The Dell M6500 is a laptop that packs raw power. If you treasure power in your machine then you should not look any further. Add to that a rocket speed and cool elegance into the mix and you begin to see why the M6500 is so revered. But all that potency comes at a price, a whole $4700 of it. As you would expect with such a forceful artillary, the battery lacks staying power. You will also have to contend with a bulky weigh.

The M6500 is propelled by a four core i7 920XM intel processor that works at a lightening speed of 2000 MHz. The machine comes with a pre -installed 4 GB DDR3 memory that has a speed of 1333 MHz, the memory can be beefed to a maximum capacity of a mind -boggling 32 GB -really more than necessary-. Its storage is more that sufficiently taken care of by two hard drives that together have a total capacity of 1000 GB and a speed of 7200 RPM. Other storage facilities are: SD/MMC Card, SDHC Card and XD -picture Card. You will also get Express Card 54. Your shipment comes with a potent Nvidia Quadro FX 3800M descreet graphics chipset that has a memory of 1024 MB.

The M6500 operates Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition. Other softwares that come with the device are; Roxio Creator DE and CyberLink PowerDVD DX. The lack of unnecessary software is a welcome change. The M6500’s port iltillary is rather sedate as it includes three USB ports, one Firewire port, eSATA and video interfaces VGA and DisplayPort. The impressive network connectivity is provided for by the 10/100/1000 mbps and Wi-Fi type 802.11n/b/g.

The M6500’s keyboard is quite a feat with its smooth and simple keys that are not chiclet -style( a plus ). The keyboard also features a numeric pad and an optical backlight that you can switch off or into auto mode. The track pad is rather small, relative to the size of the device, that makes it difficult to undertake multitouch gestures on it. At the bottom of the trackpad are three buttons, just as at the top of the same trackpad.

The 17.1 inch 1920 by 1200 pixel resolution display produces briliant and quality imaging. The angle viewing is quite impressive, while the colors are clear. The machine packs a weight of 9 pounds that reaches a prime of 11.2 inches when fully packed with accessories. It covers a length of 15.5 inches, a depth of 11.2 inches and a height of 1.6 inches. The battery feels the full weight of the machine as it keeps the clock ticking for a modest one and half hours.

The M6500 is a smooth and fast operator that packs a lot of weigh, perhaps even supplus to requirement. The heavy weight and low battery life are the downside of this powerhouse.