Reviewed by JPerez, 4/25/2012

When I first heard about the Ultrabooks, I have to admit that I was a bit sceptical. I bought into the Netbook craze only to be disappointed. In short, it was a tool to surf the web and nothing more. I feared that the Ultrabook was just a larger screened version of a netbook. As it turns out, I was wrong.

I was asked if I would like to test the Dell XPS X13 Ultrabook. I had been pricing them out and jumped at the opportunity for a hands on experience. The unit had already been through our Office Technologies group. It had our business essentials such as office application and VPN installed. To start things off I added a couple of additional browsers (Firefox & Chrome), dropbox, Nook application by Barnes & Noble, and finally my normal array of clean-up applications such as CCLeaner and SuperAntiSpyware.

I was quickly impressed by how much the Ultrabook was NOT a Netbook. I had no speed issues opening and editing any of my office files. The screen resolution was such that I had great images in my documents, PDF’s and when viewing websites. It is still a 13.3” screen. Anyone with hopes of seeing a full page even at the unit’s highest resolution will be disappointed. I did get enough of a page on screen though that it was not an issue for me.