At first I was going to title this post “Dell XPS M1330 First Impressions”, but since I’m “upgrading” from a Sony Vaio TZ190, most of my comments are a direct comparison of the two. First off, I should say that I’m a huge fan of ultraportable laptops. I’ve been on the TZ190 for a few months now, after upgrading from a Dell XPS M1210. Before that Dell, I had another Sony, the legendary PCG-TR3A. Anyway, The Dell XPS M1330 should have been a no brainer upgrade for me, but CompUSA clearance sales had me longing for the TZ190, with SSD, LED and a claimed 5-7 hour battery life. It’s been an amazing laptop, except for two things: Abysmal video card performance and a pokey ULV processor. So, when Dell was offering multiple stackable discounts on their XPS laptops last week, I bit. And not just any Dell, I fully equipped the 1330 to match the Sony, LED screen and SSD. I knew it would be a larger machine, but it’s design certainly makes it very easy to carry around, and I was HOPING to match the battery life of the Vaio. The XPS arrived today, and here we go…
Dell is following in Apples footsteps when it comes to packaging. The XPS box has nice etched graphics on white cardboard on the inside and they separate the contents into two sections. One for the accessories, manuals and media and the other for the laptop. I was surprised to find that the laptop includes a nice ballistic case with a magnetic flap closure. Sony charges over $100 for a “Sony branded” form-fit leather case (yes I bought it), so to see Dell throw this in is a nice touch. Not to mention they also include Creative earbud headphones, a bluetooth travel mouse and a leatherette binder for the manuals and media (much like a car manual comes in). So, hands-down the XPS out of box experience is very rewarding. Sony’s products always seem to come in the same plain brown boxes. Maybe it’s because the TZ-190 is viewed as a “business” laptop. Still, the unboxing is not very exciting.
Winner: Dell
The Dell keyboard has raised beveled keys. I’m not a stickler for keyboards and I don’t touch type. Maybe if I did, this keyboard style would be important to me. Instead, all I can focus on is how there are huge gaps between some of the keys. These are screaming out for crumbs and dust to fall into. This would drive me crazy. The Vaio on the other hand has flat keys (like the Macbook) that are individually set onto the laptop frame. There is very little chance that anything could fall between or underneath the keys. However, the trade off is that the Sony also compresses the key size and combines some keys. For example, the Dell has dedicated Home/End and PgUp/PgDn keys. The Vaio does not. I also noticed that the Dell keyboard actually isn’t set properly. The space bar is not sensitive enough and upon further inspection it looks as though there is a raised bump beneath it. I tried pushing it down, but only time will tell if this will hold. I just checked again… It’s NOT holding. Pressing the space bar at anything other than dead center doesn’t register. I have seen other posts complaining about the overall build quality but other than this, the laptop seems to be pretty solid. I’m also not a fan of the black/silver combo. The outside doesn’t look too bad, but the inside is a brushed-chrome massacre. The Vaio’s all black interior is sexier, hands down. (Are these cars or laptops?)
Winner: Vaio
The Dell media controls are very nice. They are touch sensitive buttons placed just north of the keyboard. They work very well and light up when pressed. The only problem I can see is hitting track forward instead of pause, which would annoy me. The Sony doesn’t have dedicated volume buttons, instead relying on quirky F-keys. The dedicated media playback controls are at the front of the laptop, which makes it awkward when playing back on your lap. I tend to lift the laptop up to see which key is labeled for what.
Winner: Dell
Here is where the Dell will shine…. or will it? The video performance award is easily taken by the Dell. Vista reports a 4.1 subscore for video on the Windows Experience Index for the Dell and a measly 2.0 on the Vaio (which does NOT have dedicated video). Hell, I was even able to play half-life 2 on my old M1210 without much fuss (Thats why these are branded as XPS after all). The lack of dedicated video doesn’t just prevent you from gaming, but I have trouble watching full screen video, and even Peggle stalls from time to time on the Sony. Now, i don’t need to game on the Dell, but I just figured it would be nice to have. However, here’s the downside, and I hope I’m wrong about this. There’s no way to not use the dedicated video. If I can tell the nVidia driver to save battery and never go overboard, then that would be a nice compromise. I’ve only had the Dell a few hours, and with Aero turned off, I can still hear the video card ramping up when it thinks its power is needed. I can imagine all my minutes being sucked away…
Winner: Dell
Both of these screens are LED backlit, but there’s something about the Sony. I just assumed that XBrite screen technology was all marketing, but the Vaio screen looks so much nicer. Perhaps its the fact that the Vaio, although only sporting an 11.1″ screen (as opposed to the 13.3″ screen on the Dell) has a higher resolution of 1366×768. The Dell’s native display resolution is only 1280×800. So, theoretically, despite gaining 2+ inches in screen size, i’m losing desktop real estate by a number of pixels. Plus, the Sony resolution has a wider aspect ratio. It’s a “wider widescreen” if you will. I’ve gotten somewhat used to this when using Slingplayer or Trillian docked to one side and still having room to surf the web in comfort with the rest of the screen. If the Dell were using a higher resolution, and I don’t see why it couldn’t, perhaps my thoughts on this would be different. The 1280×800 just doesn’t do the 13 incher justice.
Winner: Vaio
Here’s the killer. The Sony really does get those numbers they promised. No wait, it gets better than that. Right now, I see at least 5 hours, and I can easily stretch that to 7-8 with WiFi and/or Bluetooth disabled. Yes, this is due largely in part to the integrated video, and possibly because the laptop is powering a smaller screen. It is also due in no small part to the ULV processor. But I also think that Sony just tries a little harder when it comes to power conservation. The Sony SmartWi utility allows me to choose, via hotkey, which combination of wireless antenna to turn on or off. The Dell has one switch for all on, or all off. The only way to change that is to tell the switch to just control either Bluetooth OR WiFi, no mix and match. Not good. On top of this, the Vaio has a utility that automatically turns off the DVD drive when not in use. I’m sure this saves some battery as well, but no such utility exists on the Dell. Now, I was hoping that the Dell would give me 5 hours out of the gate. After the first full charge, Vista is reporting UNDER 4 hours. After running some updates, the number jumped around between 2 and 3 hours. Granted I should break in the battery to see some real world numbers, but I don’t think it will come close to the Sony, SSD and LED be damned.
Winner: Vaio
Some manufacturers are notorious for installing bloatware all over their laptops. Sony leads the pack. It took me quite some time to remove everything I deemed unnecessary on the Vaio. Hell, people have even gone out of their way to document “clean installs” for Vaio owners. This is all the more important when dealing with a 32GB SSD. The drive was practically filled when I got it. The Dell, however, doesn’t seem to have too many things to remove. I pulled off the bundled Antivirus (I’ll use Kaspersky, thank you) and Google Desktop. Maybe 3-4 other crap apps (avatars for my video chat??) needed to be removed and I was done. Sony has recently announced that you can opt out of the additional software installed, but this will initially be only for “Built to Order” laptops, and not retail chain sku’s.
Winner: Dell
Both laptops are pretty optioned up when it comes to ports. Both have DVD-RW drives, 2 USB ports, firewire and an ExpressCard slot. Both of them have media readers that accept SD and MS card types. The Vaio even goes one further by having an analog modem, which is crazy if you ask me. The Dell on the other hand offers an HDMI output which would come in handy for throwing a movie up onto a TV. Can’t say I’d use that too much, but it’s nice to have the choice. The Dell also includes an express card sized remote that fits in the slot when not in use. I can’t understand why ultraportables have this. I mean, how far away from the laptop might you actually be for this to come in handy? I would rather load the expresscard slot with an additional SSD drive. I have a 16GB Lexar drive which I can load up with DivX movies without impacting the OS partition. Makes more sense to me….
Winner: Tie
Overall, I’ll have to play with the Dell a few more days, but for my needs I may just stick with the Sony. Despite the incredible deal I got on the Dell, the Sony just seems to do everything right. I’ve never had WiFi dropouts, the machine comes out of standby pretty quickly and the battery life is legendary. Not to mention it’s lighter overall and is a true ultraportable. The Dell, at 13″ barely qualifies. I’ll keep the Dell through the weekend and make a decision then. Looks like geek beats cheap this time around… Thanks for reading…
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