Dell Intros 17.3" Inspiron 17 Starting at $499

Dell Intros 17.3" Inspiron 17 Starting at $499

Dell today introduced its latest mainstream notebook, the Inspiron 17 featuring a 17.3-inch display. The display has a 16:9 aspect ratio and LED backlighting. There are three colors available: Obsidian Black, Cherry Red, and Ice Blue. The Inspiron 17 is available with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and up to 500GB of hard drive space. A Blu-ray drive and ATI Mobility Radeon graphics are high-end options.

The Inspiron 17 is available now from Dell starting at $499; it ships sometime in August.

Inspiron 17 Product Page

 

As of now, the ATI dedicated graphics option isn't available on the US site. However, even the base $499 model comes with the WLED screen. Nice, if I may say so.

 

Well,as long as Dell say's "see more" and "HD" I'm convinced it's a step forward

 

It's amazing how cheap full size laptops are getting.

 

really cheap. I am wondering how much will it cost in canada & if it will have any gpu upgrade. If it does im going to buy it

 

This is progress. After almost a year of 500GB drives being available Dell is shipping them on more models (and many of their notebooks still do not have that option). But Dell is still charging a $125 premium _on top of_ the 160GB cost for a drive that costs $90 in retail. And if you do your own install of Windows you clean up all the junkware that comes pre-loaded.

Will there be a time where Dell offers competitive pricing for the upsell as well? By selling these more than they are worth in retail (or being way late to market offering them) Dell is effectively pushing customers not to buy their machine at all, or at best, buy the cheapest option and get the drive from Newegg.

Dell, I like you guys. and I know you can do better.

 

This looks decent especially for the money, more choices are always a great thing.

 

Yeah, the ATI graphics and the 1920x1080 display option are not available at this time. I think the ATI graphics come in the form of an HD 4570.

 

Looks nice, but where is the new Studio 17? Radeon HD 4570 won't cut it for my gaming needs.

 

Well, its simply not intended for gaming, you can't have EVERYTHING in a laptop of this price range. Its a pretty damn good deal.

 

hm 4570 option? Good, i thought they were gonna gonna go with a 4330 option. It's a good card to do light gaming and mulitmedia now.

 

The 'Tech Specs' show that the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 will be available in 256mb and 512mb versions. Next to the 512mb model, they note that it will be available in September 2009...not sure if that also applies to the 256mb or not. The 1080p display has the same note- coming in September 2009.

Here's the 'Setup Guide' for it, take a look at page 68- LINK. It shows that the 256mb ATI 4330 is GDDR3, but the 512mb ATI 4330 is DDR2???

FYI- the full model number for the Inspiron 17 is- 1750.

 

Thanks for the info - I forgot all about the HD 4330. It's a rather weak card, but as Dragon noted, good enough for multimedia tasks and such.

I think the #1 disappointment with this machine is that the only video out port is VGA - no HDMI.

 

After the Inspiron 1720 was dropped, shortly after the Studio 1735 was introduced, I didn't think there would be another 17" Inspiron. None of the new Inspiron models (1440, 1545) have HDMI or eSATA ports. They reserve those for the Studio 14z and 1555 and higher.

Thankfully, the new Inspiron 17 doesn't suffer from the same glossy black keyboard/trim as the Inspiron 15!