at all?
Rep Jeremiah: about every three months, dell releases new laptops. I would expect to see one by mid august to late august.
You: Alright, thank you very much.
Rep Jeremiah: Thank you for using Dell chat. I enjoyed talking with you. Have a great day.

 

I was just laughing becasue they should have made an exception by changing Rep. to Rev, just for the hell of it.

 

Well, he's right about the Meroms (July 27th is the 'official availability' date), but I have no idea about a mid-range XPS. There was a thread on a 15.4" version a while ago in this forum.

 

'Highly requested, we are working on one.' I've heard TV Networks anwser that way when fans do there letter campains to bring back old shows. Does it ever actually happen? Nah, 90% of the time its just hot gas. Trying to keep the customer/viewers loyally tuned via false hope.

 

Good theory metamorphical, but it doesn't hold water- see tv networks are paid by their advertisers not by the viewers, while computer manufacturers are paid directly by the consumer. There is some truth, as advertisers aren't likely to advertise on a channel noone watches, but if we were to poll the members of this forum, I bet there would be a good percentage who would want a 15.4 inch xps, probably a good enough percentage for dell to come through and cash in on that slice of the market.

 

Would Dell pay attention to you poll? Naturally you'd think why wouldn't they listen to the consumers and give them what they want. Yes they could make a pretty penny by paying attention to NBR's sample and just making a 15.4 inch XPS. However these companies do silly things. Either because they aren't interested or just don't have it together (Why doesn't HP put better graphics in there models or come out with an XPS equivalent? Surely they could make money off such machines. They aren't interested in that market) TV networks drop the ball with this over and over again. The more people they have watching the more there advertising space is worth. Yet sometimes they'll cancel a show that's doing well (Often to make room for new stuff) I'm sure you've seen a show you like that has done reasonable well. The theory still applie.

 

I didn't mean to imply that dell would take note to anything on this website, I meant that if a percentage of people here would be interested, then there is going to be a percentage of america, (probably lower), but still a piece of market.

 

A far better way to get to Dell than any poll even on a national level would be to stop buying the E1505 then let them wonder about why it's not selling.

 

Of course, the dell rep could be making up the whole story. If Dell does see a high demand for a 15" high end notebook, then they are probably making it, since profit is profit...

I don't know what else you could do to the e1505 to make an XPS out of it, other than the coloring and a built in TV tuner, but they will figure something out.

 

well, i had an e1505, and I ended up returning it because the sigmatel sound card didn't process well enough. The speakers were fine, the soundcard is just insufficient to do anything intensive.

(Note: I had two gigs of 667mhz ram, the 2 gig dual core, and a 7200 rpm harddrive.)

Guatam- are there any 15in laptops with subwoofers? thats something dell could do...

 

Yes, I know that there is an Asus that has a built in subwoofer. I think another brand does it too...can't remember

I think that decent, built in laptop sound cards are still a technology that needs to be employed. The dell "Creative Audigy HD" audio is just a lot of rot, with nothing inside to show for.

 

I know asus has some notebooks with subwoofers, i wasn't aware there were any smaller than 17inch that had them.

The dell techs I spoke too, told me soundcards didn't have dedicated memory. I had to explain to them what a memory cache is, and how audio buffers... Anyway a creative audigy pcmcia card would have been an easy fix to my problem- but the e1505 doesn't have pcmcia slots, and there is no creative audigy card for the expresscard- yet

and I agree, I had nothing but trouble with the Audigy HD software.

 

@kabooky -

Guess you are right. I just did a google search and found that the Alienware, Asus and Sager have subwoofers, but only on 17'' notebooks.

Since alienware is just Dell with another logo (sadly) you might be right about employing a subwoofer on a new XPS machine.

The whole ExpressCard thing is a shame - I just found about it, and it has actually prevented me from ordering a new m1210 until I can find an alternative to the Creative Audigy 2ZS card...

...and I don't really like the cheap USB ones that have flooded the market.

 

I use adobe audition and a presonus firebox to do live recordings- I was pretty ticked that my decked out e1505 couldn't handle it- I mean it was blazing fast but the choke point was the soundcard.. I would have been ok with a pcbus sound card- but now I'm supposed to use some hokey usb soundcard for the 1500 dollar machine I just bought- hell no

You can go to http://www.expresscard.org and see all the products for the slot, but at this point, noone offers a sound card, creative dropped the ball.

Again, I'd like to say I thought the speakers in the e1505 were above average when it comes to laptop speakers- but grrr dell, grrr