Battery boost for a unique hybrid

The good: The Dell XPS 12 is a slim rotating-screen hybrid with a high-res display and improved battery life.

The bad: The accelerometer can get confused when flipping the screen around and the fan gets very loud. It also lacks an SD card slot and HDMI output.

The bottom line: This updated version of Dell's XPS 12 hybrid adds newer CPUs for improved battery life, but still works better as a laptop than a tablet.

To give Dell credit, its rotating-screen laptop/tablet hybrid keeps getting a bit better with each generation. The basic design, a screen with a center horizontal hinge that can flip 180 degrees and fold down to form a tablet, first came to us in the form of the Dell Inspiron Duo in 2010.
That system was an underpowered touch-screen Netbook (if you remember those) that worked ok as a cheap laptop, but made for a clunky, hard to use tablet (part of the blame went to Windows 7). The idea came back in an ultrabook that was renamed the XPS 12, and was one of the first Windows 8 hybrids, combining Microsoft's new tile-based OS with a touch screen, but the battery life didn't measure up for an on-the-go tablet, and the system often didn't seem to know how to adjust on the fly when its screen was being moved between positions.
The new XPS 12 is only slightly different than the previous edition, but the main change is an important one. Now featuring CPUs from Intel's recent fourth-generation Core i-series, the XPS 12 finally has battery life worthy of an ultrabook/tablet hybrid.

 

That the XPS 12 manages to run for over 7 hours and offer a movable screen while maintaining a slim, light, ultrabook body is to its credit. Our Intel Core i5 version, with a 128GB SSD, carries a bit of a price premium, at $1,199, but not outrageously so.
The screen and its accelerometer still get confused sometimes when I flip the display around to the back, and I even had a few instances where the display refused to wake up, requiring a hard reboot, but I continue to the think that the ability to point your screen out from the back of your laptop (the Lenovo Yoga, Acer R7, and other systems achieve the same end, although in different ways) is something many people will find frequently useful once they get used to it.
I'd be tempted to spend a little less and get an IdeaPad Yoga 13 from Lenovo, or even a 13-inch MacBook Air (a different animal, to be sure, but still a top ultrabook alternative), but Dell keeps making the XPS 12 a little better with each iteration.

	Dell XPS 12	Acer Aspire S7-392-6411	Samsung Ativ Book 9
Price	$1,199	$1,399	$1,499
Display size/resolution	13.3-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 touch screen	13.3-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 touch screen	13.3-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 touch screen
PC CPU	1.6GHz Intel Core i5 4200U	1.6GHz Intel Core i5 4200U	2GHz Intel Core i7 3537U
PC Memory	4,096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz	4,096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz	4,096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz
Graphics	1,745MB Intel HD Graphics 4400	128MB Intel HD Graphics 4400	32MB Intel HD Graphics 4000
Storage	128GB solid-state drive	128GB solid-state drive	256GB solid-state drive
Optical drive	None	None	None
Networking	802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0	802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0	802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0
Operating system	Windows 8 (64-bit)	Windows 8 (64-bit)	Windows 8 Pro (64-bit)

Design and features
Like the previous XPS 12, the new version has a screen that sits within a thin outer frame. In fact, the overall physical design is nearly identical, and our previous aesthetic observations still hold.
The screen swivels via a hinge anchored in the middle of the lid, so it can rotate 180 degrees along its horizontal axis and end up facing out from the back of the lid's frame. This allows you to display the screen in what I call a kiosk mode, or else fold the clamshell shut to form a thick slate-style tablet.
The screen mechanism is well-designed, and it snaps into position without slipping. Dell says the mechanism has been tested to 20,000 cycles, and it certainly feels sturdy enough.

 

Like the excellent Yoga 13, the XPS 12 offers tablet-like functions without much compromise to the traditional laptop shape. When closed, the XPS 12 looks like any small ultrabook, although at nearly 3.5 pounds, it's heavier than an ultrabook like the 13-inch Acer Aspire S7.
It's nice to see laptop makers getting away from the all-aluminum or all-plastic bodies we're used to. For example, the previously mentioned Acer S7 matches a glass lid with an aluminum body, and in this case, the XPS 12 mixes aluminum with carbon fiber.
The interior is minimalist, with only the keyboard and touch pad. A power button, in the uncommon form of a slider switch, is located along the left edge, and most other functions, from the Wi-Fi antenna switch to volume control, are mapped to the row of function keys. The wrist rest, keyboard, and keys are all matte black, with a powdery finish that resists fingerprints.
The island-style keyboard feels familiar, it's similar to what you'll find on nearly every other current laptop. The only difference in Dell's version is that the keys have gently rounded corners, and the top row of function keys is half-height. Typing on the backlit keyboard is comfortable and accurate, and none of the vital system keys (Shift, Tab, Ctrl, and so on) are oddly sized or out of place.

 

When the system is folded down into tablet mode, clicking on a text field pops up the default Windows 8 onscreen keyboard, which does a decent job. In kiosk mode, with the screen pointing out from the back, I had to manually launch the onscreen keyboard from the Windows 8 task bar.
The buttonless clickpad is a good size, considering this is a small laptop. Of course, you'll only use it when the system is set up as a traditional clamshell laptop. It works fine for general pointing and navigation, but two-finger scrolling was jumpy, and it doesn't measure up to the best Windows touch pads, or the pad on a MacBook.
The 12.5-inch screen has a native resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, which has quickly become the default for higher-end ultraportables. The screen is covered with edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass, which is a smart idea for an outward-facing tablet display, and looks bright and clear, with excellent off-axis viewing angles.

	Dell XPS 12
Video	mini-DisplayPort
Audio	Stereo speakers, combo headphone/microphone jack
Data	2 USB 3.0
Networking	802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Optical drive	None		(Credit: CNET)