Dell XPS M1330 Review

I purchased my Dell XPS M1330 laptop in the summer of 07. It was a new model and therefore I had to wait a couple of months as there was a shortage in the production of the thin LED screens. When I first heard about the new laptop from Dell I was very excited. A small, powerful, and most importantly to me, lightweight laptop. However despite all the great features and package, the laptop has been just short of a nightmare for me.

The exterior and layout of the laptop is great. I ordered the “tuxedo black” color, which looks quite sharp. With the lid closed, the laptop takes on slight wedge shape when viewed from the side. The rear side of the laptop with the hinge and battery is thicker than the front end. However, this design has never been a problem to me. The keyboard of the M1330 has a sleek and modern look. It has a nice looking metal (fake) cover. One of my favorite features of the laptop is the integratged volume and playback buttons. They are not tactile buttons but rather they are lit up in a touch sensitve strip above the keyboard. A light touch of the finger will adjust the volume or eject the CD or DVD, which brings me to my other favorite feature, the slot loading DVD/CD drive. It is located on the right side of the laptop. I’ve always hated the pop-out disc drives that seem like they will rip out with the slightest bump. It is nice to just slide the disc into the computer and not have to deal with those flimsy pop-out drives. The LED screen is also very sharp. I do wish it had more USB ports though.

My laptop came with a Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.1GHz, 2 1GB drives of RAM, and a 120GB 5400rpm hard drive. I chose to order it with Windows Vista Home Edition. Performance wise the m1330 has been able to handle most of the tasks I threw at it. Also no problems with Vista like everyone else has had. I never did any crazy calculations or video editing, but I would have many, windows and browsers open at once, along with iTunes. The only time the computer really slowed was when running a DVD. However, the performance took its toll on the battery. I chose the 6 cell battery over the 9 cell because the 9 cell jutted out of the laptop and somewhat defeated the purpose of a thin and light laptop. I never get more than 2 hours and 40 minutes of battery life off of a single charge though on the 6 cell. Also this performance laptop gets hot. And I mean HOT. The fans would be running at full blast and the bottom of the laptop would get almost too hot to touch.


Now is time for the problems. When I first received my laptop, the integrated webcam would not work. I tried everything in terms of reinstallation and drivers and nothing worked. However, I did not return the laptop because school was starting back up. It would get fixed, but not till much later. Then about 5 months after receiving my laptop it just died. I sent it back to Dell and they blamed it on a faulty motherboard. The webcam wasn’t fixed though. ‘Oh well’, I thought, at least I had it back and working. About 3 months later my laptop died, and when I turned it back on I was greeted with crazy colored vertical lines. I sent it back and Dell replaced the motherboard again. They also fixed the webcam. However this time when they returned the laptop, part of the laptop was not put back together properly and the lid was not able to close fully. It was around this time I read NVIDEA had been shipping out faulty motherboards to Dell. Luckily 6 more months passed and I had not experienced a problem. Then my laptop crashed again. I sent it back to Dell and SURPRISE! It was the motherboard. I was mad. I was done. I have since then given my Dell XPS M1330 away and bought a new laptop. Lesson I learned: wait on the new models for reliability reviews to come out.