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Laptop review: Dell XPS 13

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6th Jun 2012
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Henry Osadzinski assesses the claims of Dell’s XPS 13, one of the latest PC ultrabooks aiming to take on Apple’s MacBook Air.

The Ultrabook market is picking up and we’re beginning to see some excellent portable solutions to stand up to Apple’s ever-popular MacBook Air. Dell recently launched its first thin, super-portable, the XPS 13 which surprised us with both its polish and power.

Complying with Intel’s rigorous standards (you can’t call it an Ultrabook without the nod from the processor giant), the XPS 13 measures just 18mm at its thickest point and tapers down to 7mm along one edge. Weighing 1.4kg and crafted from an elegant combination of aluminium, rubber, plastic and glass, it’s a precision engineered piece of technology that has successfully eliminated any unnecessary bulk.

The real showstopper is its screen. Dell has managed to fit a 13in 1366 x 768 pixel resolution screen into a chassis normally more suited to an 11 inch laptop. The thin bezel strip around the display means that, when looking at the screen, there’s no wasted real estate. It’s also bright and sharp enough to stay visible in the flickering lights of a train and can cope with a reasonable amount of outside glare despite the glossy, fingerprint-magnet finish.

With a 256GB solid state drive and a speedy i7 processor, starting up the XPS took around 12 seconds. With such short a wait, I ended up turning it off rather than putting it into standby, partly just to show off to myself! It also handled every task required of it without any issues. Thanks to the ample 4GB of memory, there’s enough power under the covers to cope with any day-to-day tasks, including large spreadsheets and light video editing.

Sadly, the XPS 13 falters slightly when it comes to connectivity. Two USB slots (one of which supports USB 3.0), a headphone jack and DisplayPort left us wanting more after seeing the connections other Ultrabooks manage to pack in. Still, if this laptop is going to spend more time in your bag than sitting on a desk, it’s not a major issue.

For business travellers, the XPS 13 is a wonderfully portable solution that is powerful enough to handle most day-to-day tasks. You get a lot for your money with the £1,299 version (which we reviewed – a slightly lower spec £949 model is available) but it’s still very pricy for the sake of shaving off the size and weight.

You can only go so low when offering these kinds of specs, but competitors who have been in the market for a little longer are able to undercut this Ultrabook newcomer. This doesn’t mean Dell’s offering isn’t worth considering, especially with its strong history in the corporate market. If you can justify the extra money over models from Toshiba and Asus, the Dell is still an excellent machine that can handily compete when it comes to performance.

Dell XPS13 - What we liked

● Beautiful chassis – especially that great display in such a small footprint
● Powerful and fast
● Plenty of extra touches – backlit keyboard, charge indicator etc.

What we didn’t like

● Expensive compared to some competitors
● Could benefit from a few more connectivity options.

Price £1,299 (i7, 256GB RAM) For more info, visit Dell.com/uk

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Replies (4)

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SiWoodhams
By Si_Woodhams
06th Jun 2012 15:09

WOAH!

at that price must as well just buy a Macbook Air, the leader in the 'ultrabook' world!

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John Stokdyk, AccountingWEB head of insight
By John Stokdyk
07th Jun 2012 11:08

Only if you go for the full spec

Sending out a top-of-the-range machine to a reviewer is a clever way to make a favourable impression, but Henry has made it clear in the post that cheaper versions of the XPS 13 are available.

For £949 you can get an i5 Processor and 128GB solid state hard drive, or a 256GB SSD hard drive for just £100 more (which is probably the one I would consider).

The equivalent MacBook Air 13 starts at £1099 (i5/128GB) and an equivalent model to the one reviewed would cost you £1,349.

Because of the compact screen layout, the Dell is slightly less wide than the MacBook Air (but still a fraction fatter). However the Mac has a higher native screen resolution at 1440x900.

OK, so the XPS 13 is not a Mac, but if you are in a PC-only working environment, as we are, it's a close approximation. In this sector, I think its real competition will come from the likes of Toshiba and HP.

 

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avatar
By Henry Osadzinski
07th Jun 2012 11:22

Price and performance

Ultrabook and similar form factor devices are certainly at a premium right now. Intel have confirmed that they're working on improvements and refinements to ensure cheaper Ultrabooks in the future but, as we're only at the start of this tech-trend, the extra money is a necessary factor in any purchasing, for now at least.

As John says, it'll be interested to see what the competition has to offer as the current official definition of an Ultrabook is fairly narrow (no pun intended!). What will prove really interesting is how the various hardware manufacturers work to differentiate their products in an increasingly homogenous market. We'll do our best to cover as much as possible as new models come out :-)

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SiWoodhams
By Si_Woodhams
14th Jun 2012 09:18

Competition

To be honest if i was going to get something that was as good as a Macbook Air i would be getting one of these
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pcs/laptops-and-netbooks/asus-zenbook-ux31-1036585/review

 

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