No tacky stickers on the deck of this PC.Īs you'll see in the chart above, the XPS 13's a good bit shorter than its competitors, and the slimmer bezel is swell, but it's actually comparatively thick and on the heavier side as well. By the way, if you're looking for regulatory symbols and the Windows product key, you'll find them under a locking metal flap on the bottom of the XPS 13.

The carbon fiber and soft-touch paint do a decent job of insulating palms and legs from the laptop's heat, too, and two lengthy rubber rails on the bottom keep the top-heavy teardrop shape from sliding off your lap when you're seated. Dell's recently been on a premium materials bent, with the XPS 15z and XPS 14z featuring both magnesium alloy and aluminum in a reasonably sturdy shell, but both of them look and feel chintzy compared to the XPS 13's lovely, comfortable build. While the XPS 13 doesn't have a unibody aluminum chassis like the MacBook Air, it's practically as slick, strong and streamlined as if it did, as the rubberized magnesium alloy deck and carbon fiber bottom feel fantastic and blend nicely into the aluminum rim. Thankfully, among the many things Dell steals from Apple is solid construction. Speaking of LEDs, there's a tiny LED bar up front that serves as a power (white), sleep (pulsing white) and low battery (pulsing orange) indicator. You will, however, find a five-dot LED battery life gauge on the right, with a button to turn it on. That's admittedly not a lot of ports, and there's no SD card slot to be found, nor (like the Asus Zenbook) any MiniDisplay Port converters to hook up external monitors or USB ethernet adapters. You'll find a power jack, USB 2.0 and a headset jack on the left, while the right houses a Mini DisplayPort, and (no doubt to make up for the lack of Thunderbolt functionality) a single USB 3.0 jack as well. Not only did the company clone the MacBook Air's teardrop shape to a T, with all the same curves, the XPS was also imbued with the same lid design, the same hinge design, and practically the exact same arrangement and placement of ports. Dell is firmly in the latter camp with the XPS 13. Some manufacturers borrow just a handful of ideas, while others could practically have re-used the same molds. If you've been reading our laptop reviews over the past few months, you've probably noticed a trend: for better or for worse, almost every major computer company has decided to copy Apple's design language.

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