“Party on Garth!” is one of my favorite lines that I pull out when I am celebrating. And today I am celebrating some “heavy hitter” third-party validation of product excellence. In the last few days both the XPS 730 and the XPS 420 received some awesome awards. Dell’s monster gaming desktop, the XPS 730, received an Editor’s Choice award from HotHardware.com, and the XPS 420, a premium desktop purpose-built to power through multi-media tasks, was recognized as one of the 100 Best Products of 2008 by PC World. “Way!”
Third-party recognition of and awards for Dell’s products are important. We know that the No. 1 resource for customers researching a new PC is advice from friends and family – that’s why we started including “ratings and reviews” on Dell.com. Product reviews from objective third-party experts like the technology analysts at Hot Hardware, PC World and PC Magazine, also help in the decision process. We work closely with these outlets to ensure they receive a product that is representative of a true customer experience (read: no tweaking) and stay in close contact to make sure any and all questions are answered. I respect them all because they look at hundreds, if not thousands, of gewgaws, doodads, gadgets and gizmos every year – and take on the unenviable task of “keeping it real.”
Some choice call outs:
“The XPS 730 may be the last of its kind. Perhaps the design team of the XPS 730 also realized this, inspiring them to try and make it the best 700 series machine to date. Whatever their inspiration, the XPS 730 turned out to be a great gaming and multimedia computer. The XPS 730 represents the fourth generation in Dell’s XPS 700 series and it exhibits a maturity of design that only iteration and refinement can bring. We heartily recommend the XPS 730 and the XPS 730 H2C to anyone in the market for a high-end gaming/multimedia computer and we are happy to award the XPS 730 H2C our coveted Editor’s Choice award.” Hothardware.com, May 27, 2008
“…our test machine came with several options we rarely see: front-mounted S-Video and RCA ports with the hardware Xcelerator option for transcoding video to your hard drive; a small, top-mounted LCD that utilizes Microsoft’s Sideshow secondary display technology to give you external access to Vista sidebar gadgets; and Bluetooth to handle the included wireless GM952 keyboard and RM-RBB-DEL 4 mouse.” PCWorld.com
So I’m off to high five the product development teams for these two “Excellent” PCs … “Party on Wayne!”