Despite Dell’s advertised 8 hours, 53 minutes with a six-cell battery, Mossberg’s aggressive testing yielded just under fourthe worst battery life he’s seen on an Ultrabook to date.īy his same tests, the Lenovo IdeaPad U300 turned in after five hours and the MacBook Air after nearly six. Walt Mossberg, with All Things D, wrote that he found it to be “solid and well built, speedy and with a good, backlit keyboard, a bright screen and good looks.” Yet a major downfall was battery life.
PCWorld’s Jason Cross wrote, “Its a system that is so un-Dell-like (and I mean that in the best possible way) that Ive actually carried it around the office to show it to co-workers, most of whom are similarly impressed.”ĬNet called it the “first Very Important Laptop of 2012.” The polymer is clear, letting the viewer see the weave of the fiber itself in what Dell calls an ‘authentic material statement.'” The dark-gray carbon-fiber base is a study in meditation. The surface materials are said to feel rich and soft and to look understated while impressive.Įndpoint Technologies Analyst Roger Kay, writing on the Forbes site, enthused: “Starting with the bottom … one can see right away that this is a different type of animal. The XPS 13 is made of lightweight, precision-crafted machined aluminum with a carbon-fiber base, has a full-size, backlit chiclet keyboard and a glass, integrated-button touch-pad with multi-gesture support. And while they’re notablemore than eight hours of battery life, up to an Intel Core i7 processor, Intel HD 3000 graphics, up to a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) option with Intel Rapid Start Technology and 100GB of cloud storage through Dell DataSafe among themit’s the notable attention to design that was lavished on this machine, and the balance of brains and beauty, that may enable Dell to succeed in its goal.
The XPS 13’s perks and specs have been well-documented by this point: Dell introduced it at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Stack the XPS 13 on top of the MacBook Air, and Apple’s beauty suddenly looks, well, larger. By some engineering and design hocus-pocus, Dell has squeezed the 13.3-inch display into a 12-inch chassis, for what it says is a footprint similar to that of an 11-inch laptop. The look of it quickly brings to mind the 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Airwhich actually has a larger footprint than the Dell. The XPS 13 weighs less than 3 pounds, is less than a quarter of an inch at its thickest point and features a 13.3-inch high-definition WLED display, with edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass. The Dell XPS 13 Ultrabooka lithe and lovely laptop that Dell hopes will bring about a rebirth of its brand image within the consumer space, and very well may do exactly thatis now available.