Alienware, a custom computer manufacture that was acquired by Dell back in 2006, announced their new entry level desktop PC’s, the X51. What separates this line from their other line of desktop PC’s isn’t just the price, but also the size.

The X51 series is considered slim and from looking at the above image, they’re quite small for packing so much power. Weighing just around 12 pounds and almost 4 inches wide, it’s a pretty small package for a desktop computer.

Via HotHardware:

“The Alienware X51 allows us to bring the exciting nature of high-definition, immersive gaming within reach of more gamers than ever before,” said Arthur Lewis, vice-president, Alienware and Product Management for Consumer, Small and Medium Business. “With the X51, we’ve expanded our gaming desktop offering to cater to all gamers in addition to our core enthusiast and competitive gamers. Now everyone can enjoy the latest games on a sleek, powerful, compact and customizable system. The X51 desktop delivers an incredible feature set for its size and price.”

What are the specs exactly?

• Intel Core i3, i5, or i7 processor
• Up to 8GB DDR3 RAM
• 1TB hard drive
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 545 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 555 graphics card each with 1GB GDDR5 RAM
• Slot-Loading Dual Layer DVD Burner or Blu-Ray player
• Gigabit ethernet and built-in Wireless N
• Windows 7 Home Premium

The price starts at $699 for the base model and goes all the way up to $1149 for the fully loaded model. Knowing Alienware, it’s going to be a solid gaming machine and comes with a 1 year basic warranty.

Alienware Launches X51 Slim Desktop PC With Serious Gaming Performance is a post from: The Inquisitr

Dell is looking to make it’s way into the ultrabook market, something that’s long been dominated by the Apple MacBook Air. The company released details of the XPS 13 today, a very sleek and stylish laptop built for those who want thinness and ultra portability.

First introduced in 2008, the MacBook Air quickly gained top status as the must have ultra portable laptop, originally clocking in at just 0.11 inches thick at it’s lowest point.

The 13 inch Dell XPS 13 sticks with that original philosophy while also cranking up the performance a few notches.

The specs:

• 13 inch Gorilla Glass display
• Aluminum lid and carbon fiber chassis
• 1366×768 resolution
• Core i5 or Core i7 processor
• Up to 256GB SSD drive
• 4GB RAM
• Intel HD 3000 graphics
• Up to 8 hour battery life

The ultrabook is about 0.24 inches thin at it’s lowest point. While not as thin as a MacBook Air, the performance is up there and battery life is very similar. How much will the XPS 13 set you back? The entry level model with a Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM, and a 128GB SSD hard drive, will run you $1000.

Dell plans on shipping in February and being that it is an ultrabook, users can expect it to be very responsive and without the need to wait too long for it to boot up. The XPS 13 can do that thanks to flash memory which uses Intel’s Rapid Start technology.

Also, weighing in at just under 3 pounds, consumers can expect the light weight they would expect from other similar devices on the market and to come in 2012.

Meet The Sleek, Slim, High Performance Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook is a post from: The Inquisitr

Dell on Thursday formally announced its exit from the netbook category as tablets and smartphones continue to grab an ever increasing share of the market.

A quick search on the company’s website reveals that they are no longer offering the Mini 10 with the suggestion that buyers choose the much larger and more expensive Inspiron 14R.

In the meantime the company’s closest offering, the Dell Inspiron Duo, is listed as not available until near the end of the holiday shopping season.

In an interview with The Verge Dell marketing lead Alison Gardner revealed the company’s desire to focus on slim notebooks and ultrabooks.

The once hot Netbook market has been hit in recent years as Apple continues to define the market with their iPad and iPad 2 tablets while Google Android tablets including the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook have also managed to recently steal away market share from the once popular netbook product line.

Dell follows in the footsteps of Samsung who recently announced their own pullout from the netbook market.

In the meantime the company is hoping that slim notebooks and the new ultrabook class of notebooks will allow the company to show users how a slim design that doesn’t sacrifice speed and other laptop features can be beneficial in the workplace and for everyday use.

Do you think the tablet market is going to completely destroy the notebook segment or will certain demographics of users continue to provide the demand necessary to sustain the aging notebook market.

Dell Shuts Down Netbook Division, Announces A Brand New Focus is a post from: The Inquisitr

Dell’s Head of Global Marketing Andy Lark ripped into the iPad and opined that its success will be short lived in a recent interview he gave in Australia, according to PC World.

Lark sniped that he was grateful Apple pushed tablets into the mainstream, but huffed that the inherent limitations to the iPad would be the device’s eventual downfall:

“I couldn’t be happier that Apple has created a market and built up enthusiasm but longer term, open, capable and affordable will win, not closed, high price and proprietary,” Lark told reporter Lisa Banks.

Lark also cited cost and flexibility in the anti-Apple rant:

“Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island. It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.”

He continued:

“An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600; that’s double of what you’re paying,” he said. “That’s not feasible.”

Is this an ivory case containing a second iPad to which he’s referring?

Dell exec slams iPad, predicts downfall due to price, limitations is a post from: The Inquisitr

With the upcoming Dell Rosemont the company has big things planned for their new Windows 7 business tablet, including the Atom based Intel Oak Trail processor.

The 10-inch tablet will be an enterprise device according to anonymous sources and will have some nice additions including a removable battery, software encryption and the ability to remotely wipe the device in case of a loss or stolen situation.

The device is also said to have a dual-digitizer for touch and stylus input.

No pricing, release date or other specs at this time, but when it comes to learning about enterprise tablet devices we’ll take what we can get, whenever we can get it.

Hopefully for Microsoft’s sake then can find a bit more success in the Windows 7 Tablet market than they have with Windows Phone 7 devices.

Dell Rosemont To Get Intel Oak Trail, Remote Wipe, Removable Battery is a post from: The Inquisitr

Dell Drops Blackberry For Employees, Chooses Windows Phone 7 Devices is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Dell Streak has been rearing it’s decently stylish head for the last few months and now we finally have an AT&T Wireless price of $300 with a two-year contract and a street date of August 13th.

The unit features a large 5-inch display, 1GHz processor, built-in WiFi, Bluetooth and a Sirf III GPS processor. The unit also features Google Android, which will probably be version 1.6, although no specifics have been provided at this time.

Don’t want a contract? Be prepared to drop $550 to go contract free, a rather steep price to pay when you consider breaking your two year contract will still come in cheaper than buying the phone at full price.

What do you think about the Dell Streak? Are you ready to pay $300 for the unit?

Dell Streak Gets Priced At $300 For AT&T, Street Date Announced is a post from: The Inquisitr

Palm has been hemorrhaging money for so long I’ve come to suspect that they may be hemophiliacs, now rumors are pointing to a possible and what I’ve long seen as the inevitable sale of the company, possibly to a long-time competitor.

Bloomberg has received tips that competitors HTC and Lenovo may both be in the running to buy up the company, more than likely as part of a technology and talent buy, after all the programmers behind WebOS are a pretty savvy group who obviously have a handle on multi-tasking.

Dell was also said to be in the running, but they backed off for unknown reasons.

Currently none of the named companies will say whether they are seeking ownership of the company, what is known however is that Palm only has around $776 million and there’s a good chance Elevation Partners (owned largely by rock band U2) will soon stop injecting money into the failing company. Then again Elevation partners has a track record of pouring cash into failing properties.

If no more money is invested into the company Palm will need huge sales or they could see their doors closing shortly after the end of 2010. [Electronista]

Palm Ready To Sell Itself To Highest Bidder, Possibly This Week is a post from: The Inquisitr

I will now burn in hell for using such an obvious hyperbolic title to try and get your attention as we try to bring you news, any news, that isn’t about stupid April Fool’s attempts at humor or about the coming tsunami of iPad regurgitation. So I figured that maybe some late breaking and extremely important news about the state of the netbook market might be of interest.

Netbooks?

Ya those incredibly small wannabe laptops that are responsible for more hand cramping than an evening of teasing at a strip bar. Mind you they have about the same size screen as the iPad is reported to have so really as a good friend of mine would say – why spend all that money on one single iPad that is sure to cause even more hand cramping when you could instead get 6 Acer netbooks and have a party of hand cramping.

However as we all prepared to be rolled over by the yummy goodness of the iPad it appears that both Dell and HP are concerned about both the coming of the iPad and the current glut of netbooks that they say exist.

How concerned?

Well according to DigiTimes concerned enough that they are pulling resources from the netbook market and quite possibly vacating it altogether.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell have both significantly reduced their investments in the 10-inch netbook segment, with HP reportedly even considering quitting the 10-inch netbook market and turning its focus to AMD-based 11.6-inch notebooks because profits from Intel Pine Trail-based netbooks have been lower than expected, according to sources from notebook makers.

I’m not sure if this was part of Jobs’ world domination plans but I’m willing to bet he’ll take any victories where he can get them.

[this post while using liberal amounts of tongue and cheek does contain a kernel of truth unlike a lot of so-called April Fool's posts]

Netbooks are dead in the water, and it’s not iPad’s fault is a post from: The Inquisitr

It doesn’t take much skill in prognostication to figure out when I got up this morning and started perusing my morning feeds that the whole China vs Google and their coattail riders would still be hitting the news. It was also easy to figure out that much of the talk would be about the good that Google was doing by setting a stance like this against the evils of censorship.

If only that were truly the case then this might be a discussion worth having. The thing is that as much as Google and the press might want us to believe that and revel in the righteousness of what was happening this whole smokescreen of battling censorship has nothing to do with the right of the Chinese people to free and unfettered access to the Internet than it had to do with business – making money.

One only has to put down the rose colored glasses for a moment and really read what is being put out there.

Take the news that Dell is considering leaving China and moving it’s operations to India. As James Johnston reported here this morning Dell is looking to shift to safer environment with a climate that is more conducive to enterprise with a security of legal system. James notes

Dell isn’t the first company to shift or consider shifting their manufacturing away from China, a country that has become increasingly hard to do business with due to governmental regulation and interference, the once powerful manufacturing hub of the world has seen many of their manufacturing plants close down or cut staff drastically in the last several years.

See, no blaming censorship as the cause for the possible move – it’s all business related.

Now let’s take a look at the freshest news of companies looking to leave China over supposed censorship concerns – GoDaddy.

Once more there is this overlaying connotation over the news that GoDaddy is joining Google in its supposed pissing contesting with China and that it will no longer be doing business in China. Wow .. the snowball is beginning to roll against China now eh.

Ya. Sure. Now let’s put down the kool-aid and get a reality check done.

That reality check can be found in a post over on ReadWriteWeb that for the most part seems to be toeing the current warm and fuzzy viewpoint. However halfway through the post Mike Melanson provides us with what is probably closer to the real reason for GoDaddy pulling out.

GoDaddy’s move, however, is not the purely altruistic act of solidarity it might first appear to be. A new Chinese policy enacted last December upped the ante, requiring registrants of .cn domain names to submit photos and business identification, which would then be forwarded to the government. The law would require GoDaddy to retroactively gather information from domain registrants.

So in other words – business. It is becoming more expensive for GoDaddy to service China based accounts than what they would be profiting from the sale of domains to people in China.

Now, let’s look at the ringleader of this supposed change of heart – Google.

To get at the real heart of the matter here one just has to read Google’s testimony to the Federal Commission on China to see exactly why Google is flashing the evil and ungodly censorship flag like some mad fool. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries at the Digits blog has some of the better parts of the testimony from which you can easily pull this little gem:

On censorship globally:
“More than 25 governments have blocked Google services over the past few years. Since 2007, YouTube has been blocked in over a dozen countries. We have received reports that our blogging platform has been blocked in at least seven countries, and that our social networking site, Orkut, has been blocked in several countries.”

As far as Google is concerned censorship only does one thing – blocks their pages from being delivered which means they are losing advertising dollars. It might not be hurtful in isolated cases but when it happens in the case of a huge population base like China this definitely impacts Google’s bottom line.

There is nothing altruistic about Google’s moves, just as there isn’t in the case of GoDaddy or Dell. It all boils down to business. Censorship hurts the bottom line.

Does China really care about all this noise?

Sure it might bother them on a diplomatic scale when it comes to how the world perceives them but beyond that I sincerely doubt it. After all as David Barboza from the Globe and Mail nicely pointed out China doesn’t need any of these companies in order to maintain their Internet or Internet services.

What this all boils down to is that far from being directly because of censorship any dissatisfaction with China boils down to strictly one of dollars and cents.

Tech giants rising up against China over censorship … Ya, Okay … would you like to buy a bridge? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Hindustan Times this week that Dell may be getting ready to pull out of China, taking their $25 billion business with them.

“This morning I met the chairman of Dell Corporation. He informed me that they are buying equipment and parts worth $25 billion from China. They would like to shift to safer environment with climate conducive to enterprise with security of legal system.”

India would be a good guess as to where the company would move, they already have one plant in the country and Dell CEO Michael Dell has been traveling around that country meeting with local officials.

The move is being seen as a possible way for Dell to play off China and India to gain the most favorable manufacturing deal, however given the awful legal system in China and less than satisfactory working conditions, it could be seen as a good PR move.

Dell isn’t the first company to shift or consider shifting their manufacturing away from China, a country that has become increasingly hard to do business with due to governmental regulation and interference, the once powerful manufacturing hub of the world has seen many of their manufacturing plants close down or cut staff drastically in the last several years.

Dell May Be Pulling A Google, Exiting China For “Safer Conditions” is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Dell Aero is getting ready for it’s U.S. debut via AT&T and the Android phone has upped the ante from it’s Brazilian and Chinese versions.

The U.S. version of the Aero comes with a 3.5 inch display with nHD resolution, which probably means it will have the same 640 x 480 resolution of overseas models, while rumors are pointing to a 5MP camera, replacing the 3MP camera found on the smartphone in other countries.

Dell is also promising that the device will barely be felt in your hand, as the device claims to be the “lightest Android device” to date.

The Google Android OS has also been customized, providing quick access to Picassa, Flickr, Facebook, Twitpic and YouTube without having to install any third-party applications.

The gallery below shows off a few extra Dell Aero pictures:

[Gallery: Engadget]

Dell Aero Gets Spotted, Barely Felt…Which Is A Good Thing is a post from: The Inquisitr

Isn’t technology amazing?

[Spotted on Digg]

Compelling reasons to upgrade your hardware is a post from: The Inquisitr

I sure hope that this doesn’t happen to you as you play with your new Dell laptop that you got for Christmas. Unfortunately though for one woman her Dell Mini 9 started making popping sounds, then began to hiss and sizzle – not good – and the room filled with smoke.

Just to ease your mind Dell has replaced the laptop.

hat tip to Mike Elgan

Dell laptop gets all hot and bothered – burns the floor is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Dell Inspiron Mini 10 has just been announced with a much needed upgrade, the Intel Atom N450 processor, an option that improves battery life and operates at higher levels than current Intel Atom processors found in Netbooks from various manufacturers.

The Intel n450 is a 1.66GHz processor that’s 60% smaller and 20% more efficient than the current Atom processor, while the rest of the unit comes fairly standard with a 10.1″ display, 160GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, WiFi 802.11b/g and a Bluetooth adapter.

For users who want an upgrade, Dell is also offering a High Def add-on, a built-in HDTV tuner.

Battery life is said to sit around  9.5 hours with Windows 7 running on a 6 cell battery option.

The units will come with a price drop, bringing the cost down to $299 in January 2010, $50 cheaper than current models. Be on the look out for more N450 based units, just last week the Asus Eee PC 1005p and 1005PE models were announced, also with price cuts! [Gizmodo]

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Netbooks Get Upgraded With N450 Processor, HDTV Ability is a post from: The Inquisitr

Customers looking to take advantage of custom built computers from Dell this holiday season could end up without a gift under the tree. According to various internet rumors the company appears to be suffering a lack of parts due to the way their ordering system handles part orders for their computers.

Electronista is reporting that some customers have reported being delayed four to five times after placing their custom orders, in many cases pushing back their arrival time into January 2010. When those customers have asked Dell what the delay is they’ve repeatedly been told that Dell is waiting on certain parts for their custom builds. Under their current ordering processes Dell doesn’t keep stock on hand of certain parts, instead deciding to order parts as orders arrive. If a certain supplier experiences any issues those problems are then passed on to Dell.

On the other side of the spectrum Apple and many other providers use completely pre-assembled units, then modify them as requested by the user, allowing for more parts to be held on-hand and typically faster fulfillment times. Of course Dell’s approach does allow for more customization than standard systems which is required by many of their buyers so we can’t completely fault their buying logic.

Dell has experienced a large decline in sales over the last several years, for their sake hopefully they get this issue sorted out as soon as possible.

Dell Custom Ordering System Has Caused Holiday Fulfillment Issues For Some Customers is a post from: The Inquisitr

I don’t get all drooly over hardware most of the time even though I have admitted in the past to a little Apple envy but when I saw this beauty from Dell show up in a review on cnet’s Crave blog I knew exactly what I wanted for Christmas.

Although I will say right off the bat the only drawback for me is the 13.3″ screen but given the prices being quotes for this little beauty I think I could forgo that one thing.

Other than that this is definitely a nice looking machine coming in at .65 inches thick and weighing around 3.5 pounds. Add to that a webcam, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an ExpressCard slot for an all round laptop that covers the bases.

Where the prices for the laptop begin to differ depends on what you are willing to pay for the guts of the machine. The base Vostro V13 comes with a single-core Celeron and Ubuntu Linux for a price of $449 (US).

Should you want to jump up a bit you can get a Core 2 Dual ULV and Windows 7 but even at $600 (US) it is definitely worth the price and one that won’t kill your wallet at the same.

Being the glutton for punishment the way I am I decided to check out the Dell Canada site and see what kind of price premium I would end up paying if I was ever able to get past the wishing upon a star part; and to be honest it wasn’t all that bad I guess at about a $200.00 increase in price.

The base laptop with the single core and Linux installed is priced at $529.00 whereas the Core 2 Solo with 2Gb of memory and a 320Gig SATA drive will set me back $699.00. There is one further upgrade beyond that but at $799 it’s not even worth teasing myself over.

The Dell Vostro V13 – I wonder if Santa is listening? is a post from: The Inquisitr

It’s amazing how often Dell releases new hardware with little more than a product page and no PR anywhere in sight. That’s exactly what they’ve done with the Dell Precision M6500, a business friendly laptop with an Intel Core i7 processor.

The Precision M6500 features a 17-inch display with the choice of a NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M graphics processor or an ATI FirePro M7740. While the screen also output an LED-backlit screen at 1920 x 1200 pixels of resolution.

The Precision M6500 also features up to 16GB DDR3 memory with speeds of 1,333MHz, powered by an Intel Core i7-920XM processor.

Power/Business users can also take advantage of up to three optional RAID configurations.

Unfortunately, there’s no actual purchase date at this juncture, right now the product page is just one big tease. [Engadget]

Dell Intros Precision M6500 With Core i7, Forgets To Tell Anyone About It is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Dell Studio 17 was upgraded today by Dell with a new multi-touch surface that outputs 1,600 x 900 pixels of resolution, features a Pentium Dual Core or Core 2 Duo processor and can hold up to 8GB of RAM.

The notebook also features up to 1TB storage and the option for integrated Intel graphics or an ATI GPU.   Users can also thrown in a Blu-Ray (at an additional cost), along with several other basic configurable options from the Dell website.

A basic unit sells for $899 with prices moving quickly upward from that point if you throw in Blu-Ray, more memory and other add-ons.  You can order now and you’re unit should ship by December 4th, just in time for the Christmas shopping season. [Engadget]

Dell Studio 17 Gets Purchase Page, Multi-Touch, Configurable Options is a post from: The Inquisitr

Dell is now making a larger move towards “Greening” their products with the release of new Dell Mini 10 Netbook packaging made from renewable bamboo packaging. The company says the packaging will save them money and provide a “green” solution for various other product packaging in the future.

The bamboo packaging according to SlashGear is replacing “paper, foam and corrugated packaging” with the Inspiron Mini 10 and Mini 10V Netbooks being the first products to take advantage of the companies green program.  The companies “outer box” is also semi-green, being made from 25% recycled materials.

Bamboo is seen as a cost saving measure as it is easy to grow and can add up to 24 inches to its stalk in a one day period. Bamboo is also extremely strong and better on the environment than standard materials as it grows like a weed and is therefore easy to harvest and maintain without removing a large footprint from the plants natural habitat.

Dell Announces “Bamboo Based” Green Packaging For Dell Mini 10 Netbooks is a post from: The Inquisitr