Dell Announces Blu-ray Laptop Less Than $1,000

If you've been waiting for a low-cost laptop with a built-in Blu-ray player for HD video, your wait is over. With the demise of HD-DVD and the rise of Blu-ray Dell is now selling the Inspiron 1525 with optional Blu-ray disc player starting at $879.

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Just as video rental companies stop offering HD-DVDs and retail stores begin to flood shelves with Blu-ray discs Dell comes to the rescue with an affordable all-in-one Blu-ray solution.

The popular Inspiron 1525 laptop features a 15.4-inch high definition wide aspect display with 720p resolution. It also includes an HDMI port for easy connectivity to high resolution displays and HDTVs.

The Blu-ray player disc drive is fully backwards compatible, and will play as well as burn traditional DVDs and CDs. If you're willing to spend a little more, you can also chose a Blu-ray burner drive, which is great for backing up and storing large files like high-resolution digital photos, HD videos, or just tons of Word documents. A Blu-ray disc will hold up to 50GB of data, vs. 8.5GB available on the typical DVD disc.

For those of you who are concerned about the lack of dedicated graphics on the Inspiron 1525, you'll still be able to benefit from Blu-ray HD video quality. All Dell Inspiron 1525 laptops with Blu-ray disc drives use Broadcom Media PC technology that allows PCs with integrated graphics to play high definition video. The high-definition video playback is enabled through a built-in dedicated accelerator located in a mini-card slot.

The Inspiron 1525 laptop with Blu-ray is available today from the Dell website in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

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Read our review of the Dell Inspiron 1525

 

I saw someone on another forum selling their 1720 with a blu-ray drive (and other nice components) for $800. That kind of surprised me.

 

It also appears that they're finally offering the 1525 with the T8300 C2D processor. It has been available on the 1420/1520/1720 for several weeks now. Until now, the T7250 was the top offering.

Now if they'd just offer even a low-end dedicated graphics card, it'd be too sweet of a deal to pass up....

 

Wonder what the battery life is like????

 

Well, this is a good sign. Hopefully blu-ray players & drives keep getting cheaper and cheaper at a good rate.

 

It's certainly a fantastic way of stopping consumers buying the more expensive XPS line.

I find it deeply confusing that the Inspiron would see this core functionality implemented first. If only by the shortest of margins.

Do they want to render their premium series redundant?

 

Does it have a dedicaed video card? Cause I didn't think the x3100 could handle hd.

 

No, the 1525 only comes with X3100.

 

What's redundant about an 8600GT vs x3100, or better style, build, features etc...? I hardly think cheap Blu-Ray on a Inspiron makes the XPS useless.

 

In addition to only having integrated graphics, that sub-$1,000 price gets you a 1280x800 display. Which is fine for almost anything, aside from if you want 1080p Blu-Ray content.

 

I was wondering about this.. Back when the 1525 was introduced Andrew hinted that this model may get BD but that it would probably never see a 8400gs card. Ever since I have been wondering if the integrated X3100 could support BD. IMO it never could. So now Dell has put some kind of accelerator in the mini-card slot. So now the 1525 has two graphic engines the integrated x3100 along with the accelerator in the mini slot. Too bad, I was hoping they would have used the 8400gs instead.

 

Dell gone crazy I tell ya. Crazy.

 

Nice,what will be hp's answer?

 

I was thinking more along the lines of the M1330 but sure that GPU is still slightly more capable. The baby XPS hasn't seen a significant refresh since its inception. Personally I'd pay a premium for an XPS for its featureset, not just its styling. Even the latest leaked Latitude spec. sheets will outdo the XPS line in hardware functionality.

So what is Dell trying to sell the XPS series on now? Eye candy? With regard to both the 13 and 1530 it sure isn't gaming. I had assumed that the emphasis of the branding was on 'the cutting edge' of components and performance in a sleek chassis with this new breed of XPS? Releasing Blu-Ray on an Inspiron first goes against this philosophy.

The 1525 has an HDMI port. Which gets 1080p Blu-Ray content onto any Full HDTV you plug it into.

Which is what I'm waiting to use the XPS M1330's HDMI port to achieve. Because at the moment, it's a teeny bit redundant unless you delve into the internets underbelly for some content.

 

This is fantastic. Blu-ray drives are getting cheaper

 

Well HP already uses a 8400m GS on the dv6700t. Not sure if they are going to be able to get it down to a 1000 bucks. But IMO, the design/quality of the 6700t is much better then the 1525 and it does have a discreet card already. But HP will still need to get the price down closer to this. Even though its a better machine, people oftentimes go for the cheaper price. Personally, I would feel much better having a real dedicated GPU then what Dell has put together here. I would like to see some results on how this BD performs and if it has any issues outputting to HD TV etc..

 

This is good to hear. It will be nice when we see Blu Ray drives getting cheaper.

 

The LG P300 (might be wrong here with the numbering) can fit a 8600GS in a 13 inch frame, why can't dell fit an 8400GS in here? I would buy one if it had an 8400gs, for sure.

 

I have an X3100 and I can run 1080p just fine.

 

Not talking about 720P or 1080P Hi resolution files. Whether its MKV or wmv HI res or whatever. What I am saying is the x3100 can't work with hardware Blu ray player with the encrypted TS files (blu ray movies). Believe me, if it could why would dell go through the hassle in putting a geri rigged accelerator in the mini card slot. If the X3100 could handle it they would not bother with that.

The 8400m gs on the other hand can handle BD no sweat. But the x3100 can do hi resolution video... just not the commercial grade BD players. Until now, I was not sure if the X3100 was up to the job. I guess Dell just showed us that the X3100 was not engineered for hardware based BD support.

 

Actually the 8400 has problems with Blu-ray due most likely to the 64 bit bus.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/26/avivo_hd_vs_purevideo/page7.html
Don't know if they fixed it from a driver perspective but the reviews for desktop 8400s wasn't so hot for HD video.

 

I'm surprised Dell didn't just wait to introduce this with the X4500.

 

Thats a good question. There was a newer driver available in November 07 which did help overall performance for my 8400m gs. The one used in that review was the september 07 163.69 which did have reported issues with some BD playback on Dell monitors. It really sounds like they installed a gaming driver and forgot to roll it back for their BD stress tests. As for the bus speed, you have to remember that HD is still 2D graphics which is much less demanding then 3D stuff like in games. I'd be surprised if the 8400m gs was not up to the job.

In reading that article closer it appears they used a slower core2 processor with only a gig of ram. They also say that XP was used on some of their testing.. not sure what they did with the 8400m gs test. But it sounds like they may have jacked up some factory settings in their stress tests. They used powerdvd as well which may have been at issue as well and I know they have also had some major updates affecting BD formats. The point is, Dell, HP, and others have been using the 8400m gs for BD for quite a while so I would be really hard pressed to believe their is any kind of castatrophic issue with BD playback on the 8400m gs.. If there were, we would have heard all about it on these forums.

Have not heard of the X4500, so is that going to be a killer integrated GPU from Intel?

 

Is this even a big deal. I think R61 with blu ray writer can be had for < $1000 probably with a better cpu(T8100) and screen(wsxga+). Only big advantage of dell is hdmi out that makes it a blu ray player.

 

I hope that Dell uses this as an opportunity to lower the prices on the m1530 Blu-ray option. I've never cared for the feel of the Inspiron series, and L.Rawlins is right-- there hasn't been anything significant changed to the XPS laptops since they were introduced. Unless they are just trying to cannibalize the XPS laptops--which I doubt highly because I (as most of you) consider them to be a resounding success for Dell.

 

Well, the little extra cost to have the drive be able to burn blu ray as well cost 250 dollars more bringing the total cost of a the full featured drive for the 1525 to 450 dollars. Even with that, this model will probably be the price leader for a full featured BD drive in a laptop. I think the cost is going to have to drop allot more then that for the masses to adopt to Blu ray burners. The other real problem is Sony did not get the final profile finished on BD so there is the problem of whether BD drives shipped at this time will support 2.0 profile. Only the PS3 is assured this. It appears that the win for sony will continue to mean higher prices for the next gen HI def standard. HD DVD would have probably produced lower costs for us sooner. But at 450 dollars for a add on, the BD is still not ready for the masses. Hopefully by Christmas they can half that price. I think its important that if one does buy anything BD at this time to make absolutely certain that it is profile 2 ready. Especially at current high prices for the hardware. It would be sad to pay the higher price now and find out later that it won't operate the bonus features of the future BD discs.

 

So far the 1525 seems to be the notebook that "almost could"
IMO.

Dell now offers the T8100 CPU upgrade for the 1525 too.

Still no GPU.

On the verge of greatness.

Still a great notebook for the money if you are not into power hungy computer use.

 

Yeah. I don't understand the logic of Lenovo making a BD option for a HD capable notebook without HDMI.

Really didn't seem to think that out very well.

 

HDMI? anyone...