Dell XPS M1330 Laptop Review

For the last 5+ years I have insisted on using IBM Thinkpads. I had a T60 and T40 (the tablet one) and found them to be extremely well made and very reliable and durable for lots of travel.  However they are priced a bit high and now that they are owned by Lenovo, my loyalty to them has waned.

I recently attempted to upgrade the Lenovo T60 that I have I used continuously for the last 20 months to Vista and put some more memory in it.  Long story for another review, but bottom line, I do not recommend that you do this.   Vista is just not meant to run on machines not built for it.

In any case, I digress (before I even started!) because this review is about the Dell XPS M1330 that I recently purchased. ($1300 a Best Buy) Although M1330 does have some shortcomings vs the Thinkpad, I am largely very happy with it and given a few words of warning, would strongly recommend it.

The Dell XPS M1330 is a thirteen inch, lightweight laptop.  It has much nicer styling than Dell typically has for example with the D620 which looks a bit more like a gray brick.  My XPS is red and very cool looking.  It feels light and weighs in around 4 pounds. I bought mine at Best Buy in a standard configuration with 2GB of memory which I have found to be more than  adequate.  I am not a game player but I do tend to have 5 to 10 windows and applications open at any given time.

As far as features that I appreciate the most, the Dell CPS M1330 is lightweight, very good battery power and probably, and surprisingly most important, the speed, ease and reliability of its suspend mode has proven to completely change the way I use my laptop.  To place the M1330 into suspend mode all you need to do is close the screen. It suspends almost immediately and wakes up very quickly.  I know this might seem basic, but it allows me to use it more often for short bursts and get more use out of the batter.  The battery by the way lasts an impressive 3.5 hours.  I also bought the 9 cell battery as a second batter which lasts 7+ hours.  I will say the 9 cell battery is pretty bulky and adds some heft to the laptop.  One very nice feature of both batteries is the external batter meter that shows how fully charged the battery is without having to turn on or open up the laptop.

The DVD player is very nicely integrated and the controls exposed above the keyboard are a nice convenience.  I also appreciate the "feed in" loading rather than the slide out tray.

My biggest complain about the Dell CPS M1330 is the lack of a track pointer and the slightly flimsy feeling of the far right set of keys on the key board. I am, however, becoming accustomed to both and they are not deal killers for me.  I will also say that one thing that bugs me and I wish I could fix is that 1 out 4 times when I open the laptop is switches to a different graphic resolution which takes a minute for me to switch it back.  This is an annoyance that I will hopefully figure out how to fix.

The last notable mention is that the M1330 comes with a very nice padded laptop sleeve and in ear earphones.  They seem to be clearly trying to mimic Apple's nicer packaging.  The manual even comes in a letter case.   If they want my feedback I would say skip the nicer packaging and give me a track ball and sturdier keyboard.

Bottom line: I highly recommend this laptop and have already purchased the XPS 1530 for a colleague who wanted the larger screen.