Dell XPS M1710 Notebook

General Field Testing How does it perform in daily tasks?

Equipped with 2GB of memory, a blisteringly fast dual core processor, and the fastest mobile GPU on the planet there was no task to large or application too taxing for the XPS M1710. In any case, working on the Dell notebook was an absolute pleasure thanks to the generous real estate afforded by the 17" WUXGA LCD's gorgeous 1920x1200 resolution. In addition, Dell's TrueLife screen technology ensured that the panel was exceptionally vivid and bright. Regardless of the application, details were sharp and colors accurately reproduced resulting in excellent overall image quality.

Without question, any LAN party enthusiast on the planet would be more than satisfied with gaming on the XPS M1710. With such a powerful arsenal of hardware at its disposal, the Dell notebook is able to handle even the most taxing new titles with relative ease. Thanks to the high quality widescreen panel, in-game resolutions can be raised as high as 1920x1200 for an absolutely stunning gaming experience. In practice, we did not witness any ghosting or streaking due to response rates and the panel proved more than capable of handling fast-paced FPS titles such as Quake 4 or Unreal Tournament 2004.

Although the XPS notebook is designed primarily for providing an incredible gaming experience, the system proved to be a multimedia powerhouse as well. Here, the high-resolution widescreen LCD did an excellent job of displaying movies with crisp detail and ghost-free performance. Thanks to the use of NVIDIA's flagship mobile GPU, users can also utilize NVIDIA's PureVideo decoder and hardware acceleration to guarantee stunning visuals. In terms of audio performance, the XPS was no slouch either, as it utilizes a rather impressive 2.1 speaker configuration. When watching detail-rich titles such as Master and Commander, it was surprising to hear how well the two speakers handled the wide range of sounds and effects within the movie. Furthermore, the integrated subwoofer on the bottom of the system did a very respectable job reproducing the cannon explosions and deepest audio details. Granted, you will still certainly favor a discrete set of surround speakers should you be wanting to have the full cinematic experience. However, for a notebook the Dell XPS M1710 exhibits some of the best audio performance we've seen to date in a mobile system.