Direct2Dell

We know that first and foremost, you want your technology to work. You need a laptop that guarantees you can be connected at all times, whether to respond to that important email, find out where the venue du jour is for a night out, or research the perfect payday purchase - but you also want this indispensable companion to look chic as well. Too much to ask? Never. Today, more than ever before, we offer a huge range of fashion-forward, stylish laptops that not only look great, but are also an investment piece that will see you through season after season.

To get these mobile models out in front of you, we've partnered with some of the best in the biz to spread the word. To coincide with London Fashion Week, top fashion bloggers were able to blog-without-backache on our new colourful Mini 10 netbooks straight from the front row -  in full view of the fashion elite. Catwalk Queen and Fashionbite, two very influential bloggers on the style scene, were thrilled with these compact computers. Catwalk Queen described the Mini 10s as "becoming our best friends" during the show," while Fashionbite was impressed by the "cool, little blue Notebook laptop." According to her, "it pops easily into my handbag bag- perfect for front row blogging." What more could you ask for?

Fashion bloggers weren't the only ones to benefit from creative connectivity. During London Fashion Week, editors spend their time running from show to show without a lot of time to file stories, write notes or conduct research on designers. To help ease the pressure, media attending the Vauxhall Fashion Scout event, an organisation set up to discover new and emerging fashion talent, had the benefit of a fully kitted out press room, including our powerful multimedia notebook, the Studio 15, in a range of colourful Design Studio patterns.  

Our stylish laptops also caught the eye of my-wardrobe.com, the UK's leading online retailer of 'accessible luxury' designer fashion. "My purple Dell Mini 10 was the perfect accessory for fashion week this season.  I carry everything around in my bag, which has become larger and heavier every season, so my Mini 10 was just the right size to carry around from show to show.  From noting down the key pieces and new collections from the shows and checking in on emails and the new in pieces on my-wardrobe.com, it really was my fashion week find."  Sarah Curran, Founder and CEO my-wardrobe.com

In the coming months, my-wardrobe.com will be an exciting new partner in the UK, offering the Dell Mini 10 collection on their website - meaning shoppers will be able to coordinate their laptop with their look.  Whether it's this season's tribal or nude trend, the stylists at my-wardrobe.com will recommend a Dell Mini 10 to match or even update an outfit. Follow @DellUK and @mywardrobe on Twitter for more fashion news and events coming up over the course of the year, including an exciting new partnership with Grazia, one of the UK's favourite fashion magazines!

What do you think of when we see copies of the Austin Chronicle, Linux Journal, Technology Review and Code Magazine bundled with geeky stuff like a Silverlight demo CD a Groupon keychain, a Monster energy drink and a granola snack? Must be the SXSW Interactive goodie bag. And yes, SXSW 2010 is underway!

If you want to keep up with SXSW-related tweets, check out this link for the #sxsw hashtag. You can also check this link on Techmeme for the most active SXSW related posts on the web. It already looks like Geotagging will be one of the prevalent themes this year. And speaking of that, Happy Birthday, foursquare!

There will be a lot of Dell folks on the ground. In case you or your companies are interested in chatting with us, here's some of the people who will be there from our online, social media and education teams: @RichardatDell, @jacquizhou, @ByJove, @BillatDell @BhaveshAtDell, @eerway, @Caroline3d, @KerryatDell, @Edu4u, FedericoatDell, @TallGamer, @LPT, @SarahatDell and @ChrisBatDell. Beyond that, @DellServerGeek from our Large Enterprise side of the business will be there too. Looking at the SXSW scheduler, you can search by name, panel title, or company name. Currently, it lists 43 Dell people there.

Like everyone else, we'll be planning to attend lots the keynotes and panels. Seems like every year, the number of panels gets bigger. Besides panels, here's a list of things that Dell will be involved in:

• March 12: Educhat meetup hosted by @KerryatDell and @WeAreTeachers
• March 13: we'll have some folks onhand to take part in Digg's Bigg Shindigg on Saturday night.
• March 14: Jacqui Zhou will be leading a SXSW panel discussion entitled Social Media in China: Different Than You Think from 12:30 - 1:30 pm on Sunday afternoon.
• March 15: @JacquiatDell will be on-hand with several Web 2.0 thought leaders for the Asia Social Media Meetup like Chang Kim, Sam Flemming and Kaiser Kuo.
• March 15: The Global Consumer Team will be a sponsor for gdgt's live in Austin event where several Dell employees will be on hand to showcase our latest products like the Alienware M11x and the Mini 5.

And if you can't make it to the gdgt event, both @SarahatDell and ChrisBatDell will be carrying Mini 5 tablets if you want to see one up-close. You'll probably run into some of us in the SXSW Blogger Lounge as well. Wherever you see any of us, feel free to stop and say hello. Now, on to SXSW 2010!

Note from Lionel: Below is a post from Jacqui Zhou who ran our Direct2Dell Chinese blog in the past and is responsible for much of Dell's globalization strategy in social media. Since I thought this topic might be of interest to some of our Direct2Dell readers, I asked her to share some perspective here. If you will be attending SXSW Interactive and are interested in a broader look at social media in China, you might want to check out Social Media and China: Different Than You Think. Jacqui will moderate the panel discussion that features Benjamin Joffe and Sam Flemming.

Here's Jacqui's post:

Three years ago, Dell launched its Chinese corporate blog. This week marks another big step in Dell's social media engagement in China - earlier this week we launched Dell's official microblog in China. Why take this next step through microblogging? Well, microblogs have become an important channel for us to increase direct communications with customers in China.

According to CNNIC, by the end of 2009, the number of Internet users in China has reached 384 million, larger than the entire population of the United States. Watching video online, uploading photos, going to Kaixin or Renren (Facebook's equivalents in China), writing blogs and micro-blogs have become a major part of online activities. At the same time, with the emergence of online transaction applications, online purchase is rapidly growing in China.  We will follow our customers wherever they, in the language they prefer and on the platforms of their choice.

Dell's official microblog in China will serve as an additional connection point for our customers. The microblog will serve as a channel for corporate news, technology discussions and even coupon and deal information. Instead of duplicating what we have in the US, we localize the content and platform to appeal to interests in China and go where our customers in China are.  As you might have noticed, we partner with Sina Microblog, the most successful and widely used microblogging platform in China. Behind Dell's China account is a cross-functional local team of engineers, customer care, marketing personnel and sales representatives. We will heavily rely on our employees. Conversations with customers should not be not limited to one or several teams' job. It can be most useful and beneficial when it is really part of anyone's job, better connecting and being in touch with the day to day customer connections.

China is a diverse country with its unique culture and people. We are here to learn. That said, the motivations of customers have to get online and connect with companies are fundamentally same.  They want great products, great services and they want companies to listen. Listening and engaging in honest and two way conversations have helped us succeed in the US. We will carry on this heritage in any part of the world, including China.

Three years ago, we started Direct2Dell Chinese, the first corporate blog in Chinese in the computer industry. It has become an invaluable tool for Dell to listen, engage and converse with local customers. Our Dell tech support forum has accumulated a big user base where customers assist each other in technology needs.  We have started listening and outreaching program in China where our customer care and tech support agents tune into online conversations proactively and help address customers technology needs. We have implemented ratings and reviews program on dell.com, where Chinese customers can share their feedback of products and help each other make more informed purchase decision. Very soon, we will have our community presence on key local social networking sites like Renren. China is another frontier for Dell to engage with customers in social media. We will keep exploring new areas as we see new trends from our customer. More to come.

Within days of launch, the number of fans has over 6,000 followers. We look forward to more conversations there.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about our fix for throttling issues that some of our Studio XPS 1645 customers had experienced.  In that post, I mentioned that there would be more information coming for customers with other systems. This post focuses on how we're addressing throttling for Studio XPS 1647 customers.

Recently, we released a new BIOS update (revision A04) to correct throttling issues on our Studio XPS 1647 line. In the case of the Studio XPS 1647, a 90-watt AC adapter is sufficient to run the CPU and the GPU at full performance. With the older BIOS versions for the 1647 the amount of power that the system could draw from the adapter was limited, and in some cases that limitation caused slower performance. Version A04 raises that limit which allows the system to operate at full performance.

 With the new A04 BIOS, based on testing completed by our engineering teams, we're confident that customers will be able to push their Studio XPS 1647 laptops to performance levels they expect with a 90-watt adapter.

So, why is the 130-watt adapter suggested for some Studio XPS 1645 users, but not for Studio XPS 1647 users? The Studio XPS 1647 uses the newer Intel Arrendale processors which require less power to run efficiently.    Because of this, the Studio XPS 1647 does not require the same level of power that some 1645 configurations do.

We do understand that some customers have reported that their 90-watt adapters get hot while powering their systems.   In this case, you can contact Dell's Technical Support to request a replacement 130-watt adapter.  Please note that if you use your Studio XPS 1647 with a 130-watt adapter, it will not deliver any more power to your system than the 90-watt adapter.

Contacting Technical Support

In the United States, use phone numbers on this page to contact Dell Technical Support.

Outside of the United States:

• Go to support.dell.com
• At the very bottom of the page, select your country in the Choose a Country/Region field
• Choose Contact Us on the left hand side
• Click on the More Details link in the Contact Tech Support section
• Click on the green Telephone button under the Call Tech Support section

When we rolled out the Dell Precision M6500 in December of last year, it was the world's most powerful mobile workstation.  Fast forward four months and guess what?  It's still the top performing mobile workstation in the world.  This system, built with Intel Core i7 quad-core technology and NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M graphics, offered creative professionals, designers, animators, engineers and research scientists the liberation from their desks without sacrificing performance.  Industry feedback was resoundingly positive.  Mark Schoennagel with Autodesk blogged about his experience and highlighted not only the performance ("It runs circles around pretty much anything you can buy in the workstation category - desktop or mobile!") but also the design ("I have to say it's the most incredible looking piece of technology I have seen.") Press coverage was equally impressive.  For instance, in their review, AnandTech said, "If you want a mobile workstation, the Dell Precision M6500 delivers on all fronts."

Building on that success, this week we announced a new member of Dell's family of mobile workstations, the Dell Precision M4500.  And true to form, this system is the world's most powerful 15.6-inch mobile workstation.  In addition to offering the latest options from Intel, to include the Core i7 920XM Extreme Edition Quad Core processor and support for the next generation NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800M, this system offers some additional exciting features. 

The M4500 is one of the first mobile workstations to offer an optional SSD MiniCard for additional high-performance data storage.  This gives the customer the option of having up to 2 internal storage locations without sacrificing their optical bay.  The M4500 also provides near instant access to e-mail, calendar, contacts, or the Internet and virtual remote desktops, with a new innovative technology called Dell Precision ON.   And for customers that rely on web conferencing and collaboration to conduct their business, the M4500 offers an optional 3MP camera and Gobi 2.0 mobile broadband connectivity.  In terms of true mobility, the M4500 cranks out up to 7hrs and 40min of battery life, or even longer with the optional 12-cell battery slice, and is very easy to carry with a starting weight of only 6 pounds. 

5355.M4500.tif

Gizmodo summed it nicely: "Remember the hardcore guts of the Dell M6500 workstation? The M4500 is just like that, except at 15.6-inches you've actually got a shot at carrying it around in comfort. It's also the most powerful of workstation of its size."

If you want to hear more, here's my discussion on the Precision M4500 mobile workstation with Lauren.