Dell XPS M1730

We tested Dell’s Inspiron 1720 earlier this month and concluded that it is was one of the fastest, well-specified and good value machines on test. But it didn't exactly blow us away.

It’s big brother, the XPS M1730, does.

It sports a slightly-faster base spec than the 1720: a 2.4GHz T7700 Core 2 processor, 2GB of RAM and two 160GB hard disks. Despite our test unit being a pre-production model it still managed a decent 1.10 in our benchmarks: the retail version should be faster and can be further improved with RAID0 hard disks or even an X7900 Extreme processor (albeit for $1100 more!).

It feels incredibly well put together and looks great thanks to its speckled, carbon-fibre-like styling and back-lit areas on the lid. Other backlights speckle the chassis but notably the keyboard is backlit – though we turned this of as it was annoyingly uneven. The keyboard (with separate number pad) is very comfortable and the trackpad is very responsive. We also like the programmable Logitech LCD above it which displays things like system settings and game data.

The glossy 1920 x 1200 screen is crisp, bright and well-lit – one of the best on show – and the speakers at the front rival the Toshiba’s for power, tonal range and clarity.

Other features match its sibling: a two-megapixel webcam with twin digital microphones for quality web conferencing. There’s also 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi, BlueTooth 2 and Gigabit Ethernet. Four USB ports are present, there’s S-Video and DVI-out and a media card reader. The optical drive supports dual-layer authoring and Blu-ray is available for $700 more. Another option is a $275 TV tuner.

But where the XPS pulls ahead is with its two DirectX 10-compatible, 8700M GT graphics chips which run in SLI (just note that not all games carry SLI-specific instructions to optimise performance). In Call of Duty 2 it scored a whopping 85fps, 75fps and 62fps in our low, medium and high-settings tests. We also tried Call of Juarez and saw only 16fps and 5.4fps in our low and ‘balanced’ tests (not optimised for SLI). Our M1730 included a pointless but cool Ageia PhysX card: removing it saves you $250.

The power pummels battery life: it barely made 1hr 30mins under light use. But if you keep it near the mains and ditch the Ageia card this highly-configurable, great-looking, monster is great value at just $3350. The superb complete cover onsite warranty ices the cake.