Confirmed: Dell Studio 17 multi-touch laptop to launch in UK this year

Dell unveiled its first multi-touch laptop late last week -- the mid-range Studio 17. And we're pretty excited to be able to confirm it'll launch in the UK "before the end of the year", according to a Dell spokesperson we tortured for info quizzed this morning.

This is a 17-inch machine with an LED-backlit display running at 1,440x900-pixels. Plus it runs Windows 7, which was built to natively support multi-touch technologies. You can touch the start menu to fire up programs, pinch to zoom in on photos and all that jazz.

The $899 (£545) base configuration is reasonably average, apart from the touchscreen. You get a 2.1GHz Intel Pentium T4300 CPU, 3GB of speedy DDR3 RAM, a 250GB hard drive, a standard DVD-RW drive and integrated graphics.

We specced up a more satisfying build, which includes a Blu-ray drive. This spec includes a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 3GB of DDR3 RAM, a 500GB hard drive, a dedicated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 graphics card and a BD-RW drive. This build cost $1,374 (£830). Still very well-priced for a multi-touch laptop with dedicated graphics and Blu-ray.

Obviously we'll wait and see how much British shoppers are penalised for living on the right side of a stretch of water when the machine goes on sale here. You can see our review of the non-touchscreen Studio 17 here. We'll let you know when we get a firm on-sale date in the UK, and in the meantime you can click 'Continue' for a few more choice press shots.