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Today we will look at an exciting ultra-compact portable computer optimized for today’s life and travels. The DELL Inspiron XPS system based on Intel Merom processor proved an excellent solution. Read more in our review!

The life of a truly modern man is like a train that is steadily speeding up from its station towards an unknown destination. It is getting faster and faster every moment, and there’s no stopping or even pausing this process. Living at a high speed, the modern man regards time as a great value. Some people are even dreaming about extra hours in the day that would sum up into extra days monthly. To avoid floundering in such unreal dreaming, you can put to good use those hours that you’d just waste otherwise. You only need a portable digital companion, a notebook computer.

There is, however, a list of minimum requirements this digital companion must comply with to satisfy its owner. The notebook must be light and small, yet easy to work with. It must have high-performance but economical components so that it could last long on the dell xps m1210 battery. A large selection of wireless interfaces would also be welcome in a traveling notebook. A good graphics subsystem might also come in handy so that the user could relax a little at some game.

You think it’s impossible? Not at all! The Dell Inspiron XPS M1201 is a vivid example of that. Depending on the configuration, this 12” cutie (it easily fits within the dimensions of the A4 paper format and thus into any briefcase or bag) can satisfy any person who is spending much of his life traveling. Appearances are often misleading, and a cursory glance over the Inspiron XPS M1210 won’t disclose to you the fact that this notebook has one of the most advanced of today’s mobile CPUs coupled with a rather powerful graphics subsystem. Not all notebooks marked as XPS M1210 have a discrete graphics solution on board, though. There is a version that has a tremendous computing power but is weak in 3D and gaming applications because it uses the integrated graphics core Graphics Media Accelerator 950.

It’s the latter version of the notebook that we’ve got for our tests. The Dell Inspiron XPS M1210 is based on a Merom-core CPU with the Core micro-architecture. The Merom differs from the previous core Yonah in a few respects. First, the Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 has a 4MB L2 cache. The execution pipeline is almost the same length in all CPUs with the Core architecture, yet it is longer by two stages in the Core 2 Duo. The most notable improvement is the support of Intel’s 64-bit extensions to the x86 architecture and the so-called Intel Wide Dynamic Execution that means that the CPU core now has more decoders and execution units. The processing of SSE and floating-point instructions has been accelerated. With all these innovations, the Merom core has a typical heat dissipation of 34W as opposed to the Yonah’s 31W. The rest of the components of the Napa platform are left unchanged and the CPU socket will remain the same until the upcoming transition to the Santa Rosa platform.

The stickers they put on the notebook case are the same too, except that the Intel Core 2 Duo Inside sticker now has the number 2 that stands for Merom. The Centrino Duo logo doesn’t allow telling which exactly CPU resides inside the notebook.

Our tests will show how such crucial parameters of notebooks as battery life and performance have been affected by the technical innovations. But first we’ll examine the Dell Inspiron XPS X1210 carefully from all the sides. We’ll also take an ASUS W5F notebook as an opponent to the Inspiron. The notebook from ASUS has a similar hardware configuration, but a different CPU with a different clock rate. The Inspiron XPS M1210 is based on a Merom-core processor with a frequency of 2.33GHz while the ASUS W5F has a Yonah-core 2.0GHz CPU (it is the highest CPU frequency among all the Intel Core Duo processors we’ve ever tested in our labs).

Design and Ergonomics

The first thing you become aware of in the Dell Inspiron XPS M1210 is its smooth outline. The front part is rounded off a little, giving the notebook a very neat appearance. The lid is coated with black plastic and has a silvery band with the name of the series near the display hinges. On the front panel there is a small chromium-plated ledge to make it easier for you to lift the lid up. The sides of the lid are by half painted silver to match the top part of the notebook’s body. The rest of the body is painted black.

The manufacturer put its logotype into the center of the lid.

Before opening the notebook, you can take note of the three connectors in its front part. One is a microphone input and the other two are identical headphones outputs. Not a very common solution, this allows enjoying the multimedia capabilities of the Inspiron XPS M1210 battery together with your friend while on a plane, for example.

Above those connectors there is a block of multimedia buttons highlighted in blue when the notebook is turned on. These buttons include (from left to right):

* Mute On/Off
* Volume Down
* Volume Up
* Play/Pause
* Previous Track
* Next Track
* Stop

We don’t think these buttons are really necessary for an ultra-compact model unless you are going to use it as a player. Due to the small size of the notebook, you will almost surely touch the multimedia buttons unintentionally with your wrists while you’re using the touchpad.

The display lacks a lock as is typical of notebooks of that form-factor. Mechanisms built into the hinges press the lid down to the notebook’s body, and you have to exert some strength to lift it up. The color scheme is all silvery inside, including the magnesium case, keyboard, touchpad, and the screen bezel. There are rubber pads on that bezel for softer contact between the display and the notebook’s body. Centered beneath the display is the Dell logotype.

The Dell Inspiron XPS M1210 may come with an optional 1.3-megapixel web-camera that can turn around by 180 degrees. It resembles the one installed on the ASUS W5F. Our notebook didn’t have that camera, though.

Besides the manufacturer’s logo, there are two sonorous stereo speakers on the bezel, below the display. They are covered with grids and are directed right at the user. This placement is good because the speakers won’t get obstructed with anything.

The display hinges stick out of the notebook’s body, allowing you to unfold it by even more than 180 degrees as is shown in the following photograph:

The Dell Inspiron XPS M1210 is equipped with a widescreen 12.1” display with a max resolution of 1280×800 pixels and an aspect ratio of 16:10 (WXGA). The horizontal viewing angle seems to be large, but the vertical one is narrow even visually. The glassy coating of the display makes colors more saturated (Dell TrueLife technology), but also produces flares under improper lighting and reflects every well-lit object behind your back.

We measured the brightness and contrast of the notebook’s display using a Pantone ColorVision Spyder with OptiCAL version 3.7.8 software. We selected the highest possible brightness setting before this test but it would become much lower when the notebook switched to its battery, automatically enabling power-saving measures. The measured values of brightness are high, but the contrast ratio isn’t:

AC power source:

* 110.1cd/sq.m brightness, 27:1 contrast ratio

DC power source:

* 90.9cd/sq.m brightness, 27:1 contrast ratio

The notebook’s keyboard consists of 84 silvery-colored keys with a soft movement and a somewhat rough surface. The Arrow keys are lowered below the keyboard’s baseline to reduce the risk of your pressing them unintentionally. The Fn button is located at the bottom left of the keyboard, next to the Ctrl key, which is in the corner. This is convenient for people who are used to shortcuts like Ctrl+C or Ctrl+V. Numeric buttons and two Windows keys are available: the Context Menu key is over one key on the left of the spacebar and the Windows Logo is on the right of the spacebar. The functional buttons are smaller than others. PgUp and PgDn are placed under the Enter. Home, End, Insert and Delete are in the same row with the functional buttons (you should press them along with Fn to access their additional functions). The letters are painted in black; the functional keys are blue.

Testbed and Methods

The notebook’s hard drive was formatted in NTFS before the tests. Then we installed Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 with DirectX 9.0c, system drivers (from the included disc), and Windows Media Encoder 9.0 with Windows Media Player 9.0. We also installed Windows Media Player 10.0 for such tests as PCMark 2005 and SYSMark 2004 SE.

The following settings were used for the tests:

* Power-saving services – Off
* Audio subsystem – Off
* Network services – Off
* Maximum screen brightness
* Maximum display resolution (1440×900)
* Windows Taskbar is Unlocked
* Windows Taskbar hides automatically
* Classic Desktop theme
* No background image on the Desktop
* No screensaver
* Low security level
* Pop-ups blocking disabled

There were two exceptions: we returned to the Windows XP desktop theme for PCMark 2005 since the program required that. And for SYSMark 2004 SE to work normally, we had to roll each parameter back to its default (as they are set right after you install Windows).

Two power modes were used. First, we selected the Always On power mode for maximum performance and the shortest battery life. Then we switched to the Max Battery mode for the maximum battery run-down time.

Our tests:

1. Performance benchmarks: synthetic (SiSoftware Sandra 2005, SiSoftware Sandra 2007, PCMark 2004 1.3.0, PCMark 2005 1.2.0), office and multimedia (SYSMark 2004 SE, Business Winstone 2004, Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004), and games (3DMark 2001SE Pro, 3DMark 2003 3.6.0, 3DMark 2005 1.2.0, 3DMark 2006 1.0.2, Quake 3, Quake 4, Unreal Tournament 2003)
2. Battery life tests (Battery Eater Pro 2.60)

There are three test modes in Battery Eater:

* Classic (the system is under a high and evenly distributed load)
* Reader’s test (the pages are browsed through each 15 seconds)
* Idle mode

We used the first two modes as they are in Battery Eater, but in the Idle mode (when the test utility doesn’t put any load of its own on the notebook) we played a DVD movie.

Conclusion

Michael Dell’s team has done a good job again, coming up with an exciting ultra-compact portable computer optimized for today’s life and travels. The only significant drawback in the configuration of the Dell Inspiron XPS M1210 that we tested is the lack of a discrete graphics card that would certainly make it even more appealing. Well, the model we actually tested is quite ready for the nomadic way of life many of us have to lead. We called the ASUS W5F with its Yonah-core CPU a mobile intellectual in our earlier review, but the Dell Inspiron XPS M1210, even with its integrated graphics, is much smarter without a doubt!

This year will show us the Merom from other aspects, too. This CPU core is going to have higher frequencies and to work within the framework of the Santa Rosa platform together with an improved integrated graphics core. This sounds to us like yet another performance leap!

Highs:

* Superb ultramodern design
* Excellent performance in office applications (and not limited to them if the configuration includes a discrete graphics card)
* Abundance of wireless interfaces (including support for SIM cards)
* Exclusive TrueLife technology for better image quality
* Appealing and competitive price
* High-resolution widescreen display
* Relatively long battery life

Lows:

* Mirror-like display
* Low performance in games
* Inconvenient placement of the multimedia buttons
* Optical combo-drive
* Rather too noisy
* Dense placement of USB ports (but it’s good that there are as many as four of them here!)