Dell just unveiled the company's first ultrabook called the XPS 13. Dell also announced that they would begin shipping the company's ultrabook to U.S. and Canada stores by next week.

The XPS 13 is Dell's first foray in the ultrabook line. Ultrabooks are defined as laptops that are thin and light in design. Despite this kind of design, these laptops are still fully high-end in terms of specifications. Other companies like Lenovo and Toshiba have already launched their own ultrabooks in the market. Ultrabooks were initially launched in order to compete with the Apple's MacBook Air. They utilized the same principle with MacBook Air which is having a stylish design and powerful features in order to attract more buyers. The launch of this ultrabook signifies Dell's attempt to reclaim their mark in the market ever since they were overshadowed by other companies like Apple and HP (Hewlett-Packard).

Dell's XPS 13 has a thinness of 18mm and weighs around 2.99 pounds. One of its distinctive features is the material used for XPS 13. Instead of utilizing aluminum, the material use was carbon fiber in order to help in heat dissipation, durability, and lessen the weight of the ultrabook. It also has a 13.3-inch display, full-sized backlit keyboard, processor of either Core i5 2467M or a i7 2637M dual-core processor with Intel HD 3000 graphics, 4GB RAM with 28GB or 256GB SSDs options. It also has 1.3-megapixel webcam, dual-array digital microphone, WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, mini Display Port, estimated battery life of 8 hours, and a headset jack. XPS 13 also has Smart Connect Technology which enables laptops to connect to the web even in sleep mode so that e-mail and social networking fees are updated. This feature could also be seen in other ultrabook models.

In this article posted in The Wall Street Journal, it discussed the good and bad points of Dell's new ultrabook. Performance and speed was considered to be good as it was able to load quickly and perform specific tasks in a quick speed. Aside from that, the physical design of XPS 13 was also given a good rate. Despite these good points, one of the things that were pointed out as bad is the ultrabook's battery life which could be a crucial factor when deciding to purchase this ultrabook. Here is an excerpt from the article:

"As noted above, battery life was disappointing. In my test, where I use full brightness, disable power-saving software, leave on the Wi-Fi, and play a loop of music, the battery on the XPS 13 lasted just under four hours, the worst I've seen on an ultrabook."

As for price and availability, Dell revealed its selling price as US$999 for a Core i5 processor model. This selling price is actually much lower than the popular Apple MacBook Air (US$300). Dell's XSP 13 will be released in North America next week and it would be available in other countries come March 2012.