Q&A: How Dell Came Up With A Solid MacBook Air Alternative With The XPS 13

I asked two  Dell executives about key elements of the new XPS 13 -- now considered one of the best lightweight laptops on the market.

I spoke with Frank Azor, one of the co-founders of Alienware and executive director/general manager of the XPS line, and Donnie Oliphant, director of XPS product marketing.

Q: Tell us about the display design. That is the reason Dell can make the 13-inch XPS about the size of an 11- or 12-inch laptop, as I understand it. (Dell's ad copy says "compared to the Apple MacBook Air 13, the XPS 13 is 23% smaller with the same size screen." See size comparison with 11 and 13-inch MacBook Air.)

Azor: We spent a long time working with our partner Sharp . We saw a lot of frameless TV displays launching into the market. So, we went to Sharp and asked how can we do what the TV guys are doing on a notebook.  And that was the focus of the program…do the Infinity Display and minimize the border around the LCD as much as possible.  And give folks an inch or an inch and a half more screen real estate compared to an 11-inch notebook today.

Oliphant:  Not quite two years ago, we had an engagement with Sharp.  That partnership with Sharp brought some key technological advantages that others don’t have yet. Sharp’s IGZO [technology] allows the super high resolution at the brightness levels [we require].

Q: How does the new display impact battery life?

Oliphant: The last generation XPS 13 had a larger 55Wh (watt hour) battery. We dropped that down to 52Wh.  We were able to increase battery life by 30 percent while reducing the overall [size] of the battery by 25 percent.   Sharp is really the magic sauce [behind the battery life]. The biggest difference is the IGZO panel.  Going from [Intel's] Haswell to the Broadwell [processor] brings us some efficiencies but the big power component that changed was the display technology.

Azor: We’re using some of the most dense lithium polymer batteries.  We put a [relatively large capacity] 52 Wh battery in a very small form factor.

Q: What about getting the weight of the chassis down?  Starting at 2.6 pounds, it weighs less than the previous-generation XPS 13, which was pretty light to begin with.

Azor: We’ve been using carbon fiber and aluminum for several years [with the previous XPS 13 model].  But we’ve learned a lot over the last three years about how to improve the quality, the yield rate in manufacturing, and optimize the process to pull out a lot of the cost [from these types of materials].  So if it wasn't for that experience, it wouldn’t be possible for us to deliver this product at that value (starting at $799).  So, a lot of the innovation occurred in just process innovation.

Note about battery life: the top-of-the-line XPS 13 touch model has a QHD+, or 3,200x1,800-pixel, display.  Dell states that battery life for that model is 11 hours for "wireless web" (aka, browsing) at 40 percent brightness. The non-touch model with the Full HD, or 1,920x1,080-pixel, display offers better battery life of "up to 15 hours" of wireless web at 40 percent brightness, according to Dell.   Some reviews are seeing run times a bit lower than Dell's, with mixed (video and productivity) tests yielding about 7-8 hours and 10-11 hours for the two models, respectively.