Dell updated XPS 12 hybrid improved battery life and performance
The Dell XPS 12 is a slim rotating-screen hybrid with a high-res display and improved battery life.updated version of Dell’s XPS 12 hybrid adds newer CPUs for improved battery life, but still works better as a laptop than a tablet. The basic design, a screen with a center horizontal hinge that can flip 180 degrees and fold down to form a tablet, first came to us in the form of the Dell Inspiron Duo in 2010.
That system was an underpowered touch-screen Netbook (if you remember those) that worked ok as a cheap laptop, but made for a clunky, hard to use tablet (part of the blame went to Windows 7). The idea came back in an ultrabook that was renamed the XPS 12, and was one of the first Windows 8 hybrids, combining Microsoft’s new tile-based OS with a touch screen, but the battery life didn’t measure up for an on-the-go tablet, and the system often didn’t seem to know how to adjust on the fly when its screen was being moved between positions.
The new XPS 12 is only slightly different than the previous edition, but the main change is an important one. Now featuring CPUs from Intel’s recent fourth-generation Core i-series, the XPS 12 finally has Dell XPS M1210 Battery life worthy of an ultrabook/tablet hybrid.
That the XPS 12 manages to run for over 7 hours and offer a movable screen while maintaining a slim, light, ultrabook body is to its credit. Our Intel Core i5 version, with a 128GB SSD, carries a bit of a price premium, at $1,199, but not outrageously so.
The screen and its accelerometer still get confused sometimes when I flip the display around to the back, and I even had a few instances where the display refused to wake up, requiring a hard reboot, but I continue to the think that the ability to point your screen out from the back of your laptop is something many people will find frequently useful once they get used to it.
Like the excellent Yoga 13, the XPS 12 offers tablet-like functions without much compromise to the traditional laptop shape. When closed, the XPS 12 looks like any small ultrabook, although at nearly 3.5 pounds, it’s heavier than an ultrabook like the 13-inch Acer Aspire S7.
It’s nice to see laptop makers getting away from the all-aluminum or all-plastic bodies we’re used to. For example, the previously mentioned Acer S7 matches a glass lid with an aluminum body, and in this case, the XPS 12 mixes aluminum with carbon fiber.
The interior is minimalist, with only the keyboard and touch pad. A power button, in the uncommon form of a slider switch, is located along the left edge, and most other functions, from the Wi-Fi antenna switch to volume control, are mapped to the row of function keys. The wrist rest, keyboard, and keys are all matte black, with a powdery finish that resists fingerprints.
Connections, performance and laptop battery
The collection of ports and connections on the XPS 12 is slim, and it lacks an SD card slot, and note that you get a DisplayPort output, rather than the more common HDMI. However, I liked the manual button on the left edge for turning automatic screen rotation off and on, and just below that button is a handy volume control rocker switch, which is always appreciated. There’s also an NFC antenna in the wrist rest, for tapping and connecting NFC devices. It’s still not a technology that’s been widely adopted, but it has great future potential.
The most notable change in the updated XPS 12 is in Dell D5318 Battery life. Thanks to Intel’s latest generation of power-efficient CPUs, laptops and tablets of all stripes are seeing big jumps in battery life, and this is no exception. The previous XPS 12 ran for 4:43, which we found disappointing at the time. This new model ran the same video playback battery drain test at 7:13, which was just a minute off from the Haswell-powered Acer Aspire S7.
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