The world's number two PC makes didn't use its Dell Means Business launch event just to tease us with vague promises of Windows tablets. The company also refreshed pretty much its entire line-up of business PCs, including changes to the Latitude, Precision and Optiplex families.
The Latitude family of laptops will see additions to the E-series in 12in, 13in, 14in and 15in varieties. Apparently Dell spent a lot of time focussing on what enterprise users wanted to see from these laptops, and came up with these new designs. One of the main improvements has been to durability and rigidity, with the entire chassis being improved and strengthened, while also adding some flourishes to make the strictly-business laptops a little nicer to look at.
They have also been given a refresh on the inside, with the option of Intel's latest Sandy Bridge CPUs now available.
For the worker who remains chained to a desk, the new Optiplex desktops bring a lot more performance, although choice seems to be the big selling point. Upgrades include the option of vPro-enabled Intel Core i7 CPUs, SSDs, AMD Radeon 6000-series GPUs and a range of chassis sizes from mid-tower to mini-tower.
There are also a lot of environmental considerations, with BFR-PVC free configurations available and the use of post-consumer recycled plastics in the construction of some of the chassis. The cases have also gotten a touch smaller since the last generation, although expansion and upgrade options haven't been compromised.
Lastly, Dell's introducing the Precision T1600 workstation. This is a refresh of the entry-level T1500, but again there's a lot more choice this time around. New Intel Core and Xeon CPUs based on the Sandy Bridge architecture will be available, as well as plenty of options in terms of professional graphics-cards from AMD and NVIDIA. There's also support for up to 16GB ECC memory, and software certification from a huge number of developers, including Autodesk, Bentley, Dassault Systemes, Google, Siemens and National Instruments.
Dell has been pretty cagey on specifications, release dates and pricing, but they should all be out later this year, with more details due closer to the time.
