Hasta La Gadget!

It’s the slickest mainstream machine to emerge from Round Rock in years, and outside of the short-lived Adamo XPS, it might just be the most beautiful Dell laptop from the past decade. It’s the XPS 15z, and it’s winning the hearts of folks who were previously dead-set on HP’s Envy line. We obviously found favor with our review unit, and we’re pretty sure the company has managed to move quite a few of these things. If one (or more) ended up on your doorstep, here’s your chance to speak out. Are you satisfied with the keyboard design? How’s the panel treating your retinas? That hardware configuration living up to your needs? Would you offer the next one in a multitude of hues? Go ahead and get crafty in comments below — maybe that whole “Design Studio” thing will bleed over to here.

How would you change Dell’s XPS 15z? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you one of the unlucky Alienware M11x owners who had hinge issues with the laptop, but feared you’d be stuck with a faulty folding mechanism due to an out of date warranty? Well, worry no more, because Dell has extended its hinge replacement program to include owners anywhere on earth with an R1 or R2 M11x regardless of warranty status. Getting those busted bits replaced is easy peasy, as affected parties need only contact Dell Tech support to get the repair process started. For full details about getting your afflicted alien fixed hit the source below — and feel free to give Dell some daps for doing the right thing while you’re at it.

Dell to fix faulty M11x hinges the world over regardless of warranty status originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just a few days after introducing its own Android-like OS, Baidu is now looking to expand its mobile reach to the hardware front, with the help of Dell. According to Reuters, the Chinese search giant has joined forces with the PC manufacturer to produce a line of tablets and smartphones within China, in the hopes of capitalizing on a market of more than 900 million mobile subscribers. A Dell spokeswoman declined to offer a launch date for the new line of products, but sources close to the matter say they could launch as early as November. Details on the devices remain equally opaque, though Dell seems intent on resurrecting its tablet / handset unit, following the demise of the Streak 5. “We have a partnership with Baidu and you know we have the Streak 5 tablet, so the partnership will be in that space,” the company’s rep explained, adding that future releases would involve Baidu’s mobile app platform, as well. Today’s announcement also comes after Dell’s Chinese sales grew by 22 percent during the first quarter of this year, though it remains to be seen whether or not this alliance will have much affect on a market currently dominated by Apple and Lenovo.

Baidu, Dell join forces to produce line of smartphones and tablets in China originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 06:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell’s much bragged-about skinny 23-incher just got put through its paces by the bods at HotHardware. Their conclusion? The 1080p display sports glossily good aesthetics and scores major points for its lumbar-loving 8.3-pound weight and 0.4-inch waistline (which burgeons to 1.19-inches around the ports). The twisted nematic panel isn’t up to IPS standards and won’t satisfy graphics or photography pros, but the LED backlighting produces good brightness and better-than-average black levels. Gaming was held back by minor streaking despite the 2ms response time, while Blu-ray movies suffered slightly in darker scenes. All in, a “relatively good buy” at $250 — although you might want to check out the source link to see if the S2330MX meets your exact requirements.

Dell S2330MX ultra-slim monitor reckons it’s gorgeous, actually just ‘above average’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to Engadget’s Back to School guide! We know that this time of year can be pretty annoying and stressful for everyone, so we’re here to help out with the heartbreaking process of gadget buying for the school-aged crowd. Today we’re getting down to the very important business of helping you sift through laptops, and you can always head to the Back to School hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of the month we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — and hit up the hub page right here!

Ah, laptops. Some of us received our first notebooks the summer before college if not later. But times have changed and we’re sure for many of the kids reading this freshman year is just an excuse to upgrade from the clunkers that carried them through high school. Either way, this one’s pretty much mandatory — unless you’re a serious gamer who insists on a desktop GPU for marathon sessions of CoD: Black Ops, you’re going to need a laptop for pounding out last-minute term papers in the library, taking notes in class and posting incriminating photos on Facebook. The problem is, the market’s overrun with laptops that purport to be just perfect for the back to school set. They can’t all be worth your money, though, so we whittled the list down to a handful of choices for each budget — and if you’re lucky you’ll get your very own HP Pavilion dm1z for the pretty price of, well, nothing. Simply leave a comment below to be entered to win, and check out our giveaway page for more details. So wipe off the glasses, grab your clicker, and get ready to jump past the break for a top-level overview of this year’s picks for back to school.

Continue reading Engadget’s back to school guide 2011: laptops

Engadget’s back to school guide 2011: laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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