Dell XPS 12 review

When Windows 8 was released last year, it promised a new age of laptop tablet hybrids. The Dell XPS 12 was one of the best convertibles we saw in those early months, and it remains one of the best with its new Haswell processor update. We’ve updated our review with new benchmark scores to reflect this change.

The hybrid’s smooth curves and carbon-fibre body are reminiscent of the gorgeous Dell XPS 13 but its 12.5in screen can flip 180 degrees to become a ten-point touch tablet. This works in a different way to the Lenovo Yoga 11S‘s screen, which folds back on itself leaving the keyboard sitting on your palms: the XPS 12’s display rotates on two pins inside its metal frame, leaving the soft-touch lid flush against the keyboard when using the hybrid in tablet mode.

A light push from behind is all it needs to start the screen rotating, but there’s nothing lightweight about the XPS 12’s build quality. The screen needs both hands to move all the way round, and it snaps magnetically back into place once the rotation is complete. It’s a secure yet completely effortless transition, and it’s by far our favourite style of hybrid to date; unlike with the Asus Taichi, you don’t have to worry about the vulnerable outer screen getting scratched, and you don’t have to clip on a keyboard cover as on the Yoga. The design also means the touchscreen is available at all times – it may not let you show two different things on two screens at once as on the Taichi, but we still find the XPS 12’s hybrid setup easier and more intuitive than the competition’s.

However, while we may prefer the XPS 12’s design to that of the Asus Taichi, it still falls into the same trap of being just a little too big and heavy to use as a tablet for prolonged periods of time. It’s still comfortable to hold if you’re reclining on the sofa, but at 20x317x214mm and 1.5kg, it definitely requires a firm grip. If you have strong wrists and are happy to use your knees for a bit of support though, the XPS 12’s soft-touch underbelly makes the tablet pleasant to hold.

Typing was an equally comfortable experience, thanks to the XPS 12’s full-size Chiclet-style keyboard. The individually-spaced keys have plenty of bounce, and there’s also a white LED backlight to illuminate them in low light. The only problem we experienced was that the hard metal rim sometimes dug into our wrists, but it didn’t bother us enough to make it a major problem.

The all-in-one touchpad was also very easy to use, despite not having dedicated selection buttons, but we didn’t get on particularly well with its multi-touch support. Pinching the screen in particular was nearly impossible to get right, and we found this much easier to execute using the more responsive touchscreen.

The screen itself is almost faultless. It has a high 1,920×1,080 resolution, and colours were both bright and crisp with superb viewing angles. The screen picks up fingerprints like a crime scene window sill – always a risk with touchscreens – and its glossy finish did cause some problems with reflections, but we always managed to find a comfortable working position thanks to the amount of screen tilt available.

UPDATED TO HASWELL

The XPS 12 is now available with Intel’s brand new Haswell processors. At the time of writing, there’s only one specification on sale, but its 1.8GHz Intel Core i7-4500U processor is no slouch when it comes to raw processing power. The processor can Turbo Boost up to 2.4GHz when there’s enough thermal headroom for an extra boost in performance, and its 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM ensure it has plenty of speed for everyday tasks.

It scored 52 in our multimedia benchmarks, which puts it just behind the Sony VAIO Duo 13’s score of 55, which has the same processor. It’s not a huge improvement from the Ivy Bridge model we reviewed previously, which scored 49, but it’s still one of the most powerful Ultrabooks we’ve seen and is in line with what we’ve seen from other Haswell laptops. For reference, a desktop PC with a powerful Intel Core i5-3570K processor scores 100, showing this laptop is capable of handling intensive tasks.

The laptop also benefits from Haswell’s aggressive low voltage consumption, which had a big impact on battery life. It lasted a huge 11 hours and 17 minutes in our light use test with the screen set to half brightness, which is more than double the battery life of the Ivy Bridge model. This is a fantastic score, and it matches what we’ve seen from the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus and Sony VAIO Pro 13.

This Ultrabook doesn’t have a dedicated graphics chipset, instead relying on the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4400 chipset built into the processor. It’s no gaming powerhouse, as it failed our Dirt Showdown test at 1,280×720 and High quality settings, so you’ll have to lower the quality settings and disable anti-aliasing on most modern 3D games if you want to play them at a decent speed.

The only thing the XPS 12 really lacks is a wide range of connectivity options. It has a DisplayPort, two USB3 ports and a combined headphone and audio jack, but that’s it. There’s no optical drive, HDMI or VGA port, memory card reader, or an Ethernet port. Most of these are missing from many Ultrabooks, but HDMI is fairly common, and adaptors for that and Ethernet would have been nice inclusions – these will set you back around £10 to £15 each.

CONCLUSION

The XPS 12 is not without its flaws, but if you can cope with its limited ports, it’s a superb laptop-tablet hybrid that’s much easier to use than the competition. It’s also remains one of the most powerful convertibles we’ve seen, so if you want a device with the power of a laptop and the fun factor of a tablet, this is still the hybrid to buy.