If your work requires special equipment or if your wife is clumsy enough to spill water on the family notebook every once in a month than you have urgent need of Dell's second-gen Latitude E6400 XFR. With its super-rugged design the Latitude E6400 XFR is engineered to withstand heat, dust, vibrations, impacts and direct blasts of pressurized water (your wife's spilled glass of water won't be an excuse for a new laptop anymore). The laptop's body is made of a material Dell calls PR481, which is said to have twice the impact strength of magnesium alloy and structural stability at extreme temperatures. Because of PR481, the Latitude E6400 XFR also meets 13 military specifications (MIL STD 810F), including drop tests, sea fog, temperature extremes, thermal shock and explosive environments. Inside the armor is a Core 2 Duo processor paired up with both a discrete 256 MB DDR2 NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M and an integrated Intel 4500MHD video cards that drive a sunlight-readable 14.1-inch WXGA display. The Latitude E6400 XFR also comes with a 12-cell battery with ExpressCharge for faster battery re-charge times. All the features come with a price of course, the laptop's starting price is $4,299. For a video overview of the Latitude XFR E6400, take a look at this blog here.

DigiTimes recently reported that four out of the top-five branded PC vendors - Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Lenovo and Acer - have been listed as branded PC products eligible for subsidies under the China government's rural stimulus program, and as a result are expected to enjoy increased sales in the China market in 2009. However, the number five ASUS did not gain the government's approval. According to ASUS that's because the company market their PC products under multiple tradenames. BenQ was another company not to find favor with the Chinese government. Exact details concerning the deal between the listed manufacturers and the Chinese government are still unclear.

Dell today introduced next-generation data center infrastructure products designed to help customers simplify and manage their data center environment while improving energy efficiency. The Dell PowerEdge 4220 and PowerEdge 2420 rack enclosures support Dell's broad portfolio of servers and storage systems and can be used in virtually any environment, including data centers, remote offices, wiring closets or even factory floors.

We continue to give you the latest information on the Psion versus Dell and Intel saga. In episode three, Psion counter attacks and surprisingly demands $1.2 Billion from Intel. Psion Teklogix has filled a counterclaim against Intel in response to the chip giant's attempt to get the Netbook trademark freed from legal responsibilities. Part of the complaint, filed with the US District Court for Northern California, says:

Intel has acted willfully and maliciously, has unlawfully attempted to trade on the tremendous commercial value, reputation and goodwill of the Netbook mark, and has deliberately and intentionally confused and deceived the public as to an affiliation, connection or association of Intel with Psion, and/or as to the origin, sponsorship or approval of Intel's goods and/or services,

checkmate

Here's a quick reminder before going straight to the story. Recently both Intel and Dell filed petitions asking for the cancellation of Psion Teklogix' "Netbook" trademark. Both manufacturers said they need the "Netbook" term liberated from any trademark responsibility, so they can use it as unified term for new class of ultra-portable laptop computers designed for use on the go. Currently makers like Dell, ASUSTeK, Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Samsung, MSI, GIGABYTE and many others sell products branded as netbooks. Today Psion responded to the legal accusations, by sending an official response to the public. The full statement, because too big, will appear after you click on the read full story marker.

Normal for Dell, the company has launched a new 24-inch LCD monitor, without informing the public. The new monitor just appeared on the company's website and that's all. "Designed with the environment in mind", the Dell G2410 monitor is one of the firm's greenest LCDs. It comes with Dell EPEAT Gold rating, that reduce environmental impact by using halogen-free laminates in circuit boards and chassis plastics that contains 25% post-consumers recycled plastics. Max supported resolution is 1920x1080 pixels, response time is 5 ms, contrast ratio is 1000:1, brightness level is 250 cd/m² and the horizontal/vertical viewing angles are 160° and 170° respectively. Connectivity options of G2410 include single VGA and DVI-D connectors. Dell is now offering the monitor for $349 on its online store.

Dell has quietly listed a new desktop system on its site, the Dell Studio XPS 435. The slick, angled casing of Studio XPS 435 hides a 3.2 GHz Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition processor, an Intel X58 motherboard, up to 24 GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM working at triple-channel, ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card with 1 GB GDDR5 memory, up to 4.5 TB of storage and a Blu-Ray disc drive. As standard you get a Gigabit NIC, integrated 7.1 channel sound, 15-in-1 memory card reader, and eight USB 2.0 ports. If you want to go beyond that, there's an optional Creative X-Fi sound blaster, BOSE 2.1 sound system, and a wireless network card. The system is yet to be priced.

Close to ten days before ATI's Mobility Radeon HD 4000 series rolls out at the upcoming CeBIT event, one of its eggs seems to have hatched a little early. Dell's Indian website has already started listing it in the specifications of the Studio 15 notebook. Enter Mobility Radeon HD 4570. This mGPU is derived from the 55 nm RV710 graphics processor, and intends to be a handy performance boost over integrated graphics. It features 80 stream processors, 8 texture memory units, and 4 raster operations units. It connects to GDDR3, DDR2 memory using its 64-bit wide memory bus. The card used in Dell's Studio 15 sports 256 MB of memory. The mGPU is expected to outperform competing NVIDIA G110M by 20~30%, while keeping its TDP rating at a mere 13 W. Once formally announced, one could expect to hear more about this mGPU.

Dell has filed a petition with the United States Patent and Trademark Office requesting that Psion's "netbook" trademark must be canceled. In the petition for cancellation Dell puts forth three logical reasons for nullifying the "netbook" trademark - abandonment, fraud, and genericness. Psion Teklogix is yet to make a reply to the petition. The company has time until March 30, 2009 to do that. A copy of the petition is posted here at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Electronic Filing System web page under number ESTTA267087.

E-tailer QVC.com has updated its online offerings to include the latest Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook. Available now for pre-order and first announced at CES in Las Vegas, the small Inspiron Mini 10 will ship to owners who pre-payed $559 for it on March 20, 2009. Those who wish to buy one can choose from six different colors: black, white, red, pink, green, and blue. Specs for all variants are identical and include a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor Z530, 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500, 10.1" diagonal glass LED display with 1024x576 resolution, and a 160GB hard drive. Dell will ship the netbooks with a legal copy of Windows XP Home SP3 and one year limited warranty.

SiS today announced the SiSM671 chipset supporting the Intel dual-core Atom 330 CPU has been adopted by Dell for its Flexible Computing Solution the OptiPlex FX160.

Dell today announced the Latitude XT2 convertible tablet building on the industry's first tablet PC with multi-touch screen capabilities designed to enhance security, increase performance and extend battery life. The system starts at $2,399 and is available today at Dell Online. Multi-touch capabilities on the Latitude XT2 allow users to use natural gestures like a pinch or tap for scrolling, panning, rotating and zooming that work with productivity applications they use every day. Dell's integration of multi-touch screen technology allows customers to use the full real estate of the display, as opposed to just the touchpad.

Dell announced today a partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure to raise money through Dell's new Promise Pink laptops and Minis for breast cancer research and community-based programs for breast health education and screening.
Starting today, with every purchase of a Promise Pink laptop or Mini, Dell will donate $5.00 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world's largest breast cancer organization. The partnership is part of Dell's continued commitment to community involvement.

In a week or two, Dell is supposed to ship a new UltraSharp 2209WA 22-inch widescreen LCD monitor. Dell Canada has already posted the full specs of the monitor here. It will eventually arrive with a 1680x1050 wide resolution, 300 nits of brightness, a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 178-degree viewing angles (that suggest a non-TN panel will be used) and a 5 ms response time. The 2209WA will also feature four USB 2.0 ports, one analog and one DVI-D (Digital) inputs.

This morning, Dell's Michael Tatelman, VP of consumer sales & marketing, officially exposed to daylight for the first time the company's much-rumored Adamo ultra-thin luxury laptop. A pre-production sample was shown in front of the public at CES 2009. During the presentation and after that there where no details, specs, prices or what so ever disclosed. Dell only unveiled that anodized aluminum and glass are used in the laptop's chassis. When ready Adamo will come in two color options: black and white/silver. Have a look at the first Adamo pictures:

Unleashed earlier today AMD's Dragon platform has now been integrated into Dell's latest XPS 625 desktop PC. Starting at $999, the system is powered by a 3.0GHz AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition processor, two ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics cards in CrossFire mode, 8GB memory, and a 10,000 rpm hard drive. All that hardware is placed carefully in a special Dell aluminum chassis with a choice of either black or red accents, plus the AlienFX customizable lighting system inside it. For more information on the XPS 625 system, please click here.

Dell today announced its G-Series of LED widescreen flat panel monitors with the introduction of the G2210 22-inch and G2410 24-inch models. G-Series high-performance EPEAT Gold and ENERGY STAR-compliant monitors are distinguished by a design approach that combines energy efficiency, LED technology, recycled materials and other environmentally preferable components. Availability of the G2210 and G2410 monitors through Dell.com is planned for late February, with prices starting at $279 and $359 respectively.

Dell has just launched its new Studio XPS notebook family. The first members of this family are the Studio XPS 13 (1340) and Studio XPS 16 (1640), boasting a 13-inch and a 16-inch LED backlit displays respectively. Both laptops share the same chassis design that combines magnesium alloy, plastic, brushed aluminum, and leather. They only distinguish from each other from the different display sizes and internal hardware specs. Both systems start at a base price of $1,199 and can be completely customized. If you are interested, you might want to check Dell's online configurator here. It will give you all the information you need. Also, our friends at NotebookReview have posted a complete professional first look on the Dell Studio XPS 1640 here.

Dell today announced the Inspiron 15 laptop, the latest addition to the Inspiron line of systems offering solid performance and smart style at a great value. The Inspiron 15 is now available in select configurations at Best Buy stores in the United States, and PC World and Curry's in the United Kingdom, with online availability through Dell.com planned for later in January. Systems start at $600.

Computing giants such as Dell and HP are on an expansion mode with their product lineups. "Adamo" has been quite a buzzword in the gadget circles, which started off with rumors of it being Dell's competition to the Apple Macbook Air. Naturally, it is expected to have the one USP the Macbook Air holds: it's slim notebook form-factor. The advantage Adamo gives is that it happens to be PC, coming with a proper PC operating system installed.

The rumor materialized with a NY Times BITS blog post which showed an extract from UptownLife.net which read:

Rumor has it that Dell is coming out with a computer called Adamo that will rival the MacBook Air. At press time, the company was keeping the product tightly under wraps, but PC users rejoice - word on the street is that something cool is coming your way

Dell today included one more LCD offering to its monitor line-up. The 19-inch UltraSharp 1909W widescreen monitor won't impress with enormous desktop space or high specs, it's more of a beautiful office monitor. Featuring 1440x900 native resolution, the 16:10 display also boasts a 5ms response time, 1,000:1 contrast ratio and 300 nits of brightness. The display has VGA, DVI and four USB 2.0 ports, but there's no HDMI. Finally, its price is $239, a good value for such monitor. Order now onlince here.

Microsoft has partnered with Dell to release the (Product) Red variant for the Windows Vista Ultimate operating system. (Product) Red is a brand license given to affiliated companies that mark their products with the brand mark and/or related themes, in return to voluntarily donating part of the revenue generated by the product to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Up until now, the special edition OS has been shipping with (Product) Red marked PCs and notebooks sold by Dell, but now, Microsoft is releasing a standalone retail package for the OS available to all. The OS comprises of special (RED) themed wallpapers, screensavers and visual styles. The company goes on to say and I quote "One (RED) PC purchased with Windows Vista Ultimate could provide up to six months of life-saving ARV medication for a person living with HIV-AIDS in Africa."

Microsoft will be releasing the standalone product on December 15, with retailers such as Amazon.com listing the OS for pre-order, priced at US $219.95. PCs and notebooks with this OS pre-installed are already sold by Dell. For more information, visit Microsoft here.

Dell today unveiled Design Studio, an interactive gallery of original contemporary artwork commissioned exclusively for personalizing Dell Studio 15 and 17 laptops. The unveiling of Design Studio on Dell.com, one of the world's largest and best consumer electronics shopping destinations, marks an industry first and gives individuals nearly unlimited potential to turn their laptop into works of art.

Dell continues to celebrate a season of design and discovery with the unveiling of the (PRODUCT) RED artwork for the Dell Studio laptops. This artwork exemplifies the unique visions of artists passionate about fighting AIDS in Africa. Today's announcement expands on the Dell Art House offerings, and allows users to celebrate their personal style, while supporting The Global Fund's fight against AIDS. The Dell Studio 15 starts at $649 and the Dell Studio 17 starts at $799 - these laptops can be personalized with (PRODUCT) RED artwork or Dell's other popular Art House designs by Mike Ming.

I doubt someone expected this to happen so quickly, but Samsung's recently covered 23-inch 2342BWX high-resolution LCD display won't be the only one on the market for long, because Dell is also getting ready to ship the brand new SP2309 soon. Just like the Samsung, Dell's upcoming LCD will boast the remarkable 2048x1152 QWXGA resolution on a 23-inch 16:9 viewable display size. The remaining specs include dynamic contrast ratio of 1000:1, 300 cd/m² brightness, 98% color gamut, 2ms response time, 2-megapixel camera with microphone and VGA/DVI and HDMI inputs. The Dell SP2309 should start selling later this month. It's price is estimated at around $419.99.