It's mostly adequate, but the lack of a card reader stings a little when many consumer and even prosumer level still and video cameras use SD cards. Thankfully, you do get USB 3.0 connectivity (always appreciated), and Dell includes an ambient light sensor that can be used to dynamically adjust screen brightness as well as detect when to turn on the keyboard backlighting. Honestly it's the lack of a card reader that stings the most this is something that can certainly be remedied by just buying a separate USB one, but when competing ultrabooks all integrate one, why eschew it here? You can also use an adaptor to go from mini-DisplayPort to HDMI, so you can probably split the difference on that one. While I wasn't expecting wired ethernet (a feature that materializes only every so often on ultrabooks), Dell doesn't include the SD card reader that most other ultrabooks enjoy. Just two USB ports (one 3.0, one 2.0), the headphone/mic combo jack, and a mini-DisplayPort jack are all you get. Unfortunately, Dell's XPS 13 features arguably sub-Apple MacBook Air-level connectivity. Samsung rates the SSD for up to 500MB/sec in reads and 350MB/sec in writes, not stellar but in line with (or even a little better than) the SSDs used in some competing ultrabooks.
#Dell xps 13 2012 battery replacement series
Dell opts to use Samsung's 830 series SSD in an mSATA form factor, taking advantage of the SATA 6Gbps connectivity of the controller. The two more interesting points of the XPS 13 are the SSD and the notebook's connectivity (or lack thereof). 4GB of dual channel DDR3 and Intel's QS67 chipset round things out. Attached to it is Intel's HD 3000 integrated GPU with 12 execution units that can run all the way up to 1.2GHz. The Intel Core i7-2637M is a capable enough processor, sporting two hyper-threaded cores, 4MB of 元 cache, and a nominal clock speed of 1.7GHz (able to turbo up to 2.5GHz on two cores or 2.8GHz on just one core). Spec-wise, the Dell XPS 13 is nothing impressive for an ultrabook and nothing we haven't seen before.
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 802.11a/b/g/n Dell will be updating the XPS 13 with Ivy Bridge as those chips become available, but it looks like with the delay we'll be enjoying our Sandy Bridge ultrabooks just a bit longer. Internally, the Dell XPS 13 doesn't seem to have any more going on than any of the other Sandy Bridge-based ultrabooks. While manufacturers like ASUS, Toshiba, and Acer have been apt to more closely ape the Apple MacBook Air aesthetic that Intel is arguably appropriating for ultrabooks, Dell's XPS 13 is a different creature, and when we saw it in 2011 it felt like the ultrabook to wait for.
Thus, the XPS 13 seems like a natural fit both for their XPS line and for the ultrabook category. Dell has been refocusing their XPS line with an eye on sophisticated notebooks that straddle the line between the consumer and business classes, while at the same time emphasizing slimmer, more powerful machines. Late last year, before CES, we had the opportunity to check out Dell's then-upcoming entrant to Intel's nascent ultrabook market, the XPS 13.
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