Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook Having been in the hardware reviewing game for more years than I care to mention - cue the violins - I have looked at a huge number of notebooks claiming to be both thin and light. From the days when thin meant something less than half an inch in thickness and light meant something around the 2kg mark if you were lucky, I've …
Yes 900p is absolute minimum for a 13" panel in 2012. And once again Dell misses the opportunity to demonstrate its really quite easy to avoid forever playing catchup with the MacBook line. Perhaps its a supply problem, if so long past time for Dell to simplify laptop lineup and use its buying power.
To be fair USB 3.0 is a plus point.
A short shelf-life product, no reason to buy. Dell only have a few months to build a sensible machine for Windows 8 to replace this embarassment of a PC.
Maybe it is just me but in a business environment, business computers connect using LAN still, wireless is for visitors and people skiving off using their mobiles to read the news.
I am sure my Sales Director wouldn't mind the shiny thing to put on meeting room tables but would keep crossing these off due to simple requirements. VGA/DVI breakout would be nice too for connecting to alien projectors.
For the price tag attached, I'd much rather become a fruity fanboi - even Apple understood that resolution is king when people pay this much for a computer today. Not having an SD card reader is just rubbing it in; the only thing going for the Dell is its USB 3 port.
Though personally, I'm waiting for the retina display in the next-gen Air.
"Apple must have done some mega deal on buying components."
They do. It costs them less to buy the parts for an iPad than it does their competitors the parts for a rival machine. For some components, they buy a significant fraction of the world's output. Tim Cook knew his previous job very, very well.
That £1299 (representing the top spec XP13) buys you an i7 with 256GB ssd and 4GB. A similar MacBook Air with an i5 processor but slightly higher screen res has a list price of £1349.
It's still a ridiculous amount of money though. Shove a 500GB hybrid drive into them instead and it would knock several hundred of the price straight off.
agreed. If it has mini display port, then it will have analogue/VGA connectivity.
One of the big benefits over an HDMI connector.
So the reviewer seems to want it both ways.
There are still a hell of a lot of VGA type things I want to plug my laptop into , so mini display port seems the way to go to me.
If I had to buy today it would be the Macbook Air for the reasons others have mentioned - let alone being CHEAPER. In reality I would try and wait as if the new Macbook Air (probably due within a few months) do have better screens it will be a killer feature - something around 1920x1080 (or 1200) on a 11-13" screen would be fantastic.
If they pull of the same trick as with the new iPad and offer the better screen for the same price as the old model it would be fantastic value.
"the only thing going for the Dell is its USB 3 port."
I expect the new Macbook Air may go USB 3 (would almost be daft not to) and remember it also has Thunderbolt which is really better still (albeit more expensive).
As others have commented the resolution is key - at least the Apple does this res. on an 11" screen and better on their 13" screen and their Macbook Air is probably a year old design now. It's a wonder they took so long to copy it - a bit of carbon-wotsit and magnesium-the-other is not hiding the fact it's yet-another-clone that they did not even make better OR cheaper!
What strikes me is you buy this type of machine for it to be very portable I'm not saying it's overly heavy but it's 1.4kg which is almost 40% heavier than the 11" macbook air. So pros and cons time:
Pros:
It has a 256Gb SSD
Faster CPU.
It has a USB 3 port
Ships with Windows 7 (or is that a con?!)
Cons:
It's bigger and 40% heavier (for the same screen resolution)
No Thunderbolt port
New MacBook Airs are rumoured and may have significantly better screens and USB 3
It's 30-40% more expensive
3-5 hours battery seems 'light'
Can't run OS X (Macbook can run both)
Not very often you see people talking about Apple as being the budget / value brand. But all these ultrabooks are such ridiculous prices. I'd love to get an ultrabook, but i'm not paying £400 more for something from Dell when i can get the same thing from Apple for that much less.
Macbook Air + iPad for the wifes xmas present for the same price as a Dell ultrabook. Dell are having a laugh.
"Or maybe the Apple Air is actually pretty reasonably priced"
Er no. The bill of materials for these products is well described and it leaves a nice fat margin of profit. An ultrabook retails for nearly double what it costs to make.
PC (and tablet) manufacturers could undercut the Apple product significantly more but they are capitalising on general consumer ignorance to keep their prices high. Perhaps that works for Apple but I would hope that other manufacturers would offer better value. At the moment they aren't.
It might cost more money for a similar spec Macbook Air, but if i was out shopping for a Macbook Air / Ultrabook™ it would be because i want something with the right image, and the right size/weight. if i have the choice of a macbook air vs a dell that looks a lot like it but costs a lot more, I know where my money would go.
Do i need 256Gb of SSD in a device that is for portability? No.
Do i need it to sing, dance & play top games? No.
The spec increases found in the more expensive models dont make enough of a difference to general use portable computing to warrant an extra £400 investment.
That extra £400 could buy me, for example, a new garden shed, in which to sit away from the irritations of family family life, and enjoy the new computer.
Or, the whole £1200 could just be spent on an iPad for me, one for the wife, and one for my eldest daughter. In fact, if you opted for the iPad2 you could nearly buy 4 of them. I could then mount them all on a wall and display the feeds from my 4 cctv cameras on them and make my garage feel like a wartime command bunker. Actually, lets be honest, this is an awesome idea.
>> and the same price as the Air (well the 11" is £849 to £999).
The comparison was based on screen resolution - the 13" 'Air' has a better resolution that this 'top of the line XPS 13' - whereas it's the same as the 11". So it's about the same price as the 13" Air (but poorer resolution) or save yourself a few hundred quid and get the more portable and lighter 11" Air.
This is mentalist pricing from Dell. Okay, they'll discount it, but Dell must surely recognise it is playing catch-up and fighting for its life. No Ethernet, no HDMI, no SD card, 1366 x 768, glossy? You must be joking. This thing is a bit thinner, but I bought an i5-2430 Vostro v131 with Ethernet, HDMI, SD card (still annoying it juts out a bit), same resolution but matt and better battery life with a three year on-site warranty for less than £400. My guess is this i7 will run so hot you won't even even be able to use it on your lap.
This pricing and specification reminds me of Xerox on the long road to Chapter 11: "Oh, we're a much bigger brand than HP'; 'We're only £200 more expensive', 'Who wants scaleable fonts or PCL V?', 'We have a superior salesforce', 'We own the corporate market' etc. etc. Dell needs to compete incredibly aggressively on price and specification in the laptop market or they are dead, but, like Xerox, the US-Marketing buzzword bingo speak will probably get in the way until it is too late. Dell needs to be better and cheaper than Apple to succeed and this is more expensive and worse (or certainly not better). The Microsoft tax will probably kill Dell in any case but this looks like suicide.
For crying out loud! Users will have to keep a tiny microSD>USB gubbin on their keyring. Or use their phone as a Mass Storage microUSB reader. That's it, my cheapo phone can do things this won't : D
Light laptop > easy travel > travel > camera > SD card
MicroSD cards are alright, but they really need to made in a garish day-glo coloured plastic, to make them easier to spot when fumbled onto the ground.
From a Joe Bloggs POV... I'll have the £300 refurbished Dell cheers and spend the other £900 on a holiday.
Ok it's heavy but I'll just man up and carry it, and when Mr Exec is getting stabbed in the neck by a junky after his shiny toy I'll beat them to death with mine, buy a new one and still be £600 up.
Petrol's too damn expensive now to buy a £1200 toy.
"Macbook Air + iPad for the wifes xmas present for the same price as a Dell ultrabook. Dell are having a laugh."
Good point. The spec on the Dell is slightly better but it does not make it a better machine - you would have to need 256Gb SSD (instead of 128Gb) and it may be a bit faster but for this type of machine I would rather the Macbook Air and it's better battery life.
I'm pretty sure the 11" Macbook Air is going to be the best seller - you buy this type of device for it's portability and I would rather have £300-400 (or an iPad) and save 30-40% on the weight as well.
...or are all of these things sounding like exactly the same thing with a different logo stuck on the front? Must make it easy for hardware reviewers... Just a few checkboxes:
__ 1366 x 768 glossy screen
__ SSD
__ Not so great battery life
__ Very thin
__ Alumin(i)um (at least on the cover)
__ Ridiculous price
__ Not much room for expansion/peripherals
Congratulations! It's yet another "Ultrabook"
There are only so many ways to make a very thin laptop. The use of a light, stiff material, a smaller battery and an SSD are hard to avoid.
Dolphins look like sharks because they are both responding to the same constraints, not because they are copying each other.
But yeah, on your point about the screen, I agree completely. Here at least is room for manufacturers to distinguish themselves...
I have no idea who or why Ultrabooks even exist. They can't compete with lighttweight tablets. They are only viable as thin limited machinery - and their pricetags are lunacy at play.
If you take even midrange laptop kit - its better spec, better gear, and less limited. Yes, it weighs a bit more but I don't flippin care. When kit starts to be looks alone and half of its function is gone and the price is quadrupled - its a wankpad.
People are better off with a decent PC and a cheap tablet. I don't even know anyone who has even considered an Ultrabook.
You are clearly not the target market - I have to carry a laptop out to see clients, home each evening and use it as my desktop in the office. The size and weight of my Macbook Air (11") make a huge difference - it's about half the weight of the previous laptop I used and plenty fast enough to run OS X and Windows 7 in a VM.
It does carry a slight premium compared to budget Windows laptops but for something I use at least 8 hours a day and have to carry - the good battery life, small size and light weight are worth far more.
Open your mind. I use a net book to surf the web and watch videos sometimes in my bed. Steve Jobs was right by the way, it does both of those badly (low vertical resolution and poor video performance). Anyway, to me an ultra book is a better net book hence the example.
My point is, how would a tablet be better for either of those in that situation? Especially for watching videos? What you're saying just makes zero sense. And I wouldn't want a laptop as it wouldn't be light on my lap or easy for me to lift with one hand and put on my bedside table (I'm weak).
Maybe now you have an idea of why ultra books even exist. I'm sure other people have other examples, I can't be unique after all.
"half of its function is gone and the price is quadrupled"
That's just fanciful - Macbook Air is £849-999 for the 11" - so you recon you can get something twice the spec for 1/4 the price - i.e. £200-250 'new' - think not.
There are plenty of people copying the 'Air' now - so you would imagine the market was relatively competitive - yet none of it's peers are really any cheaper - so can only really assume the components etc. are more expensive.
Agreed. Many people used to say Apple products were overpriced. So when companies try to create more or less the same product, they find they can't do it cheaper. Yes, Apple can source components cheaply and get some great deals, but companies like Sony, Dell, and Samsung are hardly slouches in that area.
The Dell XPS price is nuts. My Asus UX31 was 200 quid cheaper. It's only an i5, but has a better screen res, and still 4gb ram, 256gb SSD, plus a nicer casing (in my opinion).
For anyone not convinced about ultrabooks (or macbook airs) you really need to go to a store and pick one up for just a few seconds. I replaced a 5 year old sony vaio 11.6", which was the ultra-portable of the day. It achieved this by having a paper thing plastic case which flexes and creaks and generally feels like the screen will snap in half.
At first I was unconvinced about an ultra notebook - but it does the same as my laptop (actually better as it has a SSD). The screen resolution is fine 'when mobile' and it plus into a larger monitor when I use it at work and at home. It's like carrying a think A4 pad - literally half the weight and far less bulky than my previous laptop(s) yet it is just as (if not more) capable.
No DVD drive - you can get USB ones cheap for the very few times you are likely to need one. No ethernet port - solved by a £20 USB ethernet adapter - but realistically these days how many businesses do not have wifi?
Did they really need half a decade to come up with a clone look alike of the Macbook Air? My 4Gb 256Gb Air was only like £100 more, comes with much more quality software as standard and has better screen, weight, battery life etc. Whilst a slightly faster processor is nice, it really isn't that big a deal in this market segment.
I like Dell, in my opinion they lowered the cost of premium aesthetics to the mass market. The Dell Studio was a great example, a fantastic 16 inch laptop for only £400. I haven't seen anyone else do that.
This looks like a great laptop (ultrabook, whatever). From the photos the design is sharp and looks premium, and probably the first laptop I would consider against the Macbook Air. Yes, for me visual design is king (am not a power user).
What I don't like is the glossy screen, which I think is part of the sell-out generation of products. Products that look good in the showroom but not so great when you're using them. I can't find any lighting condition at all that suits them, except maybe in a bedroom at night with the lights off.
Also not sure why you would sell something at the same price as a Macbook Air with a lower resolution. It would seem impossible to sell it?
Unless.. this is aimed squarely at people who don't really care and just want something that looks nice, and don't want an Apple. Which is fair enough I suppose? Sellout.
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