back to article Dell intros world's thinnest 15in laptop PC

Dell has taken the wraps of a 15in Sandy Bridge-based notebook that, it claims, is the "thinnest 15in PC on the planet". The metal-clad XPS 15z draws immediate parallels with Apple's aluminium-formed MacBook Pro. But by using "PC" rather than "notebook", Dell has tried to avoid the inevitable comparison. Dell XPS 15z It has …

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  1. John Robson Silver badge
    WTF?

    What's with...

    the apple keyboard in there?

    1. M Gale

      Apple keyboard?

      Reminds me of the old Spectrum ZX81 and 16 keyboards!

    2. Bear Features

      huh?

      If that's an Apple Keyboard then Face Time is a Skype copy (a crap one at that).

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That evil mac keyboard...

    I'd love a Macbook but the keyboards are evil. I always thought Dell keyboards were pretty good but I see they've gone over to the dark side with this monster.

    Nice laptop though.

    1. SirTainleyBarking
      FAIL

      For Mac Keyboard

      Read Commodore PET Circa Mid 70's. It just looks naff

  3. Michael 47
    FAIL

    Treasure Island

    Looks like a lovely laptop, but once again us brits get the shaft:

    "...6GB (4GB in the UK) or 8GB of 1333MHz DDR 3 memory..." "£899 over here, or $1000 in the States."

    so for the lower spec model (which somewhat arbitrarily has 2GB less RAM?) we are paying an extra £280 (at current exchange rate).

    I should be used to it by now, but it's still infuriating

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      @Treasure Island → #

      Not quite, US items are usually quote ex local tax.

      So compare ex-VAT prices and it's much closer.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Deja-vu

    Doesn't look like a you-know-what at all, does it? No no no no ....Yes.

    As for "But by using "PC" rather than "notebook", Dell has tried to avoid the inevitable comparison."

    Yea - Like that's going to convince anyone??

    1. oddie
      Thumb Up

      I think they're just being very clever :D

      Seems to me the article wasn't saying they were trying to avoid being compared to a MacBook Pro aestetically (well, not seriously anyway), but that they are being very clever with their marketing.

      For pretty much the entire world, PC means computer.

      But then apple came along and went "oooh, aaah, but ours isn't a PC, it's a MAC! shiny shiny MAC, boring boring PC, spreadsheets, cord jacket, etc"

      So when Dell pulls a 'worlds thinnest PC' marketing drive, although the MBP is thinner, they can't complain.. (What's that? yours is thinner? But I thought you said yours wasn't a PC? Look, it's all over the youtubes; not a PC.)

      If they had called it the worlds slimmest laptop/notebook/computer then apple could come claim it was false. But it's the worlds slimmest PC, and as everyone knows, apple doesn't make PC's ;)

      It's a clever way of hoisting apple by their own marketing petard :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        cord jackets

        lay off the corduroy jackets already! i for one think they're perfectly good clobber, leftfield, even. sort of libertarian-academic-looking, y'know? not spreadsheety in a bad way.

        1. The Fuzzy Wotnot
          Happy

          Yeah!

          What he said above or we'll get the master of corduroy down here, Mr Marcus Brigstocke himself!

          "Hmmm, that swish, swish as you walk in a pair or cords, gets very warm but you have to be careful not to start a small bushfire down there!"

  5. Field Commander A9

    Graphics is weak

    Could have slipped a 460m in there, but maybe the cooling system just can't handle it?

    1. Christian Berger

      @Field Commander A9

      That's irrelevant as the display is a mirror. You won't see anything of the image.

    2. joejack
      Thumb Down

      No quad core

      Maybe the cooling can't handle a quad core i7 such as is (finally) optional with the MBP's either? Agree that it's overkill for most users, unless you're running a full stack and a VM. Still... almost perfect.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Wot?

    No blu-ray option? Is Michael Dell channeling Jobs now? I might've been tempted if there had been. I'd like to see their 13.3" equivalent though, particularly if they put a Full HD screen in it.

  7. RobE
    FAIL

    What?!

    Its not "thin" in any way. If Dell considers this thin, its customers should consider it FLIMSY, no doubt a number of corners have been cut to produce something as mediocre as this.

  8. Jamie Kitson

    Interesting....

    Try a ctrl+shift+tab on that Dell page.

    1. paulej72

      Interesting....

      Actually a ctrl+shift+anykey will cause the popup.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Interesting...

        ctrl-shift-e has a different popup that probably shouldn't have made it to production...

  9. JeeBee
    FAIL

    Weak.

    Tiny trackpad.

    1366x768 display. Yes, seriously. There's an option for 1920x1080 though which is good - but you pay £100 more for it.

    And it weighs over 6 lbs, which is a lot for a modern laptop with such weak graphics.

    And head to head specification comparison? I guess it will win on price and by having a couple more ports (or not requiring an adaptor). What's the display type - IPS?

    1. Tom Samplonius
      FAIL

      @JoyBee

      "And it weighs over 6 lbs, which is a lot for a modern laptop with such weak graphics."

      Dell lists it as being 5.54pounds. Given that the MacBook Pro 15 is 5.6 pounds, it seems pretty typical for the a 15" laptop.

  10. E 2

    The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

    It can be had with a 1920x1080 screen. Very nice.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They may have changed the site...

    It says "Just 0.97 inches (24.68mm) at its thickest point, XPS 15z is one of the thinnest 15” PCs on the planet"

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Glossy screen! Hopeless!

    That's all!

  13. Silverburn

    Thin..ish

    ...but looks chunky. Like that sweater that shows off your gut, even with your below BMI average build.

  14. Paul F
    FAIL

    Plastic, not aluminum

    And that hinge looks weak.

  15. 100113.1537
    WTF?

    Slimmest PC?

    My T400s is 21.1mm and still has a tray-DVD/CD drive - why isn't that the thinnest PC? OK a 14 in screen - so what.

    Marketing hype at its worst. Run around through 30 or 40 specs to try and find one where you are smaller, faster, lighter etc. and pretend it matters. If you are going to lug a 6lb 15 in PC around, who cares how thin it is!

  16. tempemeaty
    Grenade

    Groan...Nvidia's Optimus...Linux users beware

    Nvidia's Optimus technology is such a MS dedicated technology. With that chip-set you are going to be locked into a MS's OS with no other option because Nvidia isn't making that switching Optimus driver available for any other. Sorry Linux users. This is another one that Linux can't do proper graphics on despite the Nvidia brand on the graphics chip inside.

    1. Scaine
      Linux

      Optimus on Linux

      It's coming. Early days, but it's coming.

      http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/bumbleebee-brings-nvidia-optimus-gpu-switching-to-linux-users/

      Still poor that Nvidia rely on third-parties to support their feature set on linux though.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    Weird

    Odd how the you-know-what LOOKS so much thinner still. 5mm should make that much difference but the styling curves make it look positively svelte next to this thing!

    1. Steve Ives
      Paris Hilton

      weird because...

      ...the you-know-what is only that thick at the back and rapidly gets thinner towards the front. The YKW is probably 1/2 to 2/3rds the volume? 2.3 lbs too.

      Paris, 'cos she's thinner at one end too

      Steve

  18. NHS IT guy
    Stop

    Oh look

    It's like a MacBook Pro, but cheaper and nastier.

    What's with that hinge set part way into the laptop? What's with the nasty lettering on the keys? and a lid that doesn't seem to quite be big enough to fit the base?

    Dell, grow some balls, shell out for a couple of designers and make your own damned products.

  19. Dan Price
    Paris Hilton

    Funny shape

    It looks delish, but in the top-down photo it looks like the lid's narrower than the base. If that's a design decision, it's a damned weird one.

  20. Andy 97
    Pint

    Forgive my lack of dark-arts skills

    I note the comment from a Linux user about the video card.

    Will it be a Hackintosh candidate?

  21. Tom Chiverton 1
    Linux

    'nix

    Well ? Does it ?

  22. Juan Inamillion

    I don't want to start a fight or anything, but...

    I just don't get the fuss over Blueray. Or more precisely, why not having it on a Mac is a Bad Thing. I've been IT'ing (sorry) with Macs for 20 years and folks I've worked with have seen floppy drives dropped (nary a whisper) CD drives introduced (yes please!), and then DVD drives (ditto, plus write capability).

    But no one, and I mean no one, has yet asked me about when is Blueray coming to the Mac. Outside of that I haven't seen much sign either. Maybe I should get out more?

  23. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @Juan Inamillion

    If you have a nice Full HD screen in your Mac or PC and you travel occasionally, surely it would be nice to be able to fling a blu-ray movie into it for some R&R? La Jobs argument is that everyone downloads their movies these days. Well, I don't know about you but I'd think twice about trying to download a 24GB film with extras on my 10Mb broadband, not to mention the disc space required to store the thing. Most download services will only give you 720p if you're lucky anyway.

    No, I'm afraid the only real choice for a movie-watching geek is a laptop PC with a blu-ray drive built in. Unfortunately, that discounts this offering from Dell and every one from Apple.

    Get with the programme Jobs and sort it aht!

  24. JDX Gold badge

    HD on a laptop...

    is a joke. Waste of time, if you want to watch in high quality watch it on a TV.

  25. Tom Maddox Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Bleah

    No way to get it without Office 2K10, with a Windows edition other than Home Premium, or without Dell's crapware (McAfee, I'm looking at you). Nice design; shame about the software.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @JDX

    Really? That'll be why manufacturers put Full HD, IPS screens in their laptops I suppose, 'cause they're rubbish. Uhuh. Yup. My Vaio Z with a 1080p and blu-ray - waste of time.

    Actually, if you really want to watch in high quality you'd buy a 1080p projector as I have.

  27. katie0001
    Thumb Up

    Clever

    quite clever for dell... I actually use dell laptop and I am happy so far. I also want ot have a mac since they look very sleek and cool but I can't afford it... I got mine from an online shop that offers refurbished dell laptops and so far my lappy is working fine..

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