The Dell XPS M1330 Notebook, an Ultrasexy 13.3" Thin-and-Light Notebook

The Dell XPS M1330 is the smallest model in Dell’s line of XPS notebook PC’s, a line of feature packed premium models noted for their attractive designs, performance, and price tags. The M1330 is one of the thinnest and lightest notebooks in its class, a 4 lb notebook PC with a high definition display and Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. Key specifications for the model I purchased include:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 CPU, 1.8 GHz
13.3" UltraSharp WXGA LCD display with 2.0 MP camera
2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Slot loading dual layer DVD writer
120 GB hard drive
53 whr 6 cell Li-ion battery
Intel Pro 2200 wifi b/g adapter
Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Windows Vista Home Premium operating system
Fingerprint reader
HDMI and VGA output
(only) 2 USB ports
Microphone jack, 2 headphone jacks
Media player remote, stored in express card slot
SD/XD/Memory stick card reader

The M1330 is probably the best looking laptop ever sold by Dell, and if you’re looking for a “thin and light” laptop, it’s a model you have to consider. Its size, performance and appearance all have resulted in strong demand, and unfortunately, Dell has been able to keep prices fairly high.

In the Box and Setup

"In the box" you'll find the XPS M1330, a smallish 1.5” X 1.75” X 4” power block w 6’ cable to the notebook and 4’ cable to 110V outlet, quickstart guide, small remote, earbuds, warranty/safety manual, and notably, a 200 page owner’s manual AND very nice slip on case with magnetic seal. The case only holds the M1330 itself, but its substantial enough to provide significant protection as you carry it around. Our laptop came with all the disks I’d need to install the operating system, drives and software, including a Vista reinstall DVD, MS Works DVD, driver disk, Roxio software disk, Dell webcam software disk and Dell Media Direct software disk.

Setup was easy, plug it in and turn it on, follow the Windows Vista setup routine. Not any trialware on this system to speak of, but I did have to tweak the startup program list a bit to remove unwanted utilities, and also run through setup routines for Windows Media Center, the AV software and a few other programs first time I used them. I was able to connect to my wireless network as soon as I put in my security key.

Appearances and Controls

My M1330 weighs in at 4.5 lbs, and feels solidly built, as you’d expect for a model with this price tag. If you opt for the smallest battery, and the LED display (a $250 option), you can get the weight down to 4 lbs. Closed, the laptop is 12.5” wide, 9.5” deep, with the thickness ranging from 1” along the front edge, to 1.5” in back. The size is a really nice balance for a true portable, the screen and keyboard are big enough to use comfortably on your lap or on a desk, battery life approaches runs 2.5r to 3 hours, and yet it’s small enough to carry around like 3 ring binders.

The laptop looks great and will draw quite a few looks. Ours is matte black with silver trim, and crimson and white versions ares currently available for $50 more.

The layout of the buttons and ports is a little different than what I’ve seen on other laptops. There are no ports along the back edge. The slot load DVD writer loads from the right side. Also on the right is a USB port, a security cable slot, express card slot, wifi switch, and wireless network locator switch, which will search for WiFi, Bluetooth, and mobile broadband connections, and report signal strength. The included IR remote fits into the express card slot.

Along the left side of the M1330 is a second USB port, HDMI port, power connection, VGA port, 4 pin firewire port, and Ethernet port. The memory card slot is on the front edge, just to the right of two headphone jacks and a microphone jack. Also along the front edge are three small, blue backlight icons, which show if the laptop is on, hard disk activity, and if you’re running on AC power.

The power button is located above the keyboard, accessible when the laptop is open. To the right of the power buttons are the media (play, FF, REW, etc) and speaker control buttons. Not “hard” buttons, these controls are labels on the dark translucent trim above the keyboard. When touched, each “glows” blue, and then slowly fades off. Touching the mute button turns off the speaker, which is indicated by a temporary on screen popup. Touching the up and down volume buttons pops up a volume bar on the screen, while holding the volume buttons down adjusts the volume up or down. Each time you power on the laptop, the backlight for these buttons each flash one a time, quickly, which really catches your eye, not too flashy, but subtly “cool”.

There’s plenty of room below the keyboard for the touchpad, but Dell has chosen to put a fairly small version (2.5” X 1.5”) on this model (compared to their 14 and 15” Inspiron notebooks, at least). It’s big enough though, and I find myself not accidentally touching it as much as I do on my 15” Dell notebook. The small fingerprint reader is also located below the keyboard. Two microphones and the 2mp webcam are located above the top edge of the display. For a thin and light laptop, I like the keyboard layout and feel, with all big enough keys in reasonably logical places.

Using the XPS M1330

Playing Music and DVD’s

Dell’s laptops include their Media Direct software for watching videos and playing music without launching Windows, a time saver if you just want to watch a DVD. Users start their laptop with the Media Direct button (rather than the Power button), which launches the Media Direct software. Media Direct will play DVD’s, music cd’s and media files on the hard disk. The Media Direct software can’t play files with DRM licensing, but it can play just about anything else Windows Media Player can handle. Media Direct can also be used to view power point presentations, and view calendar events and contact information.

The speakers are pretty good for a “thin and light” laptop, good enough for listening to movies and voice broadcasts in a quiet room. Bass is not very good, and if you’re trying to listen in a room with a loud air conditioner, you might wish for more volume. Headphones are a much better choice, and Dell has provided two headphone jacks on the M1330.

I tried connecting the HDMI connector to my 50” Vizio plasma HDTV, but the results were disappointing. Apparently no audio is connected to the M1330’s HDMI output (the manual says to connect one of the headphone jacks to your TV!), and none of the available video output options matched the 1366 x 768 native resolution of my HDTV. I tried playing a DVD via the HDMI connection, but the picture wasn’t as sharp as that from my $70 Philips 5982 DVD player. (It’s likely that users who opt for the upgraded Nvidia 8400GS video will have a better experience with the HDMI connection.) Picture quality on the M1330’s display is outstanding, however, sharp, clear, bright images, good color reproduction and contrast, no noticeable fast motion problems, as good a laptop LCD display as I’ve seen. I’ll bet the optional LED display is really stunning.

Battery Life

The 6 cell 56 whr lithium battery provides decent battery life for this laptop. I tried playing DVD’s a couple of times starting with a 100% full charge, once using Windows Media Center, and once using the Dell Media Direct software. In both cases I set the volume at a comfortable level for a quiet room, and watched a movie using the included headphones. In both cases a full charge lasted 2.5 hours. Watching DVD’s is fairly intensive, and I’d expect battery life to be a bit longer if you were typing or reading documents, playing solitaire, etc.

Recharging is quick; I can recharge the battery from 0% to a full charge in less than 2 hours. The powerblock/cables are conveniently designed. The powerblock itself is about 4” long and 1.75” wide, and 1” thick... Two cords are attached to the power block, a 3” cord which runs to the wall receptacle, and a 6’ cord which runs to the laptop. A permanently attached Velcro strap keeps the cords neatly wrapped when the power block is being stored. The battery has a power/service indicator, which, when pressed, indicates the charge in 20% increments, allowing you to check the battery level even when the laptop is off.

Performance

On AC power, Vista Home Premium reported this Windows Experience Index for my M1330 (maximum score = 6) :

Processor: 4.8
Memory: 4.8
Graphics: 3.5
Gaming Graphics: 3.5
Primary Hard Disk: 4.9

While the graphics score indicates graphics performance isn’t the strong point of my M1330, they’re good enough for Vista and Aero’s slick graphics tricks. The M1330 seems to boot slow, when new, my system took 45-50 seconds to boot up, and I’m sure that number will grow as more startup programs are added. On the other hand, this laptop goes in and out of sleep mode as fast as any computer I've ever owned, less than 5 seconds, and consistently without problems. Sleep and hibernate seem to cause problems on every other PC I've owned, occasionally some part, a usb port, a keyboard, etc, doesn't work when the PC wakes up. Not so with the M1330. I found, the battery charge drops about 9% for every 12 hours you keep the laptop in sleep mode.

I ran the AquaMark 3 gaming benchmark to gather some performance numbers for comparison, getting the results below:

AquaMark
10/2007 Dell M1330 T7100 Core 2 Duo CPU, Intel GMA X3100 graphics
Overall: 12904
GFX: 1272
CPU: 12440
Ave: FPS 12.09 fps

For comparison, below are the same Aquamark benchmarks for other laptops I've reviewed over the past 3 years. Like the XPS 1330, the Dell M140 purchased about 2 years ago also included an Intel integrated graphics chip. The M1330 graphics benchmark scores are about double the M140’s scores, demonstrating a nice improvement for Intel’s integrated graphics, but the M1330’s frame rates are still less than half of what I got on a Dell laptop with a dedicated ATI graphics chip almost 3 years ago. While the new Intel X3100 graphics chip might be a disappointment if you’re interested in gaming, it handles everything else, including Aero, pretty well.

June, 2006
Inspiron E1505 Intel T2400 1.83GHz Core Duo CPU, ATI Radeon X1400 graphics
Overall: 28439 (26891)
GFX: 2390 (3138)
CPU: 8831 (8888)
Ave Frames Per Second: 28.44

Januuary, 2006
Dell M140 Intel Pentium M 750 CPU (1.86 GHz) with Intel 900 integrated graphics
Overall 6400
GFX 663
CPU 9401
Ave FPS 6.4

January 2005
Dell Inspiron 9200 Intel M745 1.8 GHz CPU, ATI 9700 graphics
Overall 26689
CPU 8888
GFX 3138
Ave FPS: 26.7

Display

The M1330 comes with a 1280 X 800 resolution 13.3-inch widescreen True Life CCFL (cold-cathode fluorescent lamp) backlit display. The optional LED backlit display is $250 more, but Dell claims the LED version is 36% brighter, 0.3 lbs lighter, and 0.1” thinner, a nice option for those wanting a truly state of the art showcase laptop. The left and right viewing angles for the CCFL display are very good, about 60 degrees. Up and down angles aren’t as good, from above, the screen starts to wash out at about 20 degrees, while from below, you start to lose contrast at about 20 degrees. While the “True Life” screen provides exceptional clarity and sharp images, it also means glare from bright lights can be a problem. I still find myself adjusting the laptop screen angle fairly often when I’m using the M1330 on an uneven surface, to keep within acceptable viewing angles and out of glare.

Pixel response times are at least respectable, I don’t see any problems with fast moving images when watching movies, though we don’t use this laptop for gaming much. There were no “stuck” pixels, and colors are uniform across the screen. If your desktop has a black background, you’ll detect some light around the edges of the screen.

Storage

The M1330 included a 5400 rpm 120 gb harddrive (a Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 SATA drive), and a slot loading 8X dual layer Matshusita UJ857G DVD RW drive, one of the thinnest DVD writers available. The hard drive is a solid performer, and fairly quiet. Sisoft Sandra reported a drive index of 48mb/sec for this drive, very good, about 50% faster than the drive in my last notebook. The DVD drive was able to burn and read disks accurately at its name plate speeds (8X DVD, 24X CD Read/write), and is fairly quiet in operation, although the sounds it makes when loading disks are a little disturbing. For cd/dvd burning tasks, a Dell version of Roxio Media Creator 9 burning software is included. I’ve used the memory card slot with sd cards, and it works as expected.

Web Cam

The 2 megapixel web cam takes surprisingly good pictures, even in mediocre lighting. Pictures taken indoors typically have more noise (grainy) than what you’d get from a hand held camera (since there's no flash, but the pictures are ok for 4X6 prints, web images, or email. Pictures taken outdoors or in bright lighting look very good even when displayed full screen, with very little noise, and bright accurate colors.

The Dell Web Cam Manager runs in the system tray, and provides numerous options for image and video capture, including face tracking, motion detection (will email you an alert when motion is detected), remote monitoring, time lapse video, and more. 30 fps video capture at up to 800 X 600 resolution, and lower frame rates at higher resolution.

The video files are saved in avi format, and can be huge at the higher resolution; a 1 minute 640 X 480 video could require a few hundred mb of space. Dell’s software offers several options for compressing the images, including MPEG1 encoding. The image quality in video is a little grainy in indoor lighting, but colors are bright and accurate, and the level of detail is quite good for an integrated web cam. Video’s taken in strong lighting are very good quality, with little video noise. Audio quality is excellent.

Fingerprint Scanner

A new $75 option on the XPS notebooks is a fingerprint scanner. You can use the scanner to password protect your notebook. The scanner works well, once you get the hang of swiping a finger across the scanner correctly, it works as described. The fingerprint software allows you to register 20 fingerprints, and optionally use each to perform a specific function, i.e., when I scan my ring finger, my default web browser is launched. Not being a security expert, I’m not sure how secure the scanner is, but it’s a step up from password protection.

Wireless Networking

I chose the basic Intel 3945 wireless A/G network card. Other options include Bluetooth, an Intel wireless N card, and a mobile broadband option for connecting to Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T networks. One way I check the wireless range of a notebook is to take it out into the patio table in my back yard, which is separated from my DLink 655 wireless router by about 75’, 3 interior walls and an external wall. Signal strength on this notebook is stronger than other notebooks I’ve used, and I was able to walk to the back edge of my yard, another 50’, and keep connection to my network.

Conclusion

I purchased this laptop as a gift for my son, who started vet school this year. The M1330 is near perfect for what he needs, sitting in a class room/lab all day taking notes, working on papers and homework online in his home and on campus, studying in coffee shops, etc. The M1330’s small size and light weight means he’ll likely have the laptop with him most of the time, without taking up too much space. The wireless capabilities and media features work well, making the M1330 even more useful. I wish battery life was better, and that the HDMI output handled audio, but otherwise the M1330 is an impressive package. Battery life can be addressed by a larger battery, and Dell offers an optional second battery with purchases.

Dell has successfully created a uniquely designed, attractive, feature rich thin and light laptop that’s getting a lot of good press and word-of-mouth advertising. Unfortunately, that also means that Dell is having no trouble selling this model, and has kept prices higher than you’d expect for a Dell with these specifications. The model I purchased was a specific configuration recently available at Newegg for $1379, at a price almost $300 less than the same configuration at the Dell site. Even so, I feel like I paid an oversized premium for the near state of the art design and appearance, a situation which I expect will happen with most buyers of the M1330 for the next few months. Still, my son loves the laptop, and I’m happy with the purchase, and would recommend the model to anyone needing a truly portable thin and light notebook PC.