The publicity for Dell's Studio XPS 13 line of laptops challenges you to blend "power with elegance ... to deliver the ultimate mobile laptop experience." 

Whether or not it quite lives up to the hype, the XPS 13 is a realistic competitor to the 13" MacBook, with good looks and and an Nvidia 9400M graphics card that we've been looking forward to seeing inside a PC for a few months.

Handling & Connectivity
Dell has an unfortunate reputation for pairing up consumer products with tacky glossy plastic, reserving more sober materials for more serious 'business' users, and the StudioXPS 13 is no exception to this rule.  The majority of the laptop, from the frame around the screen down to the support for the keyboard, is covered in a very shiny black plastic.  It looks good when it comes out of the box, but it's very susceptible to attracting greasy fingerprints.  The rest of the laptop is finished with aluminium, and a thin band of what is, according to Dell, 'real leather.'

The keys themselves are big and easy to type on, and it takes up all of the space available with hardly a millimetre wasted.  Above the keyboard are a series of multimediahotkeys, while in front is a trackpad, which, fortunately, is matte, rather glossy.


Compared to the trackpads on the new Apple laptops, it's very small, and on that front they definitely have the advantage.

Typical webcam shot

The webcam is good quality, as are sound recordings made on the internal microphone, despite a few light pops in places.

Working around the edge of the laptop, there are VGA, HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs, one regular USB alongside a combination USB/e-SATA, an Ethernet port, a FireWire port and an Express Card slot.  Dell seems to have put everything into video ports, which would have been more of an advantage if it hadn't been at the expense of a reasonable number of USB ports.  Most users would probably happily exchange theDisplayPort for an extra USB.

Unscrewing ten screws and a large panel gives access to a veritable treasure trove on the underside of the laptop: you can access, and therefore replace, the hard drive, RAM and several other components.  As ever though, it's best to proceed with caution when opening up your computer.

Battery level monitor	Express Card slot and FireWire port
Combined USB and e-SATA	Three video outputs: VGA, DisplayPort and HDMI, as well as USB and Ethernet

Processor Power
Windows Experience Index: 5.2. CPU: 5.2 - Memory: 5.9 - Graphics: 5.8 - Gaming Graphics: 5.4 - Hard Drive: 5.8.

We should start this section with a caveat: the Studio XPS 13 that we tested had an Intel P8400 CPU running at 2.26 GHz, but the slowest model currently available online has a 2.4 GHz P8600.  The upshot of this upgrade is that you should expect slightly better performances from a newXPS 13.

That said, the results with a 2.26 GHz were very good, and put the XPS 13 amongst the best of the bunch.  It currently sits third in our ranking, behind the Fujitsu-Siemens Xi3650 and the Acer 8930G, both of which boast Intel T9400 CPUs.  

Watching a Blu-ray video without hardware acceleration requires around 36-38 W of power and pushes the CPU up to 55%.  With acceleration, however, the CPU load falls down to 5-10% and the power consumption to 30-31 W.

Gaming
We were looking forward to seeing the 9400M in action and it certainly didn't disappoint.  We took our standard test games (Crysis, World in Conflict and Race Driver Grid) and ran them at native resolution with the detail level set to either low or average--the first time we've ever managed using a graphicschipset.  It's not all perfect though, as you still can't turn on anti-aliasing.

Battery Life & Portability
With a laptop that weighs 2.2 kg and only lasts three hours without being charged, we're obviously a long way behind the Samsung X360XIOV which weighs in at 1.3 kg and lasts 4 hours 15 minutes.  Having said that, it's not a bad result in itself, and comes close to the 3 hours 40 minutes that theMacBook 13'' manages.