The God of Impractical Laptops - Dell XPS m2010

[James]

There are many impractical laptops out there.. but at a whopping 21 pounds (9.5kg) the Dell XPS m2010 might be the most impractical laptop ever built.

 

 

 

[Radium_Angel]

HP Dragon says Hello.

[aqarwaen29]

if its not much to ask,could linus hook up any external gpu and see what that laptop  really can do if its orginal gpu is not limiting its performance.

 

[swimtome]

2 minutes ago, aqarwaen29 said:

if its not much to ask,could linus hook up any external gpu and see what that laptop  really can do if its orginal gpu is not limiting its performance.

 

I'm sure someone will correct me with some weird edge-case product, but practically speaking that requires modern thunderbolt which this won't have.

[aqarwaen29]

and i forget to add and ssd,i mean hdd can slow bit down

[JEskandari]

23 minutes ago, aqarwaen29 said:

and i forget to add and ssd,i mean hdd can slow bit down

do the bios and hardware support it ?

[Brucifer]

I loved Alex's reaction to discovering the chipset's socketed lmao

 

 

 

 

[themrsbusta]

I like bolo

 

Also, this laptop make me curious: if Dell make it this big enough, why not just put regular desktop parts too?

 

Like this ITX Core 2 Duo board:

[Radium_Angel]

23 minutes ago, themrsbusta said:

why not just put regular desktop parts too?

Possibly because this was from 2006, and that wasn't really a thing yet.

[ewitte]

I really do wish they had laptops with 22-24+ inch screens.  As long as it is under 20lbs and in 1 piece it's just as portable as any other laptop.  

[RichardBirch]

Well that's interesting! I have a similar vintage Dell XPS M1710 (and a Dell Precision M90, which is basically the professional version of the same platform), and the graphics cards are the same form factor as this. You could load this up with a Quadro FX 3500M if you wanted (or a GeForce 7950GTX, although they're basically the same). What's more, via Windows Update, there is a proper Windows 7 driver for it which even works in Windows 11. Yes, seriously. Thankfully Dell/NVIDIA did release updated drivers, because you will not find them online at all. The laptop uses the same 130W power brick. Weirdly the laptop has a better resolution 1920x1200 display which was incredible for the time. I can only assume they couldn't get a 1920x1200 20.1" panel for the M2010, hence the lower resolution.

 

There's actually a good few different GPUs for these things, from a lowly ATi X1300 128MB, through varying levels of NVIDIA GeForce cards to the 7950GTX 512MB. Some of which you could cross flash between GeForce and Quadro BIOSes. The NVIDIA cards were known to cook themselves, but the ATI cards were more reliable. Also, the lower spec cards only have a single right hand heat pipe, whereas the beefier ones have one on the left too.

 

Secondly, there's a possibility that the BIOS supports overclocking if you install a Core 2 Duo T7600G. The G on the end is very important. That chip can overclock from 2.33GHz to 3.16GHz, via a literal clockspeed slider in the BIOS that adjusts the unlocked multiplier of the chip. It ramps the fans up too. I've attached a screenshot of what the overclocking screen looks like on an XPS M1710.

 

Finally, that subwoofer is the same as they used in the Precision M90/XPS M1710, and it does even sound good in those too! Windows 8 ran BEAUTIFULLY on this thing. Even better than 7 I'd say. It was usable well into 2013/2014 - I used it when my MacBook was in for repair. It was one of the earlier devices to come fitted with a 802.11n DRAFT spec WiFi card, and with three aerials instead of the usual two. You could spec it with a 320GB WD Black 7200RPM HDD which was pretty speedy for the time.

 

I created this account to pop a message on here because I usually comment on YouTube but that's about as useful as peeing into the sea.

 

EDIT: I totally forgot to mention - if you're worried about the GPU cooking itself (which happened a lot with the 7950GTXs), use I8KfanGUI - it’s designed specifically for older Dells and you can manually force the fans to run at whatever speed you like and set a custom fan speed curve. I've found a hacky way of installing it without having to disable driver signature enforcement, so it'll work on Vista/7/8/10/11.

Edited February 2, 2023 by RichardBirch
Typo squashing, more info.

[RichardBirch]

1 hour ago, swimtome said:

I'm sure someone will correct me with some weird edge-case product, but practically speaking that requires modern thunderbolt which this won't have.

You could connect a card via a mini PCI-E to PCI-e riser card, or potentially via the ExpressCard 54 slot which is basically a 1xPCI-E 1.0 slot for mobile use.

[gameboy3800]

LTT should do videos of the other rare 20in displays of the age! I've got a couple myself. If LTT is interested in doing a video of them, I'd be happy to send them up given enough time.

 

also just uploading pictures because i love sharing cool computers!

[VinLAURiA]

Honestly? You call this form-factor impractical, but I can see someone resurrecting it with modern components to create a truly great "desktop replacement" laptop, especially since modern components are far more compact for their capabilities (and likely a good deal lighter too). You could probably fit a full desktop-grade mITX motherboard in that base unit and get a pretty baller display panel for the top, not to mention the full-size detachable keyboard. And even if you did use laptop-grade components, cooling definitely wouldn't be an issue with all that room to work with. Built right, I imagine it could be highly upgradeable and repairable too; hell, you've got a seat at Framework, so pitch something like this as the "Framework Battlestation" or something since it's pretty reminiscent of the ASUS ROG Mothership.

 

Actually, considering the ergonomics of the screen, I almost wonder if this would make for a good middle-ground device category between the Surface Studio and Surface Laptop Studio.  On that note, this would have been released around the time the original tabletop Microsoft Surface came around, and you can totally tell with that chrome-and-black styling. God, I love those Vista-era aesthetics~

[themrsbusta]

1 hour ago, Radium_Angel said:

Possibly because this was from 2006, and that wasn't really a thing yet.

You see the ITX C2D below? is from 2006 too...They could make it.

[Zodiark1593]

Regarding 4K BD on PC, official support for it on pc is pretty much dead, like “Dead” dead. That’s a thing that went under the radar. 
 

https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=26690

[Luscious]

I actually penned an article back in 2014 about bringing back this notebook concept:

 

Bringing back the 20 inch notebook

 

Why these devices were abandoned is obvious given that you couldn't cram desktop components that small (ITX maybe didn't exist when this Dell was sold) and mobile components became way more powerful. I have a Toshiba Qosmio laptop from 2008 that had a quad core CPU in it and THREE graphics cards - already a massive improvement over what the m2010 had.

 

Yet even back in 2014 when I wrote the above piece it was clear the advantages of going with such a large chassis were obvious. You got better cooling, better audio, more storage options, better graphics, improved productivity, increased battery life, more connectivity etc... And that's all beside the advantages a 4K display and desktop-class performance also would have brought to the table.

 

Maybe I was bullish thinking these would come back sooner, or just incredibly forward thinking But it's good to know that even in 2023 there is interest in these things. I would gladly like to get my hands on one if these do ever come back in a modern variant. I think of these not as a grab-and-go notebook but more of a desktop/workstation replacement. The kind of portable machine you would ideally complement a far larger quad-GPU custom water cooled beast.

[dogwitch]

5 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Regarding 4K BD on PC, official support for it on pc is pretty much dead, like “Dead” dead. That’s a thing that went under the radar. 
 

https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=26690

was it not due to odd drm crap.

[Middcore]

It's bigger than that, Chris: it's large. 

[Traceway]

I wanted one of these so bad back in HS that I had a printout of some of the product photos on my wall. Kinda glad I skipped it, but given what you guys were able to cram into a play button, I'd love to see what sort of modern components you could fit in that thing. Could be a baller machine if they let Alex tear into it. Watercooled laptop v2 (?), anyone?

[RichardBirch]

8 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Regarding 4K BD on PC, official support for it on pc is pretty much dead, like “Dead” dead. That’s a thing that went under the radar. 
 

https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=26690

That’s appalling. It’s almost like they’re trying to kill off physical media. Surprised this isn’t bigger news. I know buying media is seemingly a thing of the past, but that’s still shocking. 

[DoctorNick]

10 hours ago, gameboy3800 said:

LTT should do videos of the other rare 20in displays of the age! I've got a couple myself. If LTT is interested in doing a video of them, I'd be happy to send them up given enough time.

 

also just uploading pictures because i love sharing cool computers!

Sick collection! Didn't know that HP has used the Voodoo logo for all those years under the Omen gaming brand! Voodoo was pretty much dead when computers started getting my interest.

[Kilrah]

You really need to try https://www.snappy-driver-installer.org/ for drivers on old (and new) machines. Got pretty much everything aside of a few weird one-offs from XP to today.

 

Of course the "experience" of having to download and install all the manufacturer drivers one by one is something, but if you just want to get something going...

[Woshmistro]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

You really need to try https://www.snappy-driver-installer.org/ for drivers on old (and new) machines. Got pretty much everything aside of a few weird one-offs from XP to today.

 

Of course the "experience" of having to download and install all the manufacturer drivers one by one is something, but if you just want to get something going...

The IT refurbishers I worked at used Snappy often. Audio and graphics drivers were hit-or-miss, and would have to find the drivers to work the extra function keys and buttons that laptops have, but saved a lot of time having it go through everything else in one go, and usually sorts those other mystery components that device manager complains about. Seems a bit sketchy because of all the other "Solve all your problems!" scamware, but it's been very handy.

Could be helpful when next doing videos on old computer curiosities.

[Kilrah]

Also besides business use (not sure this was really the intended market?) this was peak era of "buy this to replace both your AV gear and computer", hence the very STB-like DVD drive appearance, remote control, good sound, TV tuner /video I/O options... This was supposed to be your home TV/media center when you weren't using it as a computer. Of course it fell flat, but they tried...