When we reviewed this laptop a couple of months back, we were very impressed with its performance and the features justified its price tag. Barring the relatively poor build of the display panel, it was one of the best 13.3 inch laptops that had made it to our labs. Now, even in the midst of ten other ultra portables, the XPS M1330 still takes the victory podium as PC World Best Buy. The customization that Dell allows makes it easy to pick it up at different price points (starting Rs. 52,990) and needs. In the pepped up allatarthat we received, the XPS M1330 costs Rs. 77,000. A 2GB RAM is standard (Dell offers up to 4GB) and the CPU is a very fast Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile T7500 that clocked at 2.2 GHz and with 4MB L2 cache.

Storage was the highest in the test a generous 250GB that should suffice for loads of movies, music and work. The Nvidia 8400M video chip makes one generation old games playable at medium quality. We tested F.E.A.R. at medium quality settings at 800 x 600 resolution and obtained a very playable 55 fps. The keypad is comfortable to use and the size of the keys is as big as the form factor allows. The dedicated navigation keys are in a column arrangement, making it easy to work on documents and spreadsheets. The touchpad is responsive and includes horizontal and vertical scrolling. The XPS M1330's 13.3 inch screen is bright and can do justice for some movie watching as well.

HDMI output, touch sensitive media control buttons and a travel remote control for media playback reinforce Dell's pitch that this machine is an entertainer as well. Noise isolation ear buds are included in the package. Other nifty features include indicators to find the presence of a Wi-Fi signal and also check for remaining battery strength, without turning the laptop on. The XPS M1330 packs the power of a desktop into a laptop, makes multimedia and moderate gaming possible. And, comes with varying configurations. We have no hesitation in declaring this laptop as the winner in this otherwise closely fought shootout.

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Connectivity: No. of USB Ports: 2 I Firewire: Yes IS-video: No I HDMI: Yes.