Dell has rolled out industry's first ultra portable workstation with a 14.1-inch display. The M2300 is an addition in the powerful Precision series with all the high-end specs one can think off while keeping the weight down to 5.37 lbs. One of the most interesting and useful feature of this workstation is the password protection technology on the HDD which asks for a password before the HDD can be accessed and the system boots. The M2300 Santa Rosa machine can be customized with 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo T7800 processor, up to 4GB RAM, max 200GB hard drive, optional 32GB solid state disk, dual layer DVD burner, NVIDIA Quadro FX 360M, fingerprint reader, 802.11a/b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth, and Vista Ultimate. The notebook starts at $1,708, but for above mentioned specs you'll have to pay about $3,755.

The once-famous Ben Curtis was a great advertising man for Dell. His well-known "dude you're getting a Dell" campaign gave people a good laugh, and brought Dell a healthy amount of revenue. That all changed when Curtis was caught buying marijuana, which is illegal in the United States of America. Dell fired Curtis, and he has since been pressed to find a good job. Fortunately, this was not the end of the line for Curtis. Curtis is now a bar tender in New York, and is quite happy with his new job. "There were times when I made boatloads of money as an actor, but here I can be myself." Curtis aspires to one day score it big with his band, "Whale", and once again get boatloads of money in Hollywood.

Dell has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire EqualLogic, a leading provider of high-performance iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions uniquely optimized for virtualization. The acquisition will strengthen Dell's product and channel leadership in simplifying and virtualizing IT for customers globally. iSCSI SAN technology represents the fastest growing part of the storage business.

Dell has announced the availability of its new 24-inch E248WFP LCD display in the USA. The monitor comes with an integrated DVI-D with HDCP. It also features 92% color gamut, 1920x1200 resolution, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 5ms response time, 160 degrees viewing angle, and 400 cd/m2 brightness. The screen is now on sale on Dell's website for a reasonable $469 USD.

Dell today announced the XPS 420 - a premium multimedia desktop PC that features Dell-exclusive Adobe Elements Studio software pre-installed, including Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 & Premiere Elements 4 software as well as Adobe Soundbooth CS3 - to simplify multimedia creativity whether it's producing a slide show, editing a family video or cleaning up audio recordings.

Staples, Inc. and Dell Inc. today announced that starting on November 11th, customers will have the option to hit the "Easy Button" at 1,400 Staples stores for a wide assortment of Dell notebook and desktop computers, monitors, printers, ink and toner. Staples, the country's leading retail destination for printing, will be the only office superstore to offer Dell products in stores and through its Web site. As part of its ongoing efforts to extend the advantages of its direct business model, Dell's relationship with Staples is the latest in a series of retail agreements aimed at reaching more customers worldwide. The initial products offered at Staples will include Inspiron 1721 and 1521 notebooks, Inspiron 530 desktops, Dell 948 and 926 all-in-one inkjet printers, Dell 1320c laser printer, Dell SE198WFP 19-inch widescreen flat panel LCD monitor, and the Dell E228WFP 22-inch widescreen flat panel LCD monitor. Additionally, Staples will offer ink and toner for most Dell printers.

Dell has officially introduced the SP2008WFP - 20" widescreen LCD monitor with 2ms GtG response time, 1680x1050 resolution, 2000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 300 cd/m2 typical brightness, built-in 2.0 Megapixel webcam and integrated microphone. The integrated video camera with 2x digital zoom allows you to capture video and take pictures with resolution up to 1600x1200 pixels. The new 20" Dell SP2008WFP also features TrueLife Technology for greater contrast resulting in deeper and more vibrant colors. This particular model has one DVI-D, one Analog video and 4 x USB ports. The new Dell SP2008WFP is available immediately for $289.

Dell's XPS M1730 gaming notebook has not been released yet, although its launch was planned for September 21st. Despite the delay, specs leaked from Dell's official website say that the XPS M1730 will be configurable with the 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, 2.2GHz T7500, 2.4GHz T7700 as well as the latest Core 2 Extreme X7900 CPU at 2.8GHz. All these CPUs have 4MB of L2 cache and a 800MHz front side bus. Dell's new 17-inch glossy TrueLife widescreen display with 1920x1200 pixel resolution will be powered by NVIDIA GeForce Go 8700M GT dedicated video card with 512MB GDDR3 memory in single or dual (SLI) configuration. The specifications also mention 2GB 667MHz DDR2 memory (4GB for an additional $375), AGEIA PhysX 100M physics card and 2x200GB 7200rpm hard drives in RAID configuration. The notebook's price starts from $2,999 for the basic configuration and climbs up to $4,192 for the premium model.

Dell said on Monday it would sell its latest range of personal computers through China's largest electronics retailer, Gome Group. The tie-up with GOME Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd follows similar moves by Dell, the world's second-largest personal computer maker, to expand beyond its direct-sales model to increase global market share. Beijing-based Gome will start retailing Dell products next month in 50 of its stores. Gome had 654 outlets in all at the end of June.

For Dell this is a great opportunity to extend connections with Chinese customers we may not have reached in the past,

said Michael Tatelman, vice president of marketing and sales for Dell's global business.

Samsung has begun shipping 2.5" 64GB SSD SATA HDDs. The NAND flash-based hard drives are expected to become available as storage options for Dell and Alienware consumer notebooks. According to Samsung, Alienware will be offering 64GB and a 128GB configuration (dual 64GB RAID 0) as well as a single 64GB SSD combined with a 200GB 7200rpm hard drive for its Area-51 m9750 notebook. Dell will be selling the SSD as an option for the XPS M1330 notebook. Customers will have to reach deep into their pockets to be able to enjoy the 64 GB SSD, as it comes at an additional cost of $1100. Fully customized Alienware m9750 with 2x64 SSD RAID0 drives, Core 2 Duo T7600, 2xGeForce Go 7950 GTX - SLI, 4GB DDR2 memory, dual layer DVD burner and a genuine copy of Windows Vista will rise the price to around 6300$ without the optional Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio or any other accessories.

Barcelona should be available next week and when compared with Intel's Clovertown, Barcelona is 30% faster than Clovertown at floating point instructions. However, at integer instructions, Clovertown is approximately 30% faster than Barcelona. Dell also says they will continue to use AMD processors in their line up to give their customers a variety of choices to choose from.

Dell today introduced its most powerful mobile workstation, the Dell Precision M6300, designed to free engineers, artists, developers and other professionals to run business-critical applications wherever they go with true desktop-level performance. The Dell Precision M6300 sports Intel Core 2 Duo and Extreme Edition processors up to the X7900 (2.8GHz) combined with NVIDIA Quadro FX1600M OpenGL discrete graphics, up to 4GB of dual-channel system memory, and high performance hard drives including solid state and encrypted. The Dell Precision M6300 has large, high resolution, wide-aspect 17-inch anti-glare display. 802.11a/g/n wireless connectivity, Bluetooth 2.0, DVI port, as well as firewire are also presented in this model.

DELL plans to release new SP2008WFP 20-inch LCD panel with integrated 2MP webcam this September. The SP2008WFP will offer 1680x1050 resolution, 2ms response time, 300cd/m2 brightness level, and 2000:1 contrast ratio. The screen also sports DVI with HDCP, four USB 2.0 ports, and a 2MP still / VGA video webcam (fixed focus) with array microphone. The exact release date is 12 September, 2007.

According to market watcher NPD, Apple was the third largest laptop vendor during June, with only Toshiba and HP selling more machines. This puts Apple ahead of other major names such as Dell, Gateway and Lenovo, as buyers continue to choose Apple's updated MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks over the more conventional brands. Figures show that Apple accounted for 17.6% of the laptop market, up from 14.3% in May, which also means that more than one in six laptops sold in the USA are made by Apple. However, these are only based on retailer sales, so the direct-to-buyer figures may tell a completely different story. This news comes soon after Apple managed to take the third-spot in overall computer sales, tied with Gateway on 5.6% (behind Dell and HP).

Just when we thought the enormous recall of all Sony laptop batteries in several laptops, including those made by Dell, was over, someone's laptop spontaneously combusts. The laptop-turned-firecracker was one of the Inspiron 9200s, which were among the first to be recalled. However, it is not clear whether or not the customer actually went through and replaced the battery. If this is not a case of consumer ignorance...this could mean that Dell will have to deal with another massive laptop battery recall.

Engadget has posted details about Dell's next gen XPS 420 system. The XPS 420 will be bigger, badder and better equipped:

• Core 2 Duo, Extreme, or Quad (up to 8MB) processor options
• Intel X38 Express chipset, DDR2 800 (up to 8GB)
• MiniView LCD 3 x 2-inch QVGA display (runs SideShow on the front, picture after the break)
• Dell Xcelerator - dedicated media coprocessor for transcoding video streams to MPEG-4 formats. Can cut encode time on a 2 hour HD movie in half and use far fewer CPU cycles.
• SATA II (with RAID 0 or 1 support)
• PCI Express x16, Gigabit Ethernet
• 2x front USB, 6x rear, 2x internal; one front and rear 1394; one eSATA, frontal audio ports

For quite some time now, Dell has been offering Ubuntu on it's desktops and laptops in America. However, that was it. Dell only sold Linux computers in America. Thankfully, Dell plans to change all that. The Inspiron 6400n laptop and Inspiron 530n desktop will be the first Linux-equipped Dells to ship in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and China. Dell customers that want Linux pre-installed on their computers will have a choice between Novell's SUSE Linux and Ubuntu. European customers will soon be able to order Linux versions of the 6400n laptop for £329, and the 530n desktop for £399.

Dell, manufacturer of high performance XPS laptop computers is preparing the M1730 model, which will follow up after their M1710. The "fully loaded" laptop will sport a Core 2 Extreme X7800 CPU running at 2.60 GHz. Graphics-wise, the base models will use an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GS with 256MB of memory, there should also be a 512MB GeForce 8700M GT available soon.

Other rumored specs include a maximum of 4GB of RAM and a 512MB or 1GB Intel Turbo Memory option, Bluetooth 2.0, Blu-ray as well as a numeric keypad.

The laptop will be launched on the 27th of this month.

Dell plans to expand its Ubuntu PC and notebook offerings due to continued demand Dell has seen for the Ubuntu products, said Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu creator. Shuttleworth also founded Canonical, the company responsible for offering support for Ubuntu Linux users.

What's been announced to date is not the full extent of what we will see over the next couple of weeks and months,

There are additional offerings in the pipeline,

Shuttleworth said during an interview. Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden did not make an official statement about future products, but did say that Dell is happy with the response the company has received for Linux. Even though most of the products sold were likely to previous fans of Linux and open source technology, some first time customers also made purchases. Dell currently offers five products which run the Ubuntu operating system.

A few days ago we saw Orange strike a deal in which they offered free laptops with their contracts. Now Dell has signed a deal with a U.K. mobile phone retailer to distribute free laptops with the purchase of a broadband Internet access subscription. Starting in September consumers who buy a two-year contract for America Online's broadband service through the Carphone Warehouse Group will get a coupon for a free base-model Inspiron notebook from Dell. AOL broadband costs £19.99 ($41) per month. This free laptop which is by far better than the one Orange is giving away for free uses Microsoft's Vista Home Basic OS and has 1 GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, an Intel Celeron processor and Wi-Fi. The laptop can be upgraded for a fee. Customers also get a wireless router but have to pay a £14.99 laptop delivery fee. Jonathan Coham, an analyst at Ovum had the following to say.

Dell announced today it has entered into an agreement to acquire privately-held SilverBack Technologies, Inc., a service delivery platform provider for remote monitoring and management of information technology infrastructure such as servers, storage, networks, desktops and notebooks. Dell plans to leverage SilverBack Technologies, Inc. into its operations as part of its ongoing strategy of IT simplification. Terms were not disclosed and the purchase will not be final until all closing conditions are met. SilverBack Technologies, Inc. is based in Billerica, Mass.

Dell introduced eight colours for its two versions of 15 inch and two versions of 17 inch notebooks. The colours include black, blue, yellow, brown, red, green, pink and finally apple white.
The colours are available for Inspiron 1520 and 1521, 15.4 inch models and 17 inch Inspiron 1720 and 1721.
The 1520 comes with Vista and Core 2 Duo and starts at €879 while the 1521 comes also with Vista but uses Turion 64 X2 while the slowest which will also have Vista but a 1.6 GHz and 1 GB memory costs 729 €.

Dell is getting sued by a trucking company. This is because, according to Con-Way Transportation Services, Dell is refusing to pay for the transportation of $42,497.26 worth of goods. Con-Way Transportation Services is suing in a Texas court, and is looking for payment of transportation (plus 1.5%/month interest), as well as compensation for the legal costs, such as lawyers.

Dell, as part of it's plan to lay off 10% of it's total staff, is asking 100 people in the Irish plant located in Limerick, Ireland, to turn in their badges. In particular, Dell is trying to get people in IT, human resources, marketing, and management to quit. Dell "will reconsider the situation should it fail to make the targeted number of cuts" within two months. Dell's Cherrywood plant near Dublin, Ireland, is not affected.

Back in April, Dell started the "Plant A Tree For Me" fund, which is basically a gigantic charity based around planting trees to offset the carbon dioxide surplus in our world. Now, Dell is taking further steps to actively protect and help the environment. Two of Dell's latest notebooks, the D430 and Precision M4300, have been certified with the stringent Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star 4.0. Ten of Dell's desktop models have already been certified compliant with Energy Star 4.0, which Dell claims makes it "the greenest technology company". Dell also launched cooler-running servers that are more efficient and require less energy to run. Dell is also working hard to make SSD storage available in as many of it's computers as possible.

If competitors decide that they want to steal the crown of "the greenest technology company" from Dell, we may finally see companies striving to make computers more powerful while reducing their impact on the environment.