Dell XPS 14z

As far as product launches go, Dell didn't exactly rip the Band-Aid off the XPS 14z. After teasing it back in September, the company let all the specs out of the bag, but stopped short of naming a price and ship date for the United States. Well, now we know: this 14-incher will be available in the US and Canada November 1, and will start at $1,000 -- a price that puts it in direct competition with the likes of the HP Envy 14 and Sony VAIO SA series.

Like these other laptops, the 14z commands a premium over cheaper models, with beefier specs and a (supposedly) more luxurious design. With Core i5 and i7 processor options, discrete graphics, USB 3.0 and an optional solid-state drive, it offers a lot of the same specs as its peers, though it manages to stand out in a couple key ways. One, it sports an LG Shuriken display, which crams a 14-inch screen into a chassis normally reserved for 13-inch systems (translation: its bezels are super narrow).

Look and feel

With the exception of that Shuriken display, the XPS 14z is essentially the XPS 15z, cut down to size. Which is to say, it bears an imperfect resemblance to a MacBook Pro. Once again, you'll find smooth aluminum surfaces, clean lines and a backlit keyboard flanked by long speaker strips. As we pointed out last time around, it even borrows Apple's tiny arrow keys and rubberized feet. Thankfully, though, Dell seems to have heard some of our gripes about the 15z -- this time, the company stacked some of the ports on the back edge, whereas the 15z crams them all on the left side. Good riddance, we say -- it's an impractical enough design choice when Apple does it. Speaking of ports, Dell included HDMI, a Mini DisplayPort, Ethernet, headphone and mic ports, a 7-in-1 memory card reader and two USB ports (one 2.0, the other 3.0).

Truth be told, this isn't even the most shameless Mac impersonation we've seen (that might well be HP's Envy laptops). In addition to its magnesium alloy build and little black feet, the 14z adds design flourishes that would never fly in Cupertino. For one, it has discrete touch buttons and the kind of recessed hinge that's become Dell's signature over the past few years. Additionally, it sports the same chrome accents, ridged hinge and patterned speakers / vents adorning the 15z. In conversations with Dell, company reps told us the 14z is aimed at creative types who feel the need to express their personality through their notebooks. Specifically, that means people who like a few embellishments on their $1,000 laptop.

The peculiar thing about the 14z is that it's one of the more ergonomically sound laptops we've tested recently, even though it doesn't feel like the high-end notebook it's supposed to be. On the one hand, that sunken hinge means that when you rest the laptop on your lap, the weight distribution between the chassis and display feels balanced. What's more, it does a marvelous job of expelling heat -- even after settling in for a few hours of work on the couch, our legs never felt the burn (we wish we could say the same about the MacBook Pro).

At 4.36 pounds (4.12 if you upgrade to an SSD), it feels reasonably lightweight, especially considering you get the benefit of a larger display than is typically used in a laptop with these dimensions. (The 13-inch MacBook Pro weighs 4.5 pounds, for instance.) Dell also says this is the thinnest "fully functional" 14-inch laptop, at 0.9 inches (23mm) thick, though if we're being honest, we wouldn't describe it as skinny, per se. (Plus, uber specific superlatives are kind of silly.) It does offer clean lines, though, particularly with that hinge that makes the lid lie flat. It's also worth pointing out that even though this thing packs an 8-cell battery, it's completely flush with the system, meaning you won't find any unsightly bulges here. Then again, that battery is non-removable, which may or may not be your cup of tea.

But if one of Dell's goals was to build a premium laptop that celebrates attention to detail, it fell short. For all its aluminum and chrome trim, the 14z feels common. While you may or may not notice that it's made from multiple pieces of mag-alloy as opposed to a unibody frame, it's difficult to ignore the palm rest and deck, which are coated in a slick, warm-to-the-touch finish. In fact, it's easy to mistake the interior for plastic -- an irony, given that one of Dell's selling points here is that the entire laptop (even the bottom) is fashioned out of metal. Meanwhile, the lower-end Inspiron 14z ($599.99 and up) also measures a little less than an inch thick and sports a sunken hinge, 1366 x 768 display, optional backlit keyboard and a (mostly) metal chassis. It's true that the Inspiron 14z has a tray-loading optical drive and a bulge on the bottom where the battery sits, but we wish the XPS 14z made a more convincing case for why people should get this instead of the $600 model.

Keyboard and trackpad

Though not perfect, the 14z's keyboard is one of the better ones we've been treated to lately. Unlike lots of other chiclet-style 'boards we've tested, these keys actually have some depth to them. That extra travel means we didn't have to worry about mashing the buttons to make sure our presses registered. Depending on your tastes, though, one possible downside to that kind of tactility is that typing can get quite noisy. At least that low-pitched click is backed up by a sturdy, bend-free panel. The keys also have a slick finish that matches the palm rest, and while we thought that would be a problem, we banged out emails, web searches and this very review at blazing speeds, with only a handful of spelling errors slowing us down. If a reviewer's posture is any indication, picture us leaning back on a couch, legs propped up on the coffee table, with the 14z resting comfortably in our lap. A good sign, given that we've written many a laptop review hunched over the keyboard, cursing.

And yes, to answer the question on many of your minds, this keyboard is backlit, and it is a standard feature. The white glow behind the keys is gorgeous, and goes further in making this look like a high-end machine than, say, that embellished hinge. Happily, it'll kick in regardless of whether you're working in a dark or well-lit room. It even glows when the laptop has been sitting idle for some time. And for those of you who think backlit keyboards are just a design flourish that helps justify its higher cost, you might be right -- if you're not the kind to work through an overnight flight or wake up at the crack of dawn to pound out a 4,000-word review in your dim living room (ahem).

The best compliment we can bestow on a trackpad? We weren't aware we were using it. That was often true of the 14z, which pairs a 2 x 4-inch pad with two discrete buttons. What can we say, except that they present a completely drama-free experience? The touchpad has a smooth, low-friction surface, and everything from pinch-to-zoom to two-fingered scrolling works smoothly. And while those twin buttons might make the 14z look slightly dated compared to laptops sporting buttonless trackpads, we'll take function over form if those seamless touchpads continue to be so unreliable. As it happens, the buttons are quite tactile. You might find them a tad mushy, even, but so long as they're easy to press, we're happy campers.

Display and sound

If you're looking for a high-res display to go with your backlit keyboard and magnesium alloy chassis, you'll be sorely disappointed. The 14z offers a 1366 x 768 panel, putting it in the same boat as the HP Envy 14 and the 13-inch MacBook Pro, whose 1280 x 800 pixel count is nothing to crow about either. Honestly, this is pretty standard fare for 13- and 14-inch laptops, though there are a few gems offering more pixels per inch. The ASUS Zenbook UX31 Ultrabook comes standard with a 1600 x 900 screen, as does the Sony VAIO SA, whose starting price recently dropped to $1,000, putting it on par with the 14z and Envy 14.

But the pixel count doesn't tell the whole story. The extra screen real estate the Shuriken display provides is just glorious. Though it might seem like a trivial difference, having virtually no bezel meant we enjoyed a noticeably larger canvas than we're used to on typical 13-inch machines. You may still feel the squeeze if you use Windows 7's Snap feature to view two pages side by side, but we otherwise appreciated the broader workspace.

As you may have gathered, we wrote much of this review in a dimly lit room, and the 200-nit display was bright enough that we never felt the strain. The viewing angles are mixed. On the one hand, if you watch from off to the side you should be able to follow along, though as you approach an oblique 180-degree angle, the contrast predictably becomes too severe to follow along. We noticed less flexibility when viewing the screen head-on, though. Even if you dip the screen forward slightly, the picture turns pale and washed-out.

Though the speakers are loud, the sound quality's pretty tinny. Not just tinny -- after all, most laptops are -- but also buzzy and distorted, especially at the max volume. Though the XPS 14z is marketed as a premium system, the audio is mediocre at best.

Battery life

What the 14z lacks in screaming benchmark scores, it makes up for in relatively long battery life. Under the best circumstances, Dell promises up to six hours and 42 minutes of juice. But that's for the US market, specifically. In China, Dell's promising six hours and 58 minutes of runtime. According to the footnotes in the guide that Dell sends to reviewers, it used our configuration with a Core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM to arrive at that estimate for the US market. Projected battery life for the Chinese market is based on tests with a machine that had a Core i5 CPU and 4GB of memory.

Not that we expected to hit either of those ceilings. In our standard rundown test, which involves looping a movie off the local drive with WiFi on and the brightness fixed to 65 percent, it lasted four hours and 54 minutes. Not bad when you consider the HP Envy 14 crapped out an hour earlier. Meanwhile, the VAIO SB series, another machine with dual graphics, made it three and a half hours in so-called speed mode, and lasted five hours and 11 minutes in "stamina mode," putting it on par with the 14z.

Wrap-up

We like the XPS 14z, but perhaps not for all of the reasons Dell is advertising. For all its embellishments, this doesn't feel like a premium laptop, and its performance doesn't put it ahead of the pack either. Finally, it's also one of the worst bloatware offenders we've seen in some time. Still, the XPS 14z is worth considering, but for a less glamorous reason than Dell intended: it's simply comfortable to use.

We cranked out a lot of work on this thing. We typed thousands upon thousands of words on this laptop, and barely noticed the keyboard and trackpad -- as good a sign as any that they've been designed with care. That expansive Shuriken display does indeed make a difference, while other key details like long battery life, a light build, sunken hinge and an effective heat management system make it one ergonomically sound laptop. We can think of more arresting laptops with beefier entry-level specs, such as the Envy 14 and VAIO SA, but the XPS 14z is nonetheless a sensible choice, even if it's not the fastest or prettiest.