Dell Studio XPS 13

Full Review

The Dell studio XPS 13 has a great combination of looks and design, a compact form factor, and offers high performance at a premium. With its dark obsidian looks, and a strip of black leather and aluminum on its screen lid, the XPS Studio tries to add a touch of class--just like the Ideapad Y430. The 13.3-inch screen offers a maximum screen resolution of 1280x800 pixels. It is bright, evenly lit, and has pretty good viewing angles. Despite the 13-inch screen, watching movies is still an enjoyable experience. Build quality’s good too, with a sturdy chassis and dropped tubular hinge.

Its onboard speakers placed on the hinge are ordinary and offer average sound quality. Despite the tightly packed keyboard, the notebook has full-sized keys that make typing comfortable. They're backlit keys and convenient to use in the dark. No problems with the touchpad and mouse buttons either, nestled on a decent (but glossy) palmrest. You will also find a host of touch-sensitive multimedia buttons above the keyboard.

The Studio XPS 13 comes with Windows Vista Home Premium and has a very good configuration: an Intel core 2 Duo P8600 2.4-GHz processor with an Nvidia GeForce MCP79MX chipset. There's 2GB of DDR3 RAM, 160GB 7200rpm hard drive, and Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU to round things off. You also get a slot loading DVD writer thrown in along with all the standard input-output ports, not to mention a webcam and Bluetooth, draft-n Wi-Fi, and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

To enhance its multimedia appeal, the Studio XPS 13 has HDMI, eSATA and DisplayPort, a unique combination that we haven’t yet seen in any other laptop in our Mainstream Top 5. With the Studio XPS 13, Dell has done a good job of fusing together the studio’s multimedia experience with the XPS’s gamer-at-heart attitude. The GeForce 9400M GPU works in hybrid SLI mode with the onboard graphics. This is enough firepower for an acceptable gaming experience. It’s not just a good gaming machine, but a very good overall performer. And our benchmark results agree: a World Bench 6 score of 82, PC Mark 2005 score of 4543, 3D Mark 2006 score of 3546, and PC Mark Vantage score of 3721, all bear testimony to its excellent performance. HD videos played just fine as well, though the short battery life of just over 2 hours (with a six-cell battery) was a little disappointing.

Bottom Line

A 13-inch performance powerhouse, the Studio XPS 13 is a great contender for a mainstream laptop. It combines multimedia and gaming capabilities pretty well. But at Rs. 61,000, the high performance comes at a higher price tag than the rest of the pack.