Dell Shows Its Dual-Core Athlon Neo-Equipped Inspiron M301z

Last week, we brought you news about a new Dell Inspiron laptop which we caught eye of, back at AMD’s VISION launch event, at Cannes. Unfortunately, at that time, we had no specific details about the laptop’s technical specifications or model name, but we did have a gallery of first-hand photos we took while at the event. On that note, the Round Rock, Texas-based PC vendor has recently updated its product portfolio with the new Inspiron M301z, which appears to be the exact same one we caught a glimpse of last week.

Available now for ordering from Dell’s website, the new laptop comes with the new dual-core Athlon II Neo K325 processor, working at a speed of 1.3GHz and supporting up to 4GB of DDR3 memory. This processor is part of AMD’s latest range of Nile-series of mobile CPUs, which will likely see more of, as new products come to market.

The said Inspiron system is also featured with the AMD RS880M chipset and the SB820 southbridge, which essentially translates into a built-in ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics chip, ready to provide end-users with the necessary graphics power, for an ultraportable PC, like the M301z.

Aside from that, you'll get a 13.3-inch widescreen display with a 1366 by 768 pixels resolution and an option for a 320GB 7200RPM hard drive. The ultraportable is also available with a slightly faster dual-core Athlon II Neo K625 processor, working at 1.5GHz, which will most likely boost up performance for your new AMD-based Dell ultraportable.

With a 6-cell 44WHr battery, the Inspiron M301z is expected to provide users with a claimed 5-hour battery life, just enough to get you through about 2 hours of HD video (as we are assuming battery life is smaller when playing HD movies). Price-wise, the Inspiron M301z starts at about US$999 for the basic configuration, but will go up to US$1,199 if you’re going for a more solid configuration.