Product Listing

Dell XPS M1330 (Intel Santa Rosa)

By Zachary Chan - 5 Sep 2007

M1330 Design

Judging a Book by its Cover

The design of the M1330 is immediately eye-catching with its sleek silhouette and impressive soft textured lid that is unlike anything Dell has ever come up before. Closed, the notebook has a streamlined teardrop-like outline and measures in at only 2.21cm thick at the front. Its magnesium allow body feels sturdy and lightweight, though its plastic sides are a dead giveaway even with metallic paint finish; the only part of the notebook that cheapens the whole premium feel of the M1330.

The allure of the M1330 is hard to beat.

This is just how thin the M1330 is. The LED screen is 6mm in thickness and the body barely has room to fit the slot loaded DVD drive.

Connectivity ports are located to the left. These include a VGA port, LAN, USB 2.0, HDMI and one FireWire.

One button to activate it, one button to locate them all.

Audio jacks are smack in the middle on the front of the notebook, which is not entirely an optimal location to have connectors and wires dangling about if you ask us.

Opening Up

Opening the M1330 reveals more design goodies like the unique rounded hinge at the edges of its frame. A similar hinge design can be found on the new Sony Vaio TZ series and one of the advantages of this design is that it preserves the one-piece look of the lid. Inside, the M1330 sports a 13.3-inch WXGA LCD screen, up from the 12.1-inch of the M1210. Better yet, the M1330 can be configured to include a LED backlit screen instead of a regular CCFL lighted one. The benefits of an LED backlit LCD include a more uniform lighting across the screen, better overall contrast, longer lifespan and is thinner and lighter as well. The LED screen measures just 6mm in thickness and again, this helps keep the weight down on the M1330. As with most notebooks the M1330 comes with an integrated webcam. This time, there is a twist though. If you choose to have a regular WXGA screen, you get a 2MP camera. If you get the LED screen, you only get a VGA webcam. Still, the only good a fixed webcam is for conferencing and video calls and for this purpose, VGA will do just fine. The LED screen is one of the features that make the M1330 special and we highly recommend keeping this in your configuration.

Fixed integrated webcam on the top of the lid. Comes with face tracking software and embedded array microphone set.

Stylish hinge design.

A sloping curve to the front makes for a more comfortable typing position.

The M1330 sports a brushed metal palm rest that is similar to the one on the BenQ Joybook S41 that we reviewed some time back. This gives a touch of class to the interior of the notebook, and we actually think the Dell has better synergy here with a color matching keyboard. However, like the plastic sides of the notebook, the metallic paint has a tacky look to it. Luckily, the M1330 features a full-sized keyboard that is well spaced and firm enough for a pretty comfortable typing experience. Besides the lack of a proper keypad, there shouldn't be any learning curve to get used to the M1330.

The M1330 has a matching color scheme for its palm rest and keyboard that looks great from far.

Side view of the keypad and palm rest.

For such a large palm rest area, the touchpad is a little small. Sentitive, but small.

To the top of the keypad, you'll find the power button, a media center button and a series of touch sensitive media keys. The media center button launches Dell's Media Direct application, which is basically a front for Cyberlink's tools. Dell Media Direct is a default install for the M1330, which works out well if you get any other version of Vista, but if you configure for Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate, you'll probably want to use Windows Media Center instead. In this case, make sure to uncheck Dell Media Direct off your list or you'll end up with two media center applications. The media control buttons aren't too hot either. They light up on touch, which is pretty cool, but their use is limited. For one, there still aren't any fast forward/rewind buttons, just next/previous track. This means no scrolling of songs or video, one button just skips the whole file, or in the case of DVDs, jumps immediately to the next chapter. Secondly, the buttons are more or less limited to Microsoft and Dell's media applications only and may not work with your preferred player.

Glossy touch sensitive buttons to light up your life.

The largest problem with the M1330 in our opinion has to be the in-built speakers. Although we never had much expectations from a thin and light notebook, the sound coming from the M1330 was hollow, tinny and breaks up for anything with heavier bass notes even at half volume.

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