Dell Precision M6400 has been released

Dell now offers the Precision M6400 17 inch mobile workstation for sale on its website. The starting price is $2599 but is on sale for $2299 after an instant rebate. A product being offered with a rebate as soon as it is released screams desperation but the specs you get for the price shows that Dell plans to pump up your cost with upgrades. Here are the specs for the base model.

Module	Description	Show Details
Mobile Precision M6400	Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1067MHZ) Dual Core
Operating System	Genuine Windows Vista Business Bonus-Windows XP Professional downgrade
Memory	1.0GB, DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM, 1 DIMM
Internal Keyboard	Internal English Backlit Keyboard
Graphics	NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M, 512MB Discrete
Primary Hard Drives	80GB Hard Drive, 5400RPM
Fingerprint Reader Options	No Fingerprint Reader
LCDs	17" UltraSharp™ Wide Screen WXGA+ (1440x900) LCD Display
Modem	No Modem
AC Adapter	210W 3P, A/C Adapter
Media Bay Devices	8X DVD with Cyberlink Power DVD™
Camera / Microphone	No Camera, with dual digital array microphone
Wireless LAN (802.11)	Dell Wireless™ 1397 802.11b/g Mini Card
System Documentation	Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers
RAID Configuration	All Hard Drives, Non-RAID, 1 or 2 drive total configuration
Primary Battery	9 Cell Battery
Hardware Support Services	3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year NBD On-Site Service
Complete Care	No Onsite System Setup
Processor Branding	Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
OS Labels	Vista Basic Label

First off they are practically forcing you to spend more money as nobody willing to spend $2299 on a system is willing to settle on 1GB of RAM, 80 GB 5400RPM hard drive and a dual core processor. Dell has hyped this system to be a true powerhouse, quad core monster system with RAID but offers little in the base system. So what will it cost you to upgrade? Lets start with $900 to move up to quad core. The system comes with Vista Business and the XP downgrade which Dell usually charges more for but if you don't want the downgrade you don't get a reduction in price. Dell advertises up to 16GB of RAM but doesn't offer Vista 64bit OS or anything bigger than a $210 upgrade to 2 DIMM 4GB of RAM. Then they nickle and dime you with upgrades for hard drive, camera, wireless N and other small upgrades most people would want. The M6400 is still cheaper than a Lenovo W700 but I wish Dell would stop using the bait and switch by simply offering a decent system at a reasonable price to begin with. Let the customer decide if they want to upgrade or downgrade from there.