Dell XPS M1330 review

Dell XPS M1330 Review

Reviewed by: Rory Reid

Reviewed on: 6 September 2007

Two types of display are available -- an LED lit model and a traditional CCFL version. If you have an extra £82 to spare, we'd recommend the LED version. Not only is it brighter than the CCFL version (300cd/m2 versus 220cd/m2), but it should, in theory, enable longer battery life and is kinder to the environment. Both have a native resolution of 1,280x800 pixels, which is par for the course for a screen of this size. The aforementioned 2-megapixel webcam is only available with the CCFL screen -- the LED version only has a 0.3-megapixel camera, for some reason.

Hi-def aficionados will be pleased to hear the M1330 includes an HDMI port. Dell also promises a Blu-ray drive as an option, which gives the yummy prospect of using the laptop as a portable Media Center machine. In its current incarnation, the only optical option is an ultra-slim 8x DVD rewriter. This supplements the standard 120GB hard drive, though there are 160GB (5,400RPM) and 200GB (7,200RPM) options for £47 and £176 extra respectively. If money isn't an option, and you're more concerned about drive speed and reliability than storage space, a 32GB solid-state drive is available for an additional £458.

The M1330 has excellent wireless connectivity. It has 802.11a,b,g Wi-Fi, plus 300Mbps 802.11n compatibility. More importantly, it has three separate Wi-Fi aerials installed in the lid. These not only provide greater wireless range, but the fact there are three aerials means the M1330 is MIMO capable. That is to say it uses multiple-input multiple-output -- a method of data transmission using multiple analogue signal paths to increase throughput and range. We also like the fact it has an optional integrated Vodafone 3G SIM card so you can surf without being in a Wi-Fi hotspot.

The M1330 package is rounded off with a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium Edition (Ultimate is an extra £94) Microsoft Works 8.0 and a one-year premium support warranty that gives you priority over non-XPS Dell owners.

Performance
The M1330 is quick, as you'd expect from an XPS laptop. It registered a PCMark 2005 score of 4,527, which is among the highest score we've seen in a laptop of this size. It was slower than the Lenovo ThinkPad T61p, but beat our Sony Vaio CR series laptop, which used a 1.8GHz CPU.

3D performance was fairly good. Its 3DMark 2006 score of 1,457 was much more impressive than the 762 achieved by the Sony Vaio CR. We wouldn't go as far as to say the M1330 is a gaming laptop -- far from it -- but it won't shy away from games like Half-Life 2, Doom 3 and the like.

We didn't expect much in the way of battery performance, and we didn't get it. The laptop lasted 83 minutes in our BatteryEater test, when using the accompanying six-cell battery. A nine-cell battery is also available for an extra £12, so you may want to purchase this if you intend to be away from the mains for any great length of time.

Conclusion
The XPS M1330 is one of the best Windows-based laptops we've seen. It isn't quite as stylish as a MacBook, but it's probably the best-looking Windows laptops on the market. If you don't mind the fact it's a Dell, (and why should you?) then our message is go forth and purchase.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Kate Macefield