Dell XPS M1730.

For all of the World of Warcraft lovers out there this review is for you. Dell just announced a new addition to their popular XPS M series laptops, the XPS M1730 WoW edition*. The pair of special edition Horde and Alliance notebooks are a gamers dream come true, featuring WoW artwork all over the place along with all the current games and patches preloaded. If you’re a fan of World of Warcraft or just like well built laptops than the M1730 WoW edition is for you, here’s a list of things that come with the laptop:

• Custom design featuring original art by Blizzard artists on LCD back.
• World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade pre-loaded on system, including the latest updates
• Original desktop background artwork and screensavers
• A World of Warcraft-themed backpack that includes:
  • Retail box copies of World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and the Warcraft Battle Chest
  • Latest Brady Games strategy guides for World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, Warcraft III and The Frozen Throne
  • World of Warcraft DVD with a behind-the-scenes look at “The Making of WoW”
• A special Quest Envelope that ships separately with exclusive rare items:
  • A Golden Ticket allowing customers to receive a special custom figurinebased on the actual World of Warcraft character that they play.
  • An Account Upgrade Certificate enabling the upgrade of a World of Warcraft account to receive the Collector’s Edition pets from both the original World of Warcraft Collector’s Edition and the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition
  • A World of Warcraft Beta Club Card to enable customers to take part in upcoming public beta tests.

The M1730 WoW edition isn’t just your average off the shelf laptop that’d you’d expect to see on the shelves of Best Buy or Future shop. This laptop is a full fledged gaming rig. The barebones model gives you a 2.2GHz T7500 Core 2 Duo, 2GB of DDR2, and 160GB of storage. The barebones model will set you back a dizzying $4,499 and this is just for the base model. If you max out all of the hardware on this beast you’re looking at a $7,119 price tag (without any warranties or extra gear).

Pros and Cons for the M1730 WoW edition:

Pros:

• A great design on the laptop
• Lots of unique WoW swag
• Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme processor
• Up to 400GB of hard drive space
• Dual SLI graphics cards

Cons:

• Large price tag ($4499 is the minimum)
• Extremely heavy at 10.9lbs
• Lots of unneeded accessories if you’re not a fan of WoW
• Battery is only a 9cell instead of 12cell (batter life will be short)

Final Thoughts
So is this steep price tag really worth it? If you’re a fan of World of Warcraft I would say it definitely is. The laptop is amazing and the swag that you get with it is absolutely. If you’re not really a fan of WoW than I would say pass on this laptop. The hardware just isn’t worth $4499. A cheaper option would be to go with Dell’s M1730.

*Currently Dell is only advertising this computer on their American site. If you’re in another country you’re out of luck for now.