XPS 13 Ultrabook Arrives

Just ordered the above ultrabook, after months of searching for a new, thin and light laptop (starting last spring, with the first Samsung Series 9) (well, actually, no, starting a year and a half ago, when I bought a Macbook Air, installed windows, and then gave up because of the different keyboard, different OS issues). In spite of the fact that it's not yet obviously available, a thread in the Dell boards ( XPS 13 ULTRABOOK Does any one have a firm sale date? - New to the Community Forum - New to the Community - Dell Community) led me to a url which allowed me to purchase it, and I'm told by Dell that it will arrive tomorrow, at the latest. Using my preferred account and current xps coupon code bought it to 985.00 including delivery and tax. When I chatted in to ask why I was charged sales tax, (new twist since the last time I bought a Dell) the Dell rep upgraded me to overnight shipping as a courtesy to make me feel better.

My story: MBA my favorite ultra so far, but I am too deep into the Windows ecosystem to change course. I had one of the first Series 9s with the shocking WIFI problem. It went back. Wanted the UX31, but the keyboard problems were so obvious to me at the store that I passed. I got the revised Series 9 with the fixed wifi, and ended up not liking the Darth Vadar look. Also decided to hold out for backlit keyboard. I tried the Toshiba but found the fan shocking noisy. Was looking fondly at the new series 9, but 1400.00 is too big for my budget. Then, almost by accident, discovered the XPS 13, which hits all the sweet spots for me, of cost, small size, good backlit keyboard, and pleasing appearance. I wanted a matte screen, but I put a skin on my current Asus which works fine to cut glare, so if this works out, I'll do the same.

My last Dell was the XPS M1330, for which I got badly burned (pun intended). Bad graphics chip, no real support from Dell, etc etc. On the other hand, as a result, I found this community, which taught me how to disassemble, engineer and repair a laptop, so it was oddly worth it. I have nothing to report yet, but I thought, since it's on its way, it would be good to start the thread. I'm surprised there isn't one here yet-- I have been tracking similar threads about the new Series 9 and other ultrabooks. I'll post my impressions when it arrives. Let's hope four is the charm.

 

Nice, can you do a video review when you get it? Or, if you don't have the time, maybe just a short video showing how the laptop looks like, I love those videos. And maybe also a short video of how responsive the laptop is - some light web page loading, file copying, start up and shutdown? Thanks in advanced =)


The xps 13 is one of my top choices for my next laptop... looks sexy and I've had good experiences with dell's xps line. The only thing holding me back though, is that they decided to go with a low voltage processor (had a few netbooks before.. although they had atoms, the slowness really scared me off from 'portable' processors and I am still wary of the ulv sandy bridges) and didn't wait for ivy bridge, which I think would bring the increase in battery life that ultraportables really need.

I've had a couple of m1330s as well... they were very undervalued when I bought them and the heat issue went away for the most part by reformatting and setting the SATA mode to ahci.. I guess I could have just gotten lucky but if you don't stress it (cost me $200, so I used it like I would have used a $200 netbook) it runs cool and has a pretty long battery life. I still can't believe how good those laptops look even after all this time, I have since sold all of them (for around $350-$400, not bad eh?) to get an xps 15, but I would love to have another 'up-to-date' m1330.

 

Sure. I will share as much as I can-- although I haven't ever done a video before, and certainly can't qualify myself as anything more than a hobbyist.

OT: You sure took advantage of the M1330 debacle. For my part, I ended up (after two GPU failures), replacing with a completely new motherboard with integrated graphics. Still chugging along in our kitchen as the family computer.

Back to XPS 13: Dvorak has a pretty enthusiastic "intitial impressions" over at pcmag, and the dell page is now officially up. They have certainly done an impressive job showcasing it. Let's hope it pans out.

 

Mister Dell, why no ETHERNET/HDMI VGA connectors?
If it wasn't that, this laptop is looking great...
But i will not rush into this one.

 

Nor card reader and a tiny harddrive unless you want to spend another $500..

 

Actually, it's only $300 more to go from 128GB to 256GB.

How many people are planning to use this as their primary computer and thus need that much space?

I must just not store as much music, vids, and pr0n as everyone else...

 

No Ethernet port bugs me

But what I am really concerned with is the SSD's, are they drives or blades... are they user replaceable

 

The SSDs in most ultrabooks are mSATA blades. The one in the Toshiba Z830 is replacable, given a few hoops to jump though.

These ultrabooks are never going to be as user-accessible as a standard notebook.

 

Anyone know if Dell will unbundle some of the stuff in the current XPS 13 Ultrabook sku?

I don't need the Premium Protection Package. I would rather have a typical 3 or 4 year warranty.

 

Just ordered mine. I went with the $999 version with the 128GB ssd. I had a $50 off coupon that the employees at the local Dell store in a nearby mall gave me a while back. Used that to buy the card reader and a mouse. So i'm excited, it should be all good. I'm always leary about buying new products, but I've been wanting for something like this for a long time.

I'm not using this as a primary computer. I have an xps 15 and a studio xps 8100 desktop. I just wanted something to carry to coffee shops and places in general. If it turns out to not be what I expected, i'll just return it within the grace period...

 

How? It appears there's a 15% restocking fee.

 

How? Just return it and pay the restocking fee... It's not something I mind doing, and paying the fee, at least for me, is not a big deal.

 

Does anyone have the full tech specs on the xps 13? I haven't been following it too closely and just got the email this morning, but I can't find the max resolution of the screen on Dell's webpage. It seems to suggest a vertical resolution of 720. The nice thing about the MBA is the max screen res of 1440x900.
No included SD card reader? Even our old Dell netbook has a built in card reader, as do all our larger XPS laptops.
Got my wife an MBA but would prefer a nice Dell or Acer one myself.

 

13.3-inch / 300-nit / 1366x768 display, under edge-to-edge gorilla glass, squeezed into an approx. 12-inch chassis

47WHr 6-cell battery (buit-in, not user-replaceable) rated at a maximum of "over eight hours," meaning: 5 ~ 6 hours

http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-13-l321x/pd

 

So, I decided to cancel the order. A few minutes on the phone with Dell, a confirmation cancellation email, and everything squared away. I had put a great deal of thought into this laptop before actually buying it. I guess the idea of something that is new with not much hands on information sort of nixed it for me... Sorry for wasting your time.

 

"Post-purchase dissonance," Marketing 101. You're not alone.

Speaking of marketing, and in the context of "not having enough information," I admire the guys in Cupertino: they know how to work on the emotions of potential customers like you and me, months in advance, so that we readily pull out our credit card as soon as they announce their latest product.

The Dell XPS subforum is boring. The XPS 13 was released earlier today, and look at this miserable thread: what is going on?

 

Well, fully configured delivered to my door the darn thing is $1680. I am not rushing to purchase at that price.

 

I am looking at this system for my wife, I think she would love it, she is infatuated with the MBA and I think this might be a good non-apple version lol. But want to see some hands on reviews first.

 

Fully configured? The only two options that make the XPS 13 "fully configured" are i7 CPU and 256GB SSD. Then again, don't we have Elitebook 8760w, Precision M6500, ThinkPad W520 and extreme-quad desktop systems for high-power entertainment, er, computing already?

The XPS 13 at $999 looks good to me.

 

There are more than two options. For instance, warranty. That option is pretty steep.

 

^^^ Well, it goes with the territory, doesn't it?

A 13-inch MacBook Air with i7 CPU and 256GB SSD sells for $1700 + AppleCare Protection Plan of $250, or about $2000 total, fully configured. Or, a Dell UltraSharp U3011 IPS panel sells for $1300, plus warranty.

 

Which XPS coupon code, and what was the list price of the XPS 13 that you got it down to $985??

 

That's too bad, I think I will have to wait for until they upgrade the display to a higher resolution and add an SD card slot.

 

they won't add a higher res screen (rare in a 13") or an SD card slot (requires redesign of hardware). It is what it is.

 

I got the base model. List price was 999. I bought it through the EPP url, which I found on the dell community thread I linked to in the first post, which gave me 3% discount right off the bat. The coupon code was for $50 off any xps over 600.00 (or something), and can be found on that same thread as well, as well as the good advice to pay with my Dell preferred account, which may have brought it down another few dollars. If I recall, the coupon code expires tomorrow. Let me know if you can't find the link, and I'll dig through my history and post it for you.

Edit: Well what do you know-- the same person posted his excellent information right on this board, and I didn't see it until today:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/not...xps-13-ultrabook-up-purchase.html#post8342520

 

The battery is replaceable. All you need is some tech experience and a Torx-5 screw driver.

Dell engineering is also looking at higher res. displays, but 720p is fine for this size in my opinion. A better move would be to make a 720p IPS display available...

Scott

 

It seems like the Toshiba Portege Z835 would be a better deal and has more features.

 

Agreed-- plus, it's WAY lighter-- but I been there, done that. Screen is wobbly when typing and the fan noise is striking-- a constant (low) whine from the minute you turn on the computer until you shut it down. I am allergic to noise, so it was a no go.

Seems clear from all these posts that each person has their own "sweet spot" based on personal preference/use. One thing we all seem to want is small.

 

has anyone detected any european E-Value codes? I´m nosey. ^^

 

We just ordered 2 of these for higher ups in our company. They wanted something ultra light and portable for travel and meetings, but something like an iPad doesn't do enough (they need the Windows ecosystem). Sadly they don't show up in the Dell business Premiere site. That meant I couldn't pay with our normal NET30 terms, so I had to break out the good old corporate card.

I'll let you know how these babies are. I'm the I.T. guy who will be setting them up. It doesn't look like there's an Ethernet jack so we opted for the $29 Cisco USB Ethernet adapter just to prime the laptop. By priming it I mean get it on our domain and install our certificate so we can join our enterprise wireless network. I also got the mini-display port to DVI adapter but I went through Newegg for that because it was almost $30 cheaper.

There was NO way to unbundle that $149 t-mobile hot spot. When talking to dell they basically said it is what it is and there's no way out of it. So we will have 2 of these t-mobile devices and each one comes with 90 days of 4G internet.

I'm eligible for a new laptop this year as well but I'm holding off just a little bit more to see what these new Dell's are like. Were primarily a Dell shop but I might get the Samsung Series 9 when it comes out (the new version). I prefer the 15" display option and the 1600x900 screen resolution. It's not perfect either because you can't get it with a core i7 CPU... but honestly what do I do on it? Use putty and web based apps, domain administration, cisco stuff, visio, office, etc.. IT related tasks. I just want something with a nice screen and super lightweight for travel purposes.

If only I could take the best of the Dell and best of the Samsung... one can dream.

 

As long as we're dreaming... I wish Apple would build a Windows Air machine with a Windows keyboard.

 

Amen.

But since we're not:

Dell XPS 13 (2012) Review | Ultrabook Reviews

This has very detailed tests. I'll comment when mine shows up today.

 

No card reader?! Very handy for devices with low storage, if you are a media hound or play games and emulators (PS1, PS2 emulators play fine with HD3000 mobile).

I have a 128gb sd card I use that provides 122gb of handy available space and works great for media. No full sd slot, no purchase. I guess I may go back to looking at the S3 and others that DO have the slot.

Added:

This seems a better buy, for folks that want a well built device, USB 3.0 and a full sd slot. Newer Samsung model.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NP530...3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1330532117&sr=1-3

 

Really is quite surprising.

 

Boy it does look nice. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it has a backlit keyboard-- or am I missing something? (It really is funny how specific, and different, each person's needs are. Makes me glad I'm not in system design...)

 

Like Android cell phones, seems some feature is missing from all of them, one way or another.

 

Ok this baby came in and I already did the Windows Anytime Upgrade to Professional so we can join the domain and I've been playing with setting it up.

So far so good. It's super thin and light, nothing I've ever used before. It could fit within a zip up notepad binder for sure if someone really wanted to. Here's some pictures.

















The keyboard and trackpad are going to take a little getting used to. I fumbled a few times when entering the Office 2010 product key for activation because my palms moved and clicked the mouse cursor off the screen. It does multi-touch where you can use two fingers for scrolling or a four finger swipe down to show the desktop. It seems pretty speedy as well. It takes a newer smaller power adapter so keep that in mind if you need to order a second one.

The fan is a little noisy when doing work but it settles down. Resuming from sleep is really quick as well. I haven't played with the facial recognition yet but it looks like you can use the camera to log in if you program your credentials. Dell puts a little bit of bloatware on it and the biggest thing you'll see first is the "Dell Stage". Its a row of icons that are basically shortcuts to other specialized music, photo, games, weather widget, books, etc... For our business use we will take it off as it seems geared more towards the home user. It also comes with McAffee Security Center which we will remove and hook it into our corporate AV solution instead.

A big drawback for me personally is how glossy the screen is. Though the screen has great viewing angles, pretty decent contrast and very good color representation, the glare on the glossy gorilla glass like surface is hard to overlook. I can always see something reflecting off the screen whether its the overhead lights or even the backlit keyboard. Then the fact that the touchpad doesn't have any physical buttons so it will just take some muscle memory to remember how far over you have to tap for right click vs. left click for example.

Neat little machine. I think for our use the people that wanted it will be very pleased. For my personal preference I think I'd rather go with a 15" screen, non-glossy with a higher resolution, but you just can't beat the portability and size of this thing! 2.99 lbs and its super thin. The lid is thinner than the iPad2. The front of the base is a hair thinner than the iPhone 4, and the back is only a hair thicker than it. I really like the styling of the carbon fiber sides and bottom. The XPS logo on the bottom opens up to reveal the service tag information and its a real genius way to hide all the extra clutter from the system.

Even down to the box it came in... it takes cues from Apple. Very simple XPS 13 and a picture of the laptop. No other words or logos. Simplicity at its finest. We did receive the T-Mobile 4G cards as well. They come with a 4G sim card with 90 days prepaid data service on them. You can get pay as you go. We don't need this but it came with the order, so heck we'll give it a try.

Packaging...

 

It does have a backlit keyboard. You press Fn+F6 to turn it on or off.

Also here's some of the software preinstalled (were removing some of this in our business setting - and why some of these service agreement appear in add/remove programs is beyond me):

Accidental Damage Services Agreement
Adobe Photoshop Elements 9
Adobe Premiere Elements 9
Adobe Reader X MUI
Bantec Service Agreement
Bing Bar
Blio
Complete Care Business Service Agreement
Consumer In-Home Service Agreement
Cozi
Dell DataSafe Local Backup
Dell DataSafe Online
Dell Digital Delivery
Dell Home Systems Service Agreement
Dell MusicStage
Dell PhotoStage
Dell Stage
Dell Stage Remote
Dell Support Center
Dell VideoStage
Dell Webcam Central
Face Recognition (by Sensible Vision)
McAfee SecurityCenter
Premium Service Agreement
QualxServ Service Agreement
Skype 5.5
SmartSound Quicktracks for Premiere Elements 9.0
Zinio Reader 4

 

Hey, thanks for all this info. I'm just sitting here, like a moron, waiting for mine to arrive.

Just to clarify, I was referring, off topic, to the Samsung Series 5 when I said it doesn't have a backlit keyboard. It does have other good things like the SD slot. And a matte screen. Two features I would love to have as well.

But, back to the topic of the Dell, without matte screen, I'm planning to buy a screen protector for mine, should I decide to keep it. It's what I did with my Asus UL20a after two years of misery, and it works perfectly.

Improved Display Function & Use - Film, Hoods, Cleaning | Photodon.com

(I am not affiliated with that company, and I'm also not sure if I'm allowed to post a link. Sorry if I'm not...)

 

All this talk of no SD card slot/reader will soon be moot guys. At CES 2012, a new industry standard was officially released for the next generation of SD media cards. Specifically, the trend to make these and other flash form factors wireless LAN devices that will not need a formal card reader to read/write to host systems and/or other flash memory. This is the next logical step and Toshiba is already spearheading this migration with it's "AirFlash".

More info: Wireless LAN SD standard aims to give every SD card that Eye-Fi flair -- Engadget

Personally, I would rather keep the XPS 13 small and thinner than the other offerings out there and if I need SD card data in the short term, I can use an external USB reader, which is not that big of a deal.

Scott

 

Ah ok!

Thanks for the link to those screen protectors. That's a pretty good idea.

I've been playing around with the FactAccess facial recognition log on. Works pretty well. You can set it to auto lock your computer if your not present. I just tried that and set it to check every minute. Sure enough if I'm not looking at it, the system locks. Press ctrl+alt+del and it pretty much instantly unlocks as long as I look at it.

First thing is you have to pair your face to the credentials. On the Windows 7 logon screen there's an icon for it so you click that and it takes a snapshot of your face (green square identifies that it detected a face). Then if your a new face, you supply it with the windows credentials (domain credentials in my case since I did an online anytime upgrade to Professional for $89.) Pretty neat technology and its very customizeable.









And again my biggest issue so far is when I put my finger on the touchpad to move the cursor, it takes that as a click, so it sometimes clicks away or activates things. That and the palm detection. If I find a setting to turn off the touchpad when typing I'm enabling it!

 

will this system hold more than 4GB of mem??

Thanks.

 

Very interesting point about the SD card. Makes me feel much better about that "missing" feature.

As for the touchpad-- I have used an open source program called "Touchfreeze" on all my laptops. It runs in the background, very light, and disables touchpad whenever you are typing. I have installed it on computers with Elan and Synaptics touchpads, and it's like magic.

 

No, the PC3-10600 devices look to be soldered to the main system board; just like the CPU.

Scott

 

No SD slot, no CD drive, no floppy drive, no RAM slots, no user-replaceable CPU???

I need extreme quad-core i7, 2 x 8GB RAM, NVIDIA with Optimus, 1920x1080 IPS matte!!!!!

Seriously, give me a better touchpad. The touchpad on the HP Envy (14 and 15) is also erratic and counterproductive.

 

Ordered mine yesterday, will be here tomorrow!

Not worried about card reader, I have a usb card reader. Wanted the portability, and the fact it is not a Mac. Wife has 13 Mac Air and loves it...not a huge fan of the OS.

 

Ok I found a setting in the toucpad properties regarding palm detection sensitivity. It's on and the bar is in the middle. It can be changed from light to heavy.

Now to play with it and figure out which direction I should move the slider!

I have another one of these coming tomorrow for another user. Did you all get the T-mobile hotspots too? There was no way to remove that from the order.

I got an Asus external USB DVD-RW from Newegg for only $38. Sure beats Dell's price of $70. The Mini Display port to DVI adapter also came today from Newegg.

At least one of the users of this XPS13 will have this as their main machine. While in the office they will plug into a USB HUB and use the Display Port adapter and work with a full size monitor, keyboard and mouse. But the lightweight nature of this laptop makes it great for them to take home or travel with their work.

 

Ugh...SSD is a non-standard slot-type. No user upgrade there.
Might as well buy it with the 256GB in it.

 

I received mine today as well. I have it sitting right next to my MacBook Air running Windows 7. The biggest really only problem I have with the Dell XPS 13 is that the fan is incredibly loud and very frequent. I have the XPS loaded up exactly the same way as my MacBook Air...hoping that I could finally get rid of it, but this fan noise is a big problem. I have the i7/256SSD. Anyone else having this problem?

 

Sure you can upgrade later. It is a standard mSATA slot. Here are a few options: msata ssd | eBay

Scott