Hasta La Gadget!

Modder creates dual-screen Courier from Dell Mini 9, calls it Harlequin, Joker unavailable for comment originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You had to know Dell’s comically secretive product launch strategy would eventually break down, and here we go: although the company is teasing an “unnamed $450 Vostro” to US media, Dell Singapore has just gone ahead and launched the thing officially as the Vostro V13, complete with specs. Oops. While Dell PR tries to put out that fire, we can dance in the rubble and tell you that Dell’s putting everything it learned building the Adamo XPS to some more practical use in the .65-inch thick, sub-3.5-pound V13, which packs either a 1.2GHz Celeron, 1.3GHz Core 2 Duo or 1.4GHz Core 2 Solo with integrated X4500MHD graphics under that 13.3-inch screen. Sure, the design isn’t as wild as the Adamo XPS, but the extra thickness means that it can accommodate an Ethernet port, along with eSATA, USB, an SD card slot and even a freaking ExpressCard slot. All this for just a confirmed US$450 on the low end? Okay, sign us up. Hit the Dell Singapore link for more pics and a nice 360-degree view.

Update: Added a video after the break so you can hear Dell pitch the V13 direct.

Update 2: It’s now official in America, starts at $449 and can be had “worldwide” starting today.

[Thanks, Daniel]

Continue reading Dell Vostro V13 is $450, .65 inches thick, available ‘worldwide’ today (update: video!)

Dell Vostro V13 is $450, .65 inches thick, available ‘worldwide’ today (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember Throttlegate, the epic saga of warmth-averse Dell laptops turning themselves into 100MHz clunkers whenever temperatures rose above freezing? The issue has been plaguing some users for months, but less than a day after we posted about it Dell had a BIOS update ready for its Latitude E6400 and E6500 series machines, timing that can only be explained as coincidence. Dell also released an update to quiet noisy Seagate drives in a number of its portables, seemingly the same issue that plagued MacBook Pros over the summer — great news for anyone who hates disks that sound terminal. However, there’s still no solution for the Studio XPS 1645 complaints we also reported about, and now we’re hearing that the Alienware m15x may be similarly under-clocking itself. Oh how deep the throttlehole goes…

Update: It seems all still isn’t well. Most are indicating an improvement with this BIOS update, but according to many in comments some machines are still not operating at full speed. At this point it looks like Dell is working openly with users to come up with a more final fix, so we’re optimistic… for some reason.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Dell releases bevy of firmware updates to fix most of what ails some of you originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wait a second — a business-centric laptop… with style? Dell‘s 15.6-inch Vostro 1015, which was announced alongside the still-unavailable (in the US, anyway) Vostro 1014 and Vostro 1088 back in August, has just emerged for purchase, and the relatively attractive case and low starting price definitely has our attention. Granted, the $429 base model gets saddled with a 2.2GHz Celeron 900 processor, but $629 buys you a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo T6670, Windows 7 Professional, 3GB of DDR2 RAM, a 320GB (5400RPM) hard drive, dual-layer DVD burner, 2 megapixel webcam, integrated WiFi, GMA 4500MHD graphics and a 6-cell battery. Anyone down for stroking their inner suit?

[Thanks, Peter]

Dell Vostro 1015 now on sale in America: starts at $429 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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All is not well in the land of the E6400– and E6500-series lappytops. What looks to be hundreds of owners of these machines have been complaining of massive performance issues, throttling themselves down by as much as 95% under what would seem to be normal operating conditions. Whenever the devices get slightly warm the BIOS automatically starts dialing down the performance until they basically crawl to a halt, some indicating that even when cool they won’t go over 50% of maximum clock. Users have been reporting this issue since early in the year and Dell has apparently started censoring some posts on its forums, including a link to a PDF created by (now-banned) user Tinkerdude describing the problem in detail. It’s entitled “Performance loss during normal operation in a Dell Latitude E6500 laptop due to processor and bus clock throttling”, and if you think that’s long wait until you see all 59 pages of analysis (at the read link). As of now there’s no official fix provided by Dell, leaving many to call this Throttlegate, and we do love a good Stargate reference.

Update: Ibrahim e-mailed to let us know that these two series aren’t the only ones being gimped. The Studio XPS 1645 is said to be having similar (but somewhat less drastic) issues according to this thread, seemingly thanks to an inadequate AC adapter. In this case Dell seems to be shipping replacement adapters to those who call up and complain.

Update 2: Dell’s Chief Blogger Lionel Menchaca dropped the following in comments, which is something of a positive step:

We’re aware of concerns raised in this post and others like it. At this point, our teams are looking into the details. When we have more information to share, we’ll update customers via a post on Dell’s blog, Direct2Dell.

Dell facing massive E6400 and E6500 overheating and underclocking problem? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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