Dell Inc. took the wraps off a new desktop replacement notebook Friday, adding some multimedia features to the high end of its consumer notebook lineup.
The new Inspiron 9100 is the second most powerful notebook in Dell’s consumer lineup, behind the Dimension XPS gaming notebook unveiled earlier this month. It uses several of Intel Corp.’s desktop Pentium 4 processors to give users the same performance as a desktop in a mobile package.
The new notebook weighs 8.9 pounds, and comes with a 15.4-inch widescreen display.
Despite their heft, desktop replacement notebooks have proven extremely popular with consumers over the past few years. These users aren’t taking their notebooks on long business trips, and rarely unplug them from the wall. They just want a PC they can use in different rooms of their house that gives them the same performance as an immobile desktop.
A base configuration of the Inspiron 9100 starts at US$1,549 with a 2.8GHz Prescott Pentium 4 processor; 256MB of PC3200 (400MHz) DDR (double data rate) SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM); a 40GB hard drive; a CD-RW (CD-rewritable)/DVD-ROM drive; and a Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics card from ATI Technologies Inc. with 64MB of video memory.