Dell XPS 13 Review

In the Box

In the box you will get the ultrabook, and two guides that MUST be read. We at Techwarelabs encourage safe and full understanding of every product purchased so you must read the guides. I mean how else would you know not to wash the keyboard with soap and warm water?

Design

Width of 11.98″(304mm) and Depth of 7.88″(200mm), with a Height of 0.33-0.6″(9-15mm). These are the Dimensions that you can expect with your new ultrabook. What does that mean? Well to us it means that it is 13% smaller than the MacBook Air 13. It is also 6% smaller than the previous model XPS13.

The weight comes to 2.6lbs(1.18kg) for our configuration while the touch screen configuration is reported to be 2.8lbs(1.27kg). The webcam can be seen in the image below and is located in the bottom left of the screen allowing a full chest show everytime you decide to skype your dear ones. We recommend setting the laptop at nose height and arms length distance to have a full face view. The placement can be explained with the small bezel.

The panel at 1920×1080 resolution has 80% active, while MacBook 13 uses 69% of its display. What does that really affect though? When watching movies you won’t have the thick screen that makes it less movie theatre, more home theatre. With Dells Infinity display that has almost bezel-less design you will feel like you are watching your moves on a movie theatre screen when sitting on your bed/couch.

The outer frame is machined aluminium with the interior having a carbon fiber palm rest, and a precision touchpad, seamless integrated glass button. The chiclet keyboard is 1.3mm in travel length between keys, and a fully backlit configuration.

The speakers are located on right and left sides of the keyboard facing outwards. SD card slot, USB 3.0 with power share, and the power buttons are all located on the right side with the power button being on the top right corner of the keyboard. AC Power, mini display port, another USB 3.0 with power share, headset jack, and battery gauge button and indicator are all located on the left side of the keyboard.

Bloatware

We have tested multiple full systems, including tablets and netbooks. All of the aforementioned products come to us preinstalled with bloatware, and that only means that it will slow down the system for tests. When you get your new XPS 13, it will come preinstalled with its own share of software including a 12 month subscription of McAfee LiveSafe and the regular Windows 8.1 “apps” on the metro screen.
After removing all the useless apps and removing McAfee the already small size of the SSD finally had room to breathe. We here at Techwarelabs have vehemently despise bloatware and pre-installed software on systems that come to use for testing, but companies need to pay their bills too, dont they?

  Previous Page         1. Introduction2. In the Box, Design, Setup and Bloatware3. Benchmarks4. Accessories and Conclusion5. View All         Next Page