Dell is offering WiMax, a longer-range wireless broadband
service for notebooks and mobile devices, on two of its consumer laptop models:
the Dell Studio 17 laptop and the Studio XPS 16 notebook.
Dell also suggested in a corporate blog that it was working closely with
Clearwire to expand the range of WiMax service from its current supported areas
around Portland, Ore.,
Atlanta and Baltimore.
Clearwire plans on initiating the service in several cities throughout 2009,
including Las Vegas, Chicago and Philadelphia, followed by 2010 rollouts in New
York, Washington and San Francisco.
"Once it's available in more cities, you won't have to spend time
looking for hot spots. Compared to mobile broadband, WiMax offers flexible
service offerings," Lionel Menchaca, a spokesperson for Dell, wrote in the
May 6 Dell corporate blog posting. "WiMax is fast too—it offers peak download
rates of about 13M bps and up to 3M-bps upload speeds. Beyond that, our
internal WiMax options all support 802.11n."
The Studio 17 and Studio XPS 16 now offer a WiMax/Wireless-N combo card
option for a $60 upgrade. The Studio 17 is a 17-inch, widescreen laptop
customizable for Intel Core 2 Duo processors; the Studio XPS 16 is a 16-inch
"ultrawide" laptop with 1080p high-definition support and a Centrino
2 platform.
Dell has caused a swell of news lately in other areas as well. A May 6 news release
by software solutions provider Bsquare involved a Dell netbook running Android, Google's
operating system for cell phones that is poised to leap onto the laptop scene.
Bsquare announced that it will port "Adobe's Flash Lite 3.17 technology
onto Dell netbooks running Google's Android platform." However, Dell later
said the release was an error and Bsquare quickly moved to remove the
announcement, but not before it had made its way around the Web.
In April, Dell made its Studio One 19 all-in-one desktop available in
the United States
and Europe. The system included a 19-inch touch-screen
and gave customers the option of choosing between Intel processors and Nvidia
graphics cards.
Dell has been fighting economic headwinds, even announcing layoffs in March, as it attempts to regain hardware
market share.
Desktops and Notebooks News & Reviews 
