The Bigger, Badder Desktop

I am a rational guy. I consider things objectively and hopefully take the time to weigh things on their relative merit.

But bring in a big honkin' faux stainless steel PC case with glowing lights and black venting and I'm all a shudder.

You could almost hear the screams of petrified laptops and notebooks everywhere scurrying for cover when my co-worker unboxed his new Dell XPS 710 desktop.

I haven't seen a pc-case so tall and massive since we got rid of our 486 towers from 10 years back. It's so ominous and evil-looking that it's a crying shame that it'll be tucked under a desk. You want this baby out in the open - just to intimidate people.

To add insult to injury, he also got a 24" Dell LCD monitor to go along with it. Cripes it's nice. Now I squint at my 19" LCD as if it were a postage stamp.

Such is the pissing match that goes on in a small office full of pseudo tech guys.

It almost feels like the equivalent of a 16 cylinder Bugatti in a room full of Honda Accords. And don't get me wrong, I know that in another 2 years it will be strictly middle of the road. There will be faster laptops sold at Staples for 500 bucks, but damn is it nice. ;)

And as garish as front panel lights, ominous black grillage and faux stainless steel might be, they've actually done something smart which I haven't seen before (although this might not be a first..): they put white LED lights on the *back* panel shining down on to the peripheral ports. So when you're hunting around under desk to plug something in, you can actually see what you're doing - although the power must be running to do so.

It's a crying shame that XP (64bit) will be put on this machine. I'd love to smuggle it home and Ubuntify it. But I'd likely need a pickup... ;)