Dell is the latest manufacturer to jump into the ultrabook bandwagon party, and it’s not about to let HP grab all of the alumunium-body attention. The XPS 13 is the firm’s latest creation, and is aimed to compete with similar, no-nonsense aluminium beauties like the HP Folio 13, Lenovo U300s and the Asus Zenbook.
Dell’s offering doesn’t veer off the beaten path when it comes to design – the XPS 13 is just 6mm thin at its thinnest point, which bulges out to 18mm at the thickest. It weighs in at around 1.36 kilos, so it’s as light as most of its competitors, if not lighter. While other aluminum clad notebooks use a plastic chassis, the XPS 13 is unique in the sense that it uses a carbon fiber chassis, which does wonders for its overall weight and durability.
The 13-inch screen is a WLED display that has a native resolution of 1366 x 768, which puts it on par with most ultrabooks today.
The XPS 13 will be offered in 3 configurations – the entry level Core i5 model with 128 GB SSD will retail for Php 59,999, while the mid-level Core i5 model with 256 GB of SSD memory will run you Php 71,990. The blinged-out, top-of-the-line model will come with a Core i7 processor and about 256 GB of SSD.
Dell says that the XPS 13 is estimated to run for about 8-12 hours on a single charge, which if true, makes it more of a energy miser than the HP Folio 13, an ultrabook that we’ve tested to be quite an energy saver.
That’s it for now. We’ll get reviews up once we receive our demo units.