Dell unveils 'fastest' consumer laptop

Dell has announced what it claims - and it should know - is its fastest consumer-oriented notebook, the gamer friendly XPS M1710. The laptop sports Intel's quickest Core Duo processor plus Nvidia's newest, top-of-the-range mobile GPU, and comes in a choice of glowing red or metallic black carapace.

The notebook's spec best includes a 2.16GHz Core Duo T2600 CPU, 2GB of 667MHz DDR 2 SDRAM, an Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GTX with 512MB of dedicated graphics memory, 100GB of SATA storage, dual-layer DVD±R/RW optical drive, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi card, five-in-one media card reader, and a 17in UXGA screen.

All that will set you back $4,155, but prices start at $2,600 for a lesser-specced machine. The beast weighs 8.8lbs/4kg.

The metallic black model is the standard version. It includes a backlit keyboard and "adjustable 16-colour perimeter lighting", as does the red model, which is a special edition job only offered to North American buyers. ®