Summary Review 
The Good: - Amazing 3D performance, fantastic for gaming or high-end 3D tasks
- Cool and quiet, even when using for hours
- Very nice looking, especially the lights
- Great sturdy keyboard
- Nice screen, very bright and good colors
The Bad:
- Very Heavy (8.8 pounds) with 9-cell battery
- Wireless problems
- Area below LCD and top of keyboard has some flex
- No PCMCIA card slot
- Expensive
Specifications & Design
- System: Dell XPS M1710 (Red color lid)
- Processor: Intel Core Duo T2600 (2.16 GHz)
- Memory: 2GB @ 667MHz - 2 DIMM Slots (2 x 1GB) (Max Ram 4GB)
- Hard Drive: 100GB capacity at a speed of 7200 RPM
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX with 512MB DDR memory
- Screen: WUXGA Truelife (1920 x 1200)
- Optical Drive: 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW/+R) with Dual-Layer
- OS: Microsoft MCE 2005
- Wireless Card: Intel 3945 (802.11b/g)
- Battery: 9-cell lithium ion recharegable battery
- Ports / Slots: 5-in-1 Memory Card Reader, DVI-D, VGA video output, S-Video, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), 6 USB 2.0, Express Card slot, Modem, Ethernet/LAN, Microphone in, Headphone out
- Integrated Subwoofer
- Price of this configuration: $4,215 (base price of black metallic M1710 starts at $2,600)
Detailed Review
The Dell XPS M1710 design is, in a word, brazen. In daylight the striking red or metallic black lid will catch the eyes of just about anyone nearby. In the dark, if you stand far away this thing looks more like a UFO as the lights glow in a somewhat creepy yet cool way. Shown in the pictures of the light display the M1710 emits, the light colors are configurable with up to 16 color options for each light via a Dell included QuickSet program. Outside of the lid and lights, the rest of the look is silver. I'm used to seeing a black keyboard on Dell machines, but this one sports a more sleek looking silver keyed look, which is nice and fits the design well. You'll notice the XPS M1710 has an rugged look and it's true to the actual build of the notebook. The M1710 is very sturdy but very heavy; it uses an all magnesium-alloy case on the top and bottom. The keyboard and palm rest area is made of a thick heavy duty plastic. This means strong overall physical protection of the notebook, which is less likely to crack or scratch the case with excessive flexing. The hinges are made of steel, Dell claims they have been tested for up to 20,000 cycles (openings and closings) to assure it won't become loose and wobbley. The hard drive has a StrikeZone shock absorber for small drops and bumps for protection in small drops. There is one part of the build that's lacking, the plastic on the bottom of the LCD screen is easy to bend and flex. But It's unlikely that you would be touching this area often. Although the notebook weights more than others, it isn't as bad as you might think. The XPS M1710 is quoted as being 8.8 lbs by Dell, but in fact the M1710 and its power adapter together and the total came it at just over 10 lbs. 
Screen The XPS M1710 has a 17" widescreen WUXGA (1920 x 1200 resolution) LCD with the Dell TrueLife (glossy screen) treatment. The TrueLife is a standard feature on every M1710 and a good option for an entertainment machine as it does provide greater contrast and bolder colors. The display on the XPS M1710 is 30% brighter than the predecessor M170. The XPS M1710 has 250 nits of brightness while the M170 was about 200 nits. I found the screen to be excellent for all tasks, from surfing the web to gaming and watching movies. It is very sharp with excellent contrast and brightness. There is no noticeable ghosting during games or any image tearing/smearing. White looks like white, and black looks like black. However, there are some issues with the display. It is not evenly lit -- there is noticeable light leakage coming from the bottom of the display. When the display is showing a completely dark scene, there are bright spots in the middle and to the right. I am pleased to report that none of the light leakage is noticeable during general use, so I don't view it as an issue for most people. Speakers It's rare to find a notebook that has decent speakers, but with the Dell M1710 being a premium level entertainment package, Dell went out of their way to provide for some decent built-in sound. The integrated sub-woofer provides for some decent bass that's always missing from the average notebook. It also provides for extra oomph with sound volume, at top volume the sound is definitely too loud. It was actually a pleasure to listen to music via the speakers on this notebook. Same goes for movie audio. Heat and Noise The Dell XPS M1710 has a good efficient and quiet cooling system. It's quiet, but it also is has a very smart design. Dell has split up two of the most heat-producing components in the notebook, and placed them on opposite sides of the computer. The processor is on one, and the video card on the other, both using separate fans and heatsinks. This is very effective at cooling the M1710, because heat is spread out and has more room to escape. Even after hours of gaming, the surface of the notebook only gets mildly warm, nothing to worry about in the least. The palm rests remain cool at all times. No part on the surface gets hot to the touch. The bottom, however, does. Directly in the center is the RAM compartment. It is perforated to get ventilation, but still remains very warm. It is somewhat uncomfortable to touch. The bottom right side also gets very hot. It's not unexpected to have the bottom of the notebook heat up, given how powerful the internal components are. This is the quietest notebook I have used to date. Even at full tilt, it is hard to tell the fans are running. At idle, it has to be completely silent to hear the soft trickle of warm air coming out. Very, very impressive!
Keyboard
The keyboard on the XPS M1710 really looks and feels quite a bit different to all other Dell notebooks I've used. The keyboard keys are not black, as they so typically are, but rather a silver color that blends with the rest of the case color. The keys are also more springy and have more travel than is typical with a Dell notebook, which is to my liking. The keyboard actually turns out to be extremely usable and has a nice feel, and while the M1710 is not meant as a productivity tool for Office Applications, you would be quite happy doing a lot of typing on this notebook. There is no flex to the keyboard, it is built very sturdily. In addition, the palm rests are extremely solid. 
Wireless The XPS M1710 comes with an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 card, supporting A, B, and G bands. It is one of the newer cards in the mini PCI-express format, versus the older mini-PCI format. It is much smaller and consumes less power. There were some major wireless-related problems early on with the XPS. We could connect to my Netgear 802.11g router fine, but I had fluctuating speed issues. Gaming was nearly impossible over wireless. After about twenty minutes of being connected, I had additional problems -- I would lose my connection, and the small WiFi light would begin to flicker. This was odd, because I set the wireless card to not turn off and to stay at maximum power. It flickered for about one minute, then went off. From then on in, I could not access anything to do with the wireless connection or the settings of the wireless card -- as soon as I did, the system would freeze. The only way I could restore the wireless was to do a full restart, and then I would have the same problems.
Battery and Power The battery is a 9-cell located at the front area of the notebook, which is a little different to the normally far back positioned location. The battery has a nice feature in which you can push in on it to light up 5 green LEDs to display how much charge is left, this works whether the notebook is on or off. 
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XPS Reviews 
