The Dell Community has contributed: 9512 ideas | promoted 651473 times | 73316 comments

How IdeaStorm Works:

Post Promote Discuss See
XPS products Comments | XPS products Ideas | Desktops and Laptops Comments | Desktops and Laptops Ideas
600

Make Next-Gen Connectors Standard on all XPS Models

600 points posted to XPS products, Desktops and Laptops by icarus75 Apr 15

Dell, please make these connectors STANDARD on all upcoming XPS Desktops and Notebooks:

1) eSATA (Self-Powered)

2) DisplayPort 1.1 and / or HDMI 1.3b (both with Audio)

3) FireWire 3200 - IEEE 1394c (9-pin Powered)
or at minimum, FireWire 800 i.e. Alienware m15x

Please kill off 4-pin Firewire ports. They're unpowered, relatively slow, and flimsy.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Also, of less importance, please make the following available in an XPS Cable Package (add $40):

a) HDMI (Category 2) to Dual-Link DVI

b) DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI

c) 9-pin to 6-pin FireWire Cable (1934b/c to 1394a)

d) 9-pin to 4-pin FireWire Cable (1934/b/c to 1394a mini)

freemenow
Apr 15		 Great Idea! BTW I'd leave the HDMI bit out. DisplayPort is cheaper and more powerful than HDMI. And there are DisplayPort to HDMI convertors available: have a look at http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/10077942/Use_DisplayPort_everywhere_dro...
undead999
Apr 15		 what about usb3.0?
..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_3.
freemenow
Apr 15		 eSATA and Firewire 3200 are better than USB3 for all the bandwidth intensive applications (external HD...).

There is hope for USB3 to be less power-hungry than USB2 when a port is on but not used (90% of the time in a typical laptop scenario), but on the speed side it will not be able to compete with eSATA or FW3200, if not for its retro-compatibility with USB2.
icarus75
Apr 15		 I have not included USB 3.0 while highlighting the need for eSATA and FireWire 800 for two reasons:

1) We have many existing devices using eSATA and Firewire connectors. Anybody owning a decent external hard drive (including WD and Lacie) will have at least one of these onboard, but our 400GB 7200RPM RAID0 on our XPS M1730's can only transfer to our Lacie Big Disk Extreme 500GB RAID0 at 40MB/s (35 in the case of USB).

2) USB 3.0 is only partially backwards with USB 2.0, it will accept USB 2.0 devices with USB 2.0 cables, but the current cables with only work at 480mbps. USB 3.0 cables will be necessary for 4.8gbps operation. Also, this standard is not ratified and will only start to impact the market mid-2009.
icarus75
Apr 15		 I've highlighted DisplayPort / HDMI as an "AND / OR" option specifically. Some XPS models may be geared towards power-use, some towards entertainment centers, and some towards everything. The royalties are acceptable for Dell if targeting a certain HDMI population segment.

HDMI exists on the XPS 1330 and 1530, while not on the XPS 1730. The 1730 should have had HDMI in addition to DVI at launch, one port for a Dell 3008WFP running at 2560x1600, another for a 46" Sharp 1080p LCD TV. DVI would be replaced by DisplayPort in the XPS M1740 (codename: "The Beast on Human Growth Hormone") while "retaining" HDMI.

Simply put, the bigger XPS's should have both DisplayPort and HDMI, the smaller models (including Desktops) should have one or the other.
kcobley
May 7		 U forgot the PSU's with the abiltiy to run an NVidia 9800GX2, Dell's launched 2 brand new machines the 630 and 730 neither have a PSU that can run current generation cards (these cards were planned in excess of 12 months ago) and on sale long before the 630 and 730 were launched and we are only maybe talking about say $100 per PSU. Switching to ATI is not going to hide this for long it's only going to raise questions! I check the manuals before I buy as does nearly everyone else.
icarus75
Jun 1		 I'm glad I didn't include USB 3.0 in this spec - it looks like it's going to be a mess on initial release. I think FireWire3200 is looking a lot safer (even if it's not widely adopted).

Check this out:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/01/usb3-gets-forked
Please log in to post a comment
recently promoted by:
recently demoted by: