I am in the same situation - needing a new hi-end
laptop (or rather desktop replacement) in the near-term.
Must have a dual core and 17" or larger (pref 19" at
this point). Hope the next-gen XPS M series or M2010
concept comes out soon!

PS. No shiny screens! Geez, I've got to work on this
thing and don't need ten zillion reflections fatiguing
me through visual system abuse.

well just look at dell in general

there two big projects are the renegade and this xps m concept. so i doubt we'll see any new 17" notebooks soon. plus the 170 just came out only like a few months ago. maybe the dual core will be coming soon, but the 7900GTX doesnt even have a desktop version out yet, let alone a mobile one. possibly in a few more months, but not by april

the xps2 and xps170 are the same design... dell has been using the same basic design since the 9300 which applies to the 9300,9400,xps2,xps170... in fact it may be forbidden by dell but there is a way to but a 7800gtx graphics card into a 9300 with a little modding... and modding I mean a bios flash and a screwdriver and 2 parts (heatsync and a more powerful power adapter)...

ok ok my point is that the newer dual core systems will probbably use this same design so dell dosen't have much research to do in this area because the design is proven... all dell has to do is put different parts in there...

the Inspiron E1705 has an option to go with the Core Duo processor and it can get the 7800 GT Go video card and has a standard of 1 gig of ram.  Plus even when you put the GPU in it it is still about $300 less than the M170.  In all respects it is just a suped up version of the 9300.  The 9400 is the business model of it and the E1705 is the consumer version.  It starts at around $1200 with the core solo and $1600 with the core duo.  The graphics card option is around $300 so even with the Core Duo it is less than the M170.  Hope that helps.