A week with a Dell XPS 1210

I took a Dell XPS 1210 to Europe with me last week and I have to say I like it.  I wasn’t sure I would but after using it, I am pretty pleased.  A guy I know in IT loaned it to me as a stop gap measure – I had told him I wanted a Mac because I concluded the XPS 1330 wouldn’t work for me (no docking station).  He told me we would be getting some new Dell Lattitude E series machines in a couple months and he thought the 4300 would be what I’d want and he would loan me a 1210 until the new E series were available.  I decided it was pretty low risk for me so he sent it out.

The machine he sent me is a 1210 with 2GB RAM, an 80GB disk and WinXP (I have been running Vista).  The first thing I did was upgrade it to XP SP3 and then I went and bought a 250GB disk for it and Ghosted the image over to it.  I also installed VMWare Player and moved the VM I am using for my wp-swimteam plugin development over to it.

The battery life is wonderful, the best I have ever had in a laptop.  The machine is pretty peppy as well.  It hasn’t gone off in the weeds on me at all like my HP tends to do.  I used it on flights to and from as well as within Europe last week and I am happy with the smaller form factor – it isn’t such a struggle to use it on an airplane like my HP can be.  When someone leans their seat back (which they should never do except on a red-eye), I can still work.  I can’t with my HP.

At this point I am going to use it until the Dell Lattitude E series are out and then make my decision.  I am still intrigued by the Mac but being on our corporate standard also has some benefits.

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