The Inspiron 1720 has left the building....

I've been keeping an eye on prices of the various 17" desktop replacements offered by Dell, HP and Toshiba for the last few weeks. About two weeks ago, the higher-end discrete graphics option was dropped from the Inspiron 1720. Prior to that, it had to discrete graphics upgrades available in place of the integrated Intel X3100- the entry-level 128mb nVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS and the substantially higher-performance 256mb nVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT.

As of today, the Inspiron 1720 has been removed altogether, leaving the 1420 and 1525 as the only two in the Inspiron line....sort of. I scoured the Dell Home website trying to either find the 1720 or find what had happened to it. I found neither, but I did discover a link titled "Looking for AMD?". When I clicked on it, the Inspiron 1521 and 1526 were shown and they could be configured! The Inspiron 1525 replaced the 1520, but Dell used the 1520 as their XP offering instead of cancelling it immediately. I can't imagine why the 1521 would still be available when its replacement, the 1526, is available???

The availability of AMD-based notebooks via the Dell website is confusing in itself. Less than a year ago, Dell pulled all their AMD-based consumer products from the website and said they would only be pre-configured retail systems going forward. Then again, I doubt anyone actually wanting to build a system could find the obscure link that led me to them!

I've come to the conclusion that no one at Dell has any sort of long-term grasp on product planning. If that isn't the case, they desperately need to work on communicating their plans to the media and their customers. Today is a perfect example- the Inspiron 1720 vanished overnight and it's now obvoius that the Studio 17 is intended to replace it rather than co-exist in the space between the 1720 and the XPS gaming systems.

If there is some sort of logical planning behind all this, it seems that the Inspiron will be budget models from the upcoming netbook thru the 15.4" 1525 model. The Studio 15 and 17 are multimedia/entertainment-oriented notebooks that most people will use as desktop replacements. And the XPS will just continue on as the high-end gaming models.....

If that's where they're headed, they need to beef up the standard hardware on the Studio models. Whether integrated graphics should be standard is debatable, but the base processor is a Pentium Dual-Core....which reminds me, what is the hold up on offering the newest Penryn processors??? HP, Toshiba and numerous smaller companies have had them for weeks now...

 

We started discussing this here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=284048

 

On the Dell UK web site the 1720 and the Xps 1710 are still available

 

europe is usually behind on releases and stuff from dell so thats probably why.

 

I could be wrong but my guess is that Dell didn't want the 1720 competing with the 17 Studio Line. If you want a 17" WS, yer going to have to buy the Studio or XPS. I lucked out and bought a 1720 with just about all the bells and whistles when they had it availible................

 

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look at it shortly.

I probably should have mentioned that the Dell Small Business site offers two Vostro 17" models (at least for now). The Vostro 1700 is based on the now-defunct Inspiron 1720. The major visual difference is that the Vostro is all black while the Inspiron systems come in numerous colors. It looks like the Vostro will be the new entry-level 17" for those who know it exists.

The Vostro 1710 was introduced right before the Studio 15 and 17, if memory serves me correctly. The 1700 and 1710 both begin at the same price point and can be configured with almost all of the same hardware, so I'm not sure why the 1700 is still hanging around???

Actually, I just checked the prices of both the 1700 and 1710 configured the same. The 1700 has a few free upgrades (like a 320GB Hard Drive that costs $125 on the 1710)...perhaps they're just trrying to sell thru existing 1700 inventory before they pull the plug?