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Wednesday 14th May 2008

Dell XPS brand to survive

Posted at: 2:35am 14th May 2008 by James Morris

Despite a widely-linked report in the Wall Street Journal, Dell denies its gaming PC brand is gone

Dell XPS

At the start of the week, computing news sites were buzzing with news gleaned from the Wall Street Journal that Dell was killing off its XPS line of gaming PCs in order to concentrate on its Alienware subsidiary. With Dell having recently pulled out of the 2008 Dream PCs labs test (see here for their 2007 entry), the story looked genuine to us as well.

However, we decided to check the truth first, and we’re glad we did. According to a blog posting by Dell consumer product PR representative Ann B Camden, the XPS is far from dead. What is happening is that the XPS design and engineering team is being combined with the group at Alienware to ‘expand [Dell’s] focus on Alienware’. In other words, Alienware will become Dell’s premium high-end gaming brand.

This doesn’t mean XPS will be discontinued, though. As Camden states, XPS is, even now more than a gaming brand. It already includes an all-in-one product, the XPS One, which arrived in the UK a couple of months ago. Then there’s the M1330 ultraportable notebook, and the XPS 420, which is aimed more at multimedia use than hardcore gaming. Camden explains that there will be no early phase-out of any current XPS models, and existing products will continue to be refreshed ‘to keep them on the front edge of gaming’.

That said, you can still read between the lines at what XPS will become over the coming months. Alienware will be Dell’s premium, high-end gaming brand, and XPS looks like it will become a range of stylish, more general-purpose gaming and multimedia PCs, thereby removing the curious competitive overlap between them which has existed since Dell acquired Alienware in 2006.



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I had the same problems with a Dell XPS, hopefully they wont pass on the bad traits, including crap memory DIMMS, to Alienware and bring in Dell's case design

Comment by TWeaKoR at 3:08pm 15th May 2008

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Do they still use............

I'm not sure if things are the same anymore but I bought a Dimension series desktop for my kid about 3 years ago. It was their half size case so last year I thought about swapping it for a case with a bit more space. Problem's starting to kick in when I tried to connect the USB, Power and Audio connections on the Motherboard wih the case. Dell's own boards use their own custom connections and there wasn't any reference to work out custom fit the standard new case connections. I read a hell of alot of forums with people having the exact same problem. All I heard was "Yes, it's a Dell and works fine but for gods sake, don't try to upgrade it!" So do they still commission their own Boards and Cases?

Comment by crazyceo at 12:23pm 15th May 2008

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Yeah..

This is it. From my experience building your own PC is a pain in the ass. You have hardware problems, dealing with component vendours can be a chore. It's overated, though fun and can be very rewarding. With the XPS range you have a quiet, fast PC with great support.

Comment by C7ouD at 12:16am 15th May 2008

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These are half decent

Gaming rigs... Especially because they are quite competitive pre built, neat inside and out, have excellent power supplies, have warranties, come with OS software, monitor and so forth... Even at one point when DIY versus DELL in a past issue saw the Dell didnt have the overclocking power, but nevertheless packed in some excellent hardware including much better audio by creative and so forth. I dont think this brand will die, especially as many scientists and those who do calculations in universities and in business, buy these PC's solely for ease, and the initial grunt power they have ! Also good for those who love gaming but not PC building (not many, but hey!) I still think they are going to be strong for at least the foreseeable future

Comment by Lightning_Pete at 3:51pm 14th May 2008

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