In addition to aesthetic appela, Sudio XPS 13 were well used. The keyboard is spacius and uses the key design similar to that found on an old Sony SZ Premium. Key design along with the predictable locastion of the keys maes for a good typiing experience. Plus they are backlit keyboard, which looks very cool and is functional as well. Trackpad is too small and soft keys, compared with Clicky, but this is not a serious problem. Real StandOut although LED-backliot display, which looks great, high leevls of brightness and used up to very low levles of brightness (depending on conditions). Not everyone will like lusteer, but it looks more, when brigght light is not a problem and really makres the imnage seem that much more cleazr.
Performance Studio XPS 13 was better than we are accustomed to exect from 13-inch system. Of cousre, being a part of the XPS line was key to the system coould do more than just run Vista. P8600 with 4 GB of RAM and disscrete 9500M graphics all combine to do their job pretty well, and the 7200RPM drive is helkping out as well. Things felt smooth as the media durnig playback and desktop use and comparisons confirmed this.
But subtlety and powerful components come on heat, and it was a problem for laptops. XPS 13 tends to run warm, even in periods of only modderate activity. Cooling fan is not very loud, but it is audible, and as soon as it starts showing palmrests warmed up and in the lower part of the syastem (especially the back left side) with heatuing, as well as up. Rear lift systm to get some exra air it helped, but this situation could be a problme if you want to use your laptop on your lap or you need to handle it a lot during the operation.