Dell Studio XPS 13 on Engadget

Dell Studio XPS 13 unboxing and hands-on

We finally managed to wrestle one of the sleek Studio XPSs from Dell's mitts, and we've got the pics to prove it. At first glance, the 13-inch laptop is striking, with its leather wrapped back and high gloss finish. However, we have a few minor quibbles that make the laptop a little less exciting than we'd hoped. Firstly, the leather is a bit rippled across the top -- not a huge deal, but it skews the "design" aspect here. In a similar fashion, the super-glare display is just as distracting as it is on other screens of this type, and there seems to be another slight ripple -- or wave -- in the plastic (though this isn't wholly uncommon). Once you open the box, you're greeted to a matte, low-profile keyboard that feels terrific to the touch, though unfortunately the trackpad is not only minuscule in size, but located to the left of center, which makes no sense to us (especially on something of this size). For hands like ours, we found the experience to be a bit cramped. On the software side, the boot into Vista was certainly speedy, and though we had typical issues (crapware, pop-ups, general bugginess), the system still felt pretty snappy. We're going to be taking a more in-depth look -- especially at the capabilities of that NVIDIA GeForce 9400M G GPU -- but for now, feast your eyes on the gallery below!