Dell refreshed today its monitor line-up by introducing the two brand new S2209W and S2309W LCD displays. First leaked some time ago, the two monitors are finally going into the market so you can enjoy them. The sleek, glossy frame S2209W is a 22-inch LCD widescreen that boasts full HD 1920x1080 resolution, fast 5 ms response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 300 cd/m2 brightness, and 160° / 170° viewing angles typical for most TN panels. In terms of connectivity the S2209W features both analog and DVI-D (HDCP) inputs, but it lacks of HDMI. The S2309W has exactly the same specs as the 22-inch S2209W with the one difference that it boasts a bigger 23-inch matrix. Dell is now selling both displays for $239 and $299 respectively.

It appears that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with Dell, HP and Toshiba, have issued another laptop battery recall for Sony branded batteries. It's very unfortunate that the Sony battery fiasco is still a problem. According to the new data, Lithium-Ion batteries used in about 35,000 Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Dell Notebook Computers can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers. The information is based on 19 reports of laptop batteries still overheating, including 17 reports of flames/fire (10 resulting in minor property damage). Consumers should immediately remove the recalled battery from their notebook computer, and contact their computer manufacturer to determine if their battery is included in the recall and to request a free replacement battery. The bad battery packs are used in laptops from all kinds, including models retailing from $700 to models that cost around $3000. There's a list of the models in danger below, that might help.

Dell XPS One is the company's monolithic space-saving desktop PC model. The company introduced a new model of the PC with a 24-inch model, with updated hardware. The 24-inch XPS One packs a 1920 x 1080 pixel high-definition display, along with under-the-hood enhancements that include an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 processor, 4 GB of memory, 320 GB of storage, and integrated Intel GMA X4500HD graphics. Optionally, you could choose the same model with NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512MB graphics or a Blu-ray drive. The system incudes sleek speaker units with a bundled sub-woofer, made by JBL. The system is available in three colours: Midnight Grey, Pure White and (PRODUCT) RED. Prices start at US $1,699.

NVIDIA seems to be striking gold with its newest platform core logic, the MCP7A, MCP79 chipsets, with the mobile version of MCP79 especially taking the limelight. This is the chipset that Apple uses in its updates to the Macbook Pro. Several PC industry majors such as Acer, ASUS, HP, and Dell, are planning to launch several notebook models based on the MCP79. Some players even project the chipset to grab a 20% share among Intel CPU-based notebook platforms.

ASUS is planning to launch the F50GX notebook using the said chipset with a 16-inch 16:9 aspect ratio panel, and GeForce 9600M discrete graphics card, targeting the gamer market. The company is also planning to launch more MCP79-based notebooks by the end of this year or beginning of next year, according to Tony Chen, general manager of notebook business in ASUS. The general manager of GeForce products at NVIDIA, Ujesh Desai, pointed out that over 10 models of notebooks from global first-tier notebook vendors, will be launched by the end of the year.

Dell today officially introduced the Inspiron Mini 12, a small, easy-to-carry Internet companion that you can fine tune to fit your specific needs and deeds. Like its counterpart the Inspiron Mini 9, the Mini 12 is ideal for surfing the Web, office work, videos, music and even some games. With a starting weight of only 2.72 lbs. and only 0.92 in. thick, current standard features on the Inspiron Mini 12 include a sharp 12.1-inch WXGA (1280x800 resolution) display, a 1.3GHz Atom Z520 or a 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor, 1GB of RAM and a choice of 60GB or 80GB hard drive. The Inspiron Mini 12 also comes with a built-in 1.3MP camera, Bluetooth and 802.11b/g wireless connectivity, 3x USB ports, VGA out, and a 3-in-1 card reader. Initially the new netbook will be available in Japan through Bic Camera, Kojima and Sofmap stores and other retail outlets. It will launch online globally by late November with configurations starting under $600 (U.S.). Models with Ubuntu and Windows XP operating systems preinstalled will also be available before the end of the year.

Dell today announced its redesigned Vostro desktop line for small businesses, with enhancements such as increased storage and expandability based on ongoing customer feedback. Starting at $319, the Vostro 220, 220s and 420 are available today in North America, tomorrow in most of South America, followed by Asia Pacific and Japan Oct. 20, Europe, Middle East and Africa Nov.3 and Brazil Nov. 11. For more information, visit Dell Vostro and Dell's new small-business blog to join the conversation.

Dell has silently launched one more slave up its LCD monitor line-up, the 23-inch Dell S2309W. Base specs of this 23-incher reveal a 1920x1080 wide resolution, making it Dell's second 16:9 full HD display after S2409W. Response time is measured to be 5ms, brightness is 300 cd/m2, and contrast ratio is 1,000:1. The S2309W connects to the PC via DVI or analog VGA. It follows the new trend by matching the resolution found on modern TVs, so you may think this would be the perfect choice for movie lovers, if it did not lack HDMI connectivity for some reason. The display is currently only on Dell's Canadian site here. There is no information on pricing and availability yet.

Dell plans to transition all of its new laptop displays to light-emitting diode (LED) in the next 12 months, a major achievement in its commitment to become the 'greenest' technology company on the planet. "Our customers have made it clear that they want the greenest technology possible," Jeff Clarke, senior vice president, Dell Product Group said during the company's mobility summit in Monte Carlo today. "As an industry, we can shape the future of green innovation and significantly reduce the carbon footprint associated with mobile computing. Dell is committed to leading the transition to energy-efficient LED technology."

Dell's first netbook, the Inspiron Mini 9 also known as Inspiron 910 has finally changed its status to official. This small, easy-to-carry device stands for the modern people. It is perfect for web browsing, office tasks, watching videos and listening to music and even playing games on the go. With a starting weight of 2.28 lbs, the Inspiron 910 packs a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 512MB DDR2 memory at 533MHz, 4GB Solid State Drive, Intel GMA 950 graphics and a 8.9-inch glossy LED display with 1024x600 resolution. Standard features include a built-in Wi-Fi and a 4-cell battery, but you can futher customize your "mini" with a 1.3MP webcam and built-in Bluetooth. Dell ships the 910 with Ubuntu 8.04 or Microsoft Windows XP Home. Two color options are available for now, Obsidian Black that's included in the price or Alpine White for an additional $25. At last, all Dell Inspiron 910 netbooks come with 1 year warranty. You can purchase one right now directly from Dell. The starting price is $349 with Ubuntu, and $399 if you want Windows XP Home.

Dell Inspiron 910, probably the second most rumoured and anticipated netbook after the Eee PC, today showed more of its specs. A full featured 910 web documentation has made its way to the public, detailing the new "mini Inspiron" and its internals. According to it, 910 will sell with a 1.5GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 512 or 1024MB 800MHz DDR2 RAM, 8.9-inch 1024x600 WLED display and support SSDs up to 16GB. All this will weight 2.20lbs (0.99kg) and wear the Dell badge, a fact you can't skip easily. As usual the mini will use 32-bit Windows XP SP2 as primary OS, specs also say about Ubuntu 8.04 preinstalled possibility. Other last minute details note at August 22nd as official release date. On that date we'll also know the official price of "mini me".

Inspired by close collaboration with nearly 4,000 IT professionals and end users, Dell today announced a completely new line of Latitude and Dell Precision laptops, ranging from the lightest ultra-portable in the company's history to the most powerful mobile workstation.

True HD computer displays have become increasingly popular for the past year. Now Dell knows that and has released S2409W, Dell's first 24-inch 16:9 widescreen display. The 16:9 aspect ratio brings along 1920x1080 Full HD display resolution, 5ms response time, 300 cd/m2 brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio, and 160° / 170° degree viewing angles. At the back you'll find a VGA, DVI and HDMI connectors. The 24-inch Dell S2409W is available now directly from Dell for just $379. Once you order it, it will be at your front door in two days time. More info is available here.

Dell's smallest, most personalized and most environmentally responsible consumer PC, the Studio Hybrid, launches today. Available immediately at Dell, the PC's new unique shape and size, personalized with six external jewel-toned color or bamboo finish options, unleashes stylistic expression, inspiration and fun and looks great in any room.

Dell today introduced "Studio," a new consumer product line designed for self-expression and creative living. Studio products are highly expressive and personalized - inside and out - combining aesthetics and technology into a fresh approach to hi-def mobile lifestyles.

During the D: All Things Digital conference in California, Dell unveiled its first small form factor notebook, that's yet to receive an official name. Informally named "Mini Inspiron" from the crew over at Gizmodo, the netbook will mark Dell's entry into the rapidly-growing subnotebook market currently dominated by ASUS Eee PC and MSI's Windbook. Unfortunately, more information about the "Mini Inspiron" will be unveiled later this year. For now we only have two high-resolution pictures of the red painted midget.

Dell today announced that Brian Gladden will succeed Don Carty, vice chairman and Chief Financial Officer, as senior vice president and CFO effective June 13, 2008. Mr. Carty has resigned, effective June 13. He will remain a member of the board of directors, which he joined in 1992.

Seagate Technology today announced that its Momentus 7200.3 hard drive, the industry's first 2.5-inch 7200-rpm, 320GB HDD, now powers Dell XPS laptop PCs and will be available soon in select Alienware laptops - making the leading computer manufacturers first to market with systems featuring high-performance 320GB hard drives. Perfect for performance laptops, workstations and small form factor desktop PCs, the Momentus 7200.3 Serial ATA 3.0 HDD features doubled 16MB cache and a free-fall sensor technology, to help prevent drive damage and data loss upon impact if a laptop PC is dropped. The hard drive is also lean on power consumption, allowing notebook users to work longer between battery charges, and are virtually inaudible thanks to Seagate's innovative SoftSonic fluid-dynamic bearing motors and QuietStep ramp load technology. Both Dell and Alienware will update their websites soon to include the new storage option on selected XPS and Alienware notebooks.

After officially rejecting all reports calling for the end of Dell's XPS lineup, the company is now taking a step further to promote Alienware gaming machines on its site. Dell has added the Area-51 m9750 to its gaming laptop web site alongside with XPS M1730, it was reported by Direct2Dell.

Now, the Alien invasion has continued, with the addition of the Area-51 m9750 to the Dell gaming laptop web site lineup.

Looking at the Dell Gaming Laptop page, you can see both of these beautiful machines [Alienware Area-51 m15x and Area-51 m9750] ride alongside of the XPS m1730 highlighting the way two great brands can team up to deliver the best gaming experience in the business.

An Area-51 m9750 machine can be configured with a 17-inch widescreen, an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 2.33GHz processor, up to 4GB Dual Channel DDR2, dual NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT 512MB GDDR3 cards in SLI, and up to 1TB of HDD space. The basic configuration price for the Area-51 m9750 starts at $1399.

In a statement issued on late Tuesday, Dell denied yesterday's report from the Wall Street Journal, that claimed the company was dropping its XPS gaming systems in flavour of Alienware. "Dell XPS and Alienware are both great brands...and both will live on," Dell's spokeswoman Anne Camden said in a blog. "But we are going to expand our focus on Alienware. We are going to invest like crazy in product development, design, and engineering to propel Alienware as the premier gaming brand in the future."
"XPS gaming systems will remain an important part of our gaming product portfolio. We don't plan an early phase-out of these systems, as the WSJ incorrectly stated, and in fact will continue to refresh them to keep them on the front edge of gaming," Camden added.

The 30-inch Dell 3008 WFP that has the $2000 price tag and an amazing 117% color gamut is now back on Dell's online store. It was previously removed from the company's site due to "a small technical issue with the product". Now after the 30-inch monster display is back online, we only need volunteers to buy one from the new batch and confirm if all problems are indeed fixed.

In a rather unexpected move, Dell said in front of the Wall Street Journal that as of next month it will be dropping four models of its XPS performance line-up and most likely start to push performance PCs from Alienware. Dell purchased Alienware back in 2006, and since then it hasn't been much around trying to help Alienware shine with its high-end gaming Aurora systems. This move is something new, and might try to fix this from now on. Alienware is also expected to bring out new redesigned systems based on new materials soon, according to the report. If you are subscribed to the WSJ, you can read the full story here.

Just in case the usual laptop designs aren't for your taste, Dell will try to help and eventually sell you one of its brand new exceptional custom painted Inspiron 1525 laptops. Featuring two exclusive artworks by Mike Ming, the "Bunch O Surfers" and "Sea Sky", the Special Art Edition Inspirons are available for order today, starting at $699 for the basic 1525 configuration which gives you Intel Dual Core processor, 3GB memory, 160GB hard drive and 15.4 widescreen display. "I wanted to create a sense of energy, playfulness, sophistication and psychedelic momentum when I started this," said Mike Ming. "This new technique from Dell brings my inspiration-water and the energy it produces-to life and gives computer aficionados their own display of style." Find more info on Mike Ming and his work at Dell Art.

Dell on Friday said it has suspended shipment of the two Vostro 1310 and 1510 laptops in Europe after first owners alarmed that these laptops are shipping to Europe with incorrect European keyboard layout. Jennifer Davis, a Dell spokeswoman commented on the story. She pointed out that only a limited number of Vostro 1310 and 1510 laptops with the wrong keyboard layout were shipped in Europe in the middle of April. Fortunately, Dell has stopped further shipments of the laptop models until the problem is fixed. All "lucky" owners of the faulty keyboard laptops will be offered a replacement. "Customers will be given a choice to receive the keyboard kit or have a tech [representative] come on-site, ... The new keyboard is easy to install," Davis said. Laptops shipped outside Europe aren't affected by the glitch.

I can't explain how happy I'm at the moment, because something like this is being widely reported. It was only a matter of time before someone compain in public. Too bad that it comes from Dell, not the manufacturer I had the same problem with. It seems that the latest Dell Vostro 1310 laptops come with two different types of keyboard layouts - European and USA (International). The problem comes with the European layout which has a big Enter key and changed "forward slash" key position right next to the "Z" key. Try this in a laptop keyboard and the result is sad, the whole bottom row of keys moves with one ahead. Now the worst part, Dell confirmed that all laptops shipped to UK and most likely the whole Europe come with the misconfigured European layout pictured below (third picture shows how the USA layout looks like). I had nearly the same problem with my brand new Logitech G15 rev. 2 keyboard, and it appears all Logitech keyboards ship to Europe with different layout too, without any sign of information that there're two versions - for Europe and USA. It's a shame that things like this happen these days.

Dell has raised the performance bar once again with the launch of the XPS 730 H2C edition, a premier gaming desktop that Dell says is "one of the most advanced gaming platforms on the planet". Available in two models - air-cooled XPS 730 (starting at $3,999) and water-cooled XPS 730 H2C (starting at $4,999) - both systems offer the new NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset, optional factory-overclocked Intel Core 2 Extreme processor, Corsair DOMINATORTM DDR3 memory and up to four hard drives in RAID array. Graphics options include the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 in four-way CrossFireX or NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT in SLI. All this is sold in a 2.4mm anodized aluminum chassis available in Victory Red and Stealth Blue or brushed aluminum in Silver on the air-cooled XPS 730. Each case comes with a 1kW 80PLUS power supply and can be configured with an optional X-View clear side panel. The water-cooled version of XPS 730 is also enhanced. Originally co-developed by Dell, Intel, Delphi and CoolIT, it now features redesigned CPU coldplate, added block for the chipset, dynamic speed control for the pump and fans and a separate fan for the CPU's voltage regulator components.