The good: Thin, sexy design; strong performance; backlit-LED display; included media remote control.

The bad: Small touchpad; some options (SSD hard drives, Blu-ray) not available yet; not as many color options as Dell's new Inspiron line.

The bottom line: Dell has finally put design first with the head-turning XPS M1330 laptop, emphasizing both the thin and light aspects of the thin-and-light category without sacrificing features or performance.

Read full review of the Dell XPS M1330 »

By Dan Ackerman, CNET.com
Jul 3, 2007

While a worthwhile vendor of mass market mainstream laptops and desktops, Dell has never been known as an innovator in consumer product design. In fact, the company's stodgy, boxy products have been blamed for a loss of market share to the bolder design strokes of competitors such as HP. That's what makes the new 13-inch XPS M1330 such a pleasant surprise. From our first behind-closed-doors peek at it, we've been impressed with the emphasis on the user experience in this superthin, high-end laptop from the slot-loading DVD drive to the touch-sensitive media buttons and HDMI-output jack. At S$2,199 and up, it's definitely a premium product, but worth it if head-turning design is as important to you as specs and performance.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details.

	The XPS M1330 is available in three colors. (Click for larger image)

Design
Unlike the bulky, unattractive 12-inch Dell XPS m1210, the M1330 has clearly been built with an emphasis on good looks and clean lines, ditching the earlier model's cumbersome, rotating Webcam and thick chassis. The system is slightly wedge-shaped, going from 22.1mm in the front to 33mm in the rear. At less than1.8kg, it's one of the lightest 13-inch laptops we've seen--nearly a 0.5kg lighter than the popular yet hefty 13-inch Apple MacBook, and a touch lighter than the 12-inch XPS m1210.

The keyboard tray is brushed silver with black accents, while the lid is available in black, white or red. Our review unit had the matte-red finish (Dell calls it Crimson Red), which looks great, but more color options (as with the newly revamped Inspiron line of laptops) would have been welcome.

Dell manages to squeeze a good number of extras onto the keyboard tray, including touch-sensitive controls for volume and media playback, an eject button for the slot-loading DVD drive, and a quick-launch button for Dell's proprietary Media Direct software. The biggest drawback we found with the M1330's design was the tiny, 2.75-inch touchpad, which we found to be particularly frustrating given the fact that there's plenty of room on the wrist rest for a bigger pad.

Rounding out the laptop's external features are a Webcam on top of the display and a small, credit card-size remote control that pops into the PC Card slot on the side.

Features
The LED-backlit display, also seen in the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, helps to make the system's lid thinner (less than a quarter-inch thick) while also extending battery life, although users should not expect the display to look any different than a traditional LCD laptop screen. With a native resolution of 1,280 x 800--the same as on the 13-inch MacBook--you get the best mix of screen real estate and readability.

The M1330 can be equipped with a fingerprint sensor. (Click for larger image)

With only two USB ports, some accessory-heavy users may feel shortchanged, but we suspect they'll be few and far between. The HDMI output is a welcome bonus, but we're not sure how useful this will be until Dell adds a Blu-ray drive to the configuration options. Wireless 802.11n networking is rapidly becoming the new default for laptops, and we would have been disappointed not to see it here.

The unit can be configured with a faster 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 processor for S$309.23 (US$219.69)--our review unit featured a 2.0GHz T7300--as well as your choice of Intel's integrated 3100 graphics or Nvidia's GeForce 8400M, the latter a S$105.93 (US$75.26) option. A non-LED backlit display is also available for some regions, but as it adds weight and thickness; we'd avoid it. Solid-state hard drives and Blu-ray optical drives are promised in the near future, but exact dates for those features making their way to the M1330'a configurator aren't known. An optional biometric fingerprint sensor for quick login is located just below the keyboard.

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