It looks like Dell and Activision Blizzard (man that’s weird to see) have teamed up to take two of my favorite things and combine them in something that leaves me thinking, “what in the hell?”  Yes, I love my Dell laptops and yes, I love World of Warcraft but did they really have to combine them into the monstrosity that is the Dell XPS M1730?  It’s like going back to grade school with my Steve Austin themed lunch box.  

Can anyone that can actually afford the  $4500 to $8000 (depending on configuration options) really take this thing to a business meeting without raising eyebrows?  ”Ah, I see Mark, the over-paid consultant, is also a very enthusiastic gamer, perhaps we should look for someone with less distractions.”  I looked everywhere and could find no evidence that you can remove the branding though I know Dell has used a sleeve concept in the past with other laptops.  The branding appears to be a “hard” option with two choices, Horde or Alliance.

Unless the target audience is kids with overly generous parents I can’t imagine how this baby is going to sell.  Maybe I’m wrong but I just don’t see the point of this thing.  It might make more sense coming from Dell’s AlienWare division.  In the end I’m not sure why this seems so lame to me but it does.  Maybe it’s because with all the branding built on to it I know there’s no way to sneak it past my corporate overlords by claiming it’s “a heavy duty laptop that I need for packet sniffing and Nessus scanning.”  That actually worked once but not, I suspect, for this baby.