The Dell XPS m1330 compared to other laptops

Of course there is a line up of other light weight small form factor notebook computers on the market. I looked at some of them that I found quite interesting. These are all similar in the hardware set up and price range. I took a closer look at the following machines: HP NC 4400, ASUS W7J, ASUS U5F, Dell Latitute D420, and the 13,3″ Macbook from Apple.

All of the mentioned machines are available in different hardware configurations. The ones I chose came the closest to the Dell m1330 in regards of price and hardware setup.

HP NC 4400

The HP NC 4400 has a Core 2 Duo T7200 2x 2.00GHz processor with 1024MB of RAM. An 80GB harddisk drive, but no optical drive like a DVD. or CD-burner. The onboard Intel GMA950 Graphic card gives you a maximum of 224 MB shared memory. This means it does not have its own memory cells for the graphic card but rather shares these with the RAM. It has a 12.1″ XGA TFT Display with a total resolution of 1024×768 pixel. Included is a 6 Cell Lithium-Ion rechargeable Battery. This machine runs on Windows XP Professional, and weights less than 4 pounds.

Ports on the NC 4400:

• USB 2.0
• FireWire
• Modem
• Gigabit LAN
• WLAN 802.11abg
• Bluetooth
• SD-Card Slot
• FingerPrint Reader

Asus W7J

The Asus W7J comes in different configurations, for the comparison I chose the one with the stronger processor, as it comes closer to the Dell XPS m1330.
Just like the HP machine, the Asus features a Core 2 Duo T7200 2x 2.00GHz processor with 1024MB (512MB onboard + 512MB) of RAM. The bigger 120GB hard disk gives you more space for your personal stuff. Included is also a DVD+/-RW DL drive combination and a NVidia GeForce Go 7400 dedicated graphic card with 128MB of RAM. The W7J also runs on Windows XP Pro and has a 13.3″ display with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels.

Ports on the W7J:

• USB 2.0
• FireWire
• Modem
• Gigabit LAN
• WLAN 802.11abg
• Bluetooth
• 4in1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro)
• Web-/Videocamera with 1.3 Megapixel

ASUS U5F

The Asus U5f comes with the older Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 chipset with 1,83 GHz. Like the W7J it also has 1 Gigabyte of RAM and a 120 GB hard disk drive. Also included is a DVD+/- RW double layer optical drive. The downside on the U5F is the shared graphic chipset that can take up to 128 MB of the RAM for graphic operations. On the other hand this uses less energy then a dedicated graphic chip. Like the other laptop computers the Asus U5F has a 12.1″ WXGA TFT display with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels. It weighs a little more than 3 pounds and comes with Windows XP Professional.

Ports on the U5F:

• USB 2.0
• FireWire
• Modem
• LAN (I don’t know if this is 100 or 1000 Mbps)
• WLAN 802.11abg
• Bluetooth
• 4in1 Card Reader (MMC/SD/MS/MS Pro) •
• Web-/Videocamera with a 1.3 Megapixel resolution

Dell Latitute D430

The biggest processor you can get for the D430 is the Intel Intel® Core™ 2 Duo U7600 with 1,2 GHz. If you choose that option it comes prebuilt with a biometric fingerprint reader and a 12,1″ WXGA LCD display. For the hard disk there are options for a 80 GB normal hard drive or a 32 GB solid state disk. As far as RAM goes you can choose up to 2,0 GB DDR2-533 SDRAM. One main difference to the other machines is that the D430 comes with a so called MediaBase. This is basically a docking station with a 8x DVD 24x CD-RW Combo Drive or a 8x DVD+/-RW Drive to choose from. The D430 does not have a built in optical CD or DVD drive, so you will need to use the MediaBase if you plan to install software or watch a DVD.

Apple Macbook 13 inch in black

To really compare the Dell XPS m1330 to the Apple Macbook I chose the black model.

The black Macbook from Apple comes with a 2,0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, unfortunately Apple does not say whether it is the latest T7200 or the older T5600 Intel chipset. Like most of the other laptops the Macbook also has 1 GB of RAM which is spread over 2 memory banks each holding 512 MB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. Apple puts in a huge 160 GB hard disk with serial ATA which is a lot faster than the older IDE interface. There is also a so called SuperDrive which is basically a regular DVD/CD Burner (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) with double layer support.

Ports on the Macbook

• 2 USB 2.0
• Modem
• LAN
• VGA out (Special adapter is needed that you have to purchase at extra cost)
• Microphone
• Headphones