Dell will be one of the leaders in the next wave of Media Center PCs. The Round Rock, Texas, PC maker is expected to launch four new Media Center PCs, later this month, under its XPS brand.
XPS has become Dell's new brand for premium desktops and notebooks, a move the company hinted about earlier this year.
One machine, the petite XPS 200 Media Center PC, is designed to fit into a living room entertainment center.
The XPS 200 will measure 12 inches wide by 3.5 inches high, allowing it to fit horizontally into the cabinet, like a DVD player.
Dell will offer it with dual-core processors, a choice of hardware such as optical drives, and an optional TV tuner, which will allow people to use the machine to show and record TV programs, sources familiar with Dell's plans said.
Dell will also offer the XPS 400 Media Center PC, which is expected to be a more traditional tower, with dual-core processors, up to two 500GB hard drives and numerous optical drives, allowing people to watch DVD movies or possibly burn DVD discs with their own content.
A TV tuner will also be an option on the XPS 400, the sources said.
The two silver and white machines will join Dell's XPS 600 desktop, Dell's first XPS-brand machine, which was announced in August.
That machine, which offers Intel's Pentium 4 or dual-core Pentium D processors, can be configured with twin graphics cards and up to 1.5TB of hard drive space.
Its price starts at just under $1,600, sans display, and rises to a little over $2,000 when equipped with a dual-core Pentium D chip, a 500GB hard drive, a DVD burner and DVD-ROM drive and basic speakers, Dell's Web site shows.
The Texas PC maker is also expected to unveil an XPS M140 Media Center Notebook, based on a 14.1-inch widescreen, and a XPS M170 Media Center Notebook with a 17-inch screen, higher performance graphics, perimeter lighting capable of 16 different colors and its own backpack.
The two XPS notebooks will come with MediaDirect, a feature that grants access to music, photo and video files without booting into Windows, the sources said.
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Did you ever wonder why the XPS 600 didn't have the Dimension moniker? There you go.
