Product Reviews

Subtle and sleek are two adjectives that can't be used to describe Dell's latest gaming laptop. The XPS M1730 is not only a huge beast, but looks like it's had the same treatment that cars get on Pimp My Ride. The lid has two huge XPS logos which are brightly lit with white LEDs, while the speaker grills at the front and touch-pad buttons glow red (you can change the colours individually and their brightness in the BIOS). It really is a love or hate affair.

The huge keyboard and number pad are backlit, too, and there's a separate LCD display from Logitech nestling between the keyboard and main screen. This has a number of functions, including a clock, countdown timer, CPU/memory utilisation, frames per second display and more. The 17in widescreen has a high resolution of 1,920x1,200 and above it is a 2-megapixel webcam.

We like the sharpness of the high-resolution screen, but it makes icons very small; lowering the resolution distorts text and makes it look fuzzy, so make sure your eyesight is up to looking at the native resolution. We'd also like the screen to be a touch brighter and, given the resolution, it's a shame that there's no Blu-ray drive installed: it's a £250 option. There's no HDMI output, either, so this isn't the ideal laptop for HD video.

Leaving these minor quibbles aside, there's an awful lot to

As we expected, the dual cards sped through our Call of Duty 2 test with no problems, but don't expect to be able to play the latest games such as the punishing Crysis at the screen's 1,920x1,200 resolution. We found we had to select Medium quality settings and a resolution of 1,024x768 before frame rates became smooth enough to play. Nevertheless, it's still an impressive showing for a laptop.

For more mundane office tasks, the Core 2 Duo T7500 and 2GB of memory are more than fast enough. There's a 7,200rpm 200GB hard disk for storing all your games and files, and room inside for a second disk. On the left-hand side of the case is a memory card reader that can handle SD, Memory Stick and xD cards, while the ExpressCard/54 slot on the right can be used to store the bundled mini remote control. This is for use with Dell's MediaDirect - a rebranded version of CyberLink's PowerCinema - but it's odd that there isn't a built-in TV tuner.

At this high price, we're disappointed that the M1730 leaves us wanting more. Gamers might not miss a Blu-ray drive, TV tuner or HDMI output, but it's a shame that Dell doesn't bundle a high-quality gaming mouse - a touch pad simply won't cut it. Finally, the decision to include a PhysX card is a bold move, but without games that support it, we can't wholeheartedly recommend spending this much money on a gaming laptop.