I've had mine for three months. Got it fully loaded. Love the screen. Also got the built-in AT&T mobile broadband as I already had the service and the service runs a lot faster on the 1330 than my old 300M which used the PC card (as it should be). Overall I am very pleased with it. My minor complaints are 1) would have liked it to be a little lighter, 2) would have liked a higher resolution option, and 3) runs a bit warm.

The 9 cell battery is HUGE. Of course, it lasts longer than the 6 cell, but it completely spoils the nice small form factor of the machine. I only use it if I really need more power and don't have access to an outlet. I got a 6 cell and a 9 cell in my pacakge.

You could always sell one of the 9 cells on ebay and buy a 6 cell instead.

My M1330 came with the 9 cell installed in the box, and when I opened it I was really disappointed, it wasn't till I put the 6 cell on that I saw the machine I had actually expected.

I get just a tad under 2 hours running with my mobile broadband on.

A fantastic response... Thanks guys :)

I ended up with the 9-cell battery as well, but just went online and ordered the 6-cell for when I'd like a little less travel bulk. Overall, the machine performs much better than my former Dell 700m and I'm one of the few who hasn't yet experienced the hell of Vista. So far, so compatible.

*knocks on wood*



BN

Yeah, that $6xx off deal comes maxed out including the 9-cell battery, right?

I bought mine refurbished, before that deal, and the 6-cell battery was one of my criteria (plus the LED backlit screen, a 7.2k drive, external graphics, no WAN card, etc.).

Within a week, I lost the hdmi/dvi adapter that came with it. I ended up replacing it on monoprice and got a hdmi/dvi cable for my big monitor at home. The big monitor has 4 usb ports, and that came in very handy for home use. (disconnect the hdmi and the usb cable in order to pack up and travel.)

-David

Anyone tested one of these out with the solid state drive? The 64GB SSD would be enough storage for me, and if it performs sufficiently better (faster, longer battery runtime), I'd be willing to part with the money.

I have had mine since October and absolutely love it! I have had great Sony machines but made the switch when this machine came out. This machine with all of the bells and whistles and the highest end specs (4 gigs of ram in a laptop, wow) still came out cheaper than the Sony SZ series with lower specs which is what I was using before.

This is a blazing fast machine and my only complaint about it was the Dell wireless N card in it dropped it's connection occasionally. This was fixed with a driver update that came out in December.

I couldn't decide either, so got both! If you'd like any more information on either, drop me a line.

Having now had mine for a few weeks and having travelled around with it a bit, I can now give a better insight into the 1330.

Firstly, it is superb. I will be keeping it for the long term.
I will start by saying that for those who groan whenever they hear the word "DELL", can I just say that this is my sixth Dell machine (and fifth Dell laptop) in ten years. I have not ever had a single problem with any one of them. Indeed my first company-provided Dell is still with my company and in use by it's third keeper - no problems.

So, to the 1330 specifically.

What do I like about it:

1) It is small whilst having all the functionality I need - spec is good, it has a DVD player (not some external plug in thing) and bluetooth and wifi along with webcam.
2) It's fairly light
3) It's a good looking machine and feels well built

What could be better:

1) It came with the 4 cell battery and I struggle to get more than 2.5 hours out of it - I may procure the 9 cell battery although I know this adds weight and dimensions
2) It did suffer with the well documented Intel whine - something about vibrations etc - google it if you want to know more. What I can say though is that installing 'RMClock' has sorted out this problem. It's also present on my work provided HP laptop but I cannot just install software on that.

So, if anyone has an annoying whine or metallic sound coming from their machine, I can recommend RMClock (google it) and email me if you get stuck with settings. I'm no pc expert but this was easy to set up and it really does work.

As always, drop me a line if you want to know more about the XPS 1330 or RMClock

Neilyork; your experiences match mine (I'm also a Dell fan). I got myself a 6 cell off Ebay and rarely use the 9 cell, it's just too damn big...

Cheers Scott - how long do you find the 6 cell lasts?

I have a 6 cell on my m1330.

Mine lasts a little over 2 hours with the wifi turned off and in media mode watching DVDs.

With wifi on and doing general Office 2007 and reading FT, it's been a shade longer than that; close to 3 hours, I think.

I am considering ordering a m1330 with the new penryn T8100 processor this weekend. I really wanted an D430, but it's to expensive for my employer.

Are there dedicated buttons for Home/End, PgUp/PgDown and delete? I can't live without those keys, so it is a dealbreaker for me.

Yes there are.

Has anyone compared to battery drain watching DVDs as opposed to watching a HDD rip of a movie? On my laptops, it's about double on the optical drive.