OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS, DELL’S
XPS 13 has gained a reputation among
business users as a “go-to” laptop—a professional’s favorite. Sturdy but lightweight,
with a great keyboard and nearly edge-to-edge screen, it has become as ubiquitous
among road warriors as TSA Pre status
and noise-canceling headphones. The
XPS 13 has been a big hit for Dell and not
surprisingly, the company has continually
refined it. Now, however, Dell has added
a twist—literally.
The latest model, the XPS 13 2-in- 1,
is a hybrid device, meaning that in addition to taking the form of a standard
laptop, it can morph, via a hinge that
rotates 360 degrees, into tablet and
“tent” modes. (In the latter, the screen
stands upright with the keyboard tucked
out of the way, the configuration resembling an upside down “v.”) Hybrids
aren’t a new phenomenon; Dell and
other manufacturers, such as Lenovo
with its Yoga series, have been making
them for years. But this model is particularly noteworthy since it builds on a
machine that has already won a following among business users.
Dell still sells the “traditional” XPS
13. Indeed, the company just updated it
late last year with Intel Corp.’s seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors. So the
question is: Should you choose the 2-in-
1 over the old-school version?
After a couple of weeks with the 2-in-
1, my answer is, probably not. Make no
mistake: I like this machine. It has many
of the pros of its more established sibling, particularly the excellent keyboard
and display. It also adds a plus or two of
its own, like a slightly thinner profile.
But there are some important draw-
backs, and what might at first seem like a
net gain (the XPS 13 plus the new tablet
and tent modes) could be a net loss for
many users.
How so? First, let’s look at those new
modes. While the 2-in- 1 works fine in
traditional laptop mode (in fact, unlike
some other hybrids, the screen stays
steady and doesn’t droop or flex as you
type), the tablet mode is awkward. The
device weighs 2. 7 pounds—svelte by laptop standards, Ralph Kramden by tablet
norms—and somehow, Dell manages to
make you feel every last ounce when you
fold the screen in back of the keyboard
and hold your newly configured tablet.
And it’s not just heavy, it’s bulky.
While the 2-in- 1 is thin, ranging from
0.31 to 0.54 inches, it’s still thicker than
some other recent laptops, like Apple
Inc.’s Macbook and HP Inc.’s Spectre 13.
It’s hard to get a comfortable grip on the
thing. After just a few minutes of hold-
ing the device in tablet mode, I started
thinking about an old science teacher
who told us, one hot day, that waving
a paper fan at ourselves would actually
make us hotter because of the energy
expended in the process. I remembered
how I got around that: By getting the
kid in the next seat to fan me. What I
needed now was someone else to hold
this tablet while I used it.
Tent mode is more successful, because the keyboard, flipped behind the
screen but not flush against it, supports
the display so I don’t have to. It’s not as
mobile as a tablet; you need to keep the
device on a flat surface. But with the display facing you and the keyboard out of
the way, this is a great configuration for
giving presentations or for watching or
reading content when you’re seated at a
table. I particularly like tent mode when
flying; set the device down on your tray
table and you can view a movie or read
an e-book without worrying about spilling a drink on the keyboard.
Tent mode also gives you a work-around for an oddly placed webcam.
Like the non-hybrid version of the XPS
13, the 2-in- 1 places the camera below
A GO-TO BUSINESS LAPTOP GETS A NEW TWIST
BY ALAN COHEN
in-house tech
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