The LG Spectrum 2 takes high end specs down to a mid-level price. At $99 with contract, it has many of the same specs and features as $199 Android smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S III. The OS version is the only true disappointment for Android enthusiasts since it runs 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich rather than 4.1 Jelly Bean and LG's track record for timely OS updates hasn't been stellar.

The smartphone has a lovely 4.7" IPS display running at 1280 x 720 that's protected by Gorilla Glass. That's the same resolution as other current high end Android smartphone on the market except the full 1080p HTC Droid DNA. It runs on the usual 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU with a gig of RAM and 16 gigs of internal storage with ~11.6 gigs available for your use. Yes, there's an SDHC microSD card slot under the back cover and the 2150 mAh Lithium Ion battery is removable.

The Spectrum 2 has gotten dinged for it's bland looks, and it's not the most exciting looking phone. The front is a basic rectangle and the rubbery plastic back cover doesn't really fit the rest of the phone's design. Still, we've seen worse and at 0.36", it's not all that thick. The phone has a capable 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a fron 1.3MP video chat camera. It has 4G LTE on Verizon's network, 3G EV-DO Rev. A and GSM roaming capabilities.

Dual band WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, NFC and Qi wireless charging round out this capable phone's features. LG adds extra video playback support and the smartphone can handle WMV and DivX playback out of the box. Call quality and reception are above average and the phone pulled in very impressive upload and download speeds on Verizon Wireless' 4G LTE network in our area.

The Nokia Lumia 810 on T-Mobile may be less flashy and good looking than the HTC 8X, but it carries some serious appeal beyond its lower price tag. The Windows Phone 8 smartphone launched at $150 with contract, but is already down to $99 on the T-Mobile US website. The blocky black rectangle won't win prizes for looks or lightness but it does offer a removable battery, a microSD card slot and Nokia's strong Maps and navigation solution with free spoken directions.

The Lumia 810 is a close relative to the Nokia Lumia 822 on Verizon and the 820 on AT&T. It has a 4.3" ClearBlack AMOLED display running at a not very impressive 800 x 480 resolution. The display's colors, black levels and touch sensitivity are however impressive, and like the flagship Lumia 920 on AT&T, it works with gloves and fingernails.

Like all Windows 8 launch phones, it runs on a capable 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU with a gig of RAM. It has just 8 gigs of storage, but you can use a microSD card to store your music, videos and documents. It feels very fast, as Windows phones generally do, and it benchmarks similarly to the Nokia Lumia 920, HTC 8X and Lumia 822. The UI is super-quick, and video playback and gaming are flawless.

The Lumia 810 has dual band WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, NFC and a GPS with Glonass. It's a GSM world phone with HSPA+ 3G (T-Mobile and AT&T both refer to HSPA+ as 4G, but don't confuse it with the even faster LTE). Voice quality is very good, as we've come to expect from a Nokia phone, and the speakerphone is adequate.

The HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4 are the two Android smartphones to beat as of spring 2013. This is HTC's flagship phone and it runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with the very modern and sleek HTC Sense 5 UI. The smartphone has a 4.7" full HD Super LCD3 display that's simply one of the best on the market and it's currently the fastest phone with wonderfully high benchmark numbers. The HTC One will be available April 19 on Sprint and AT&T for $199 with contract ($299 for the 64 gig model on AT&T) and it will be available this spring from your favorite "uncarrier" T-Mobile. HTC is also selling a SIM unlocked 32 gig model as well as the SIM unlocked and bootloader unlocked 64 gig developer edition for $575 and $650 respectively. For our review, we look at the AT&T 32 gig model.

The HTC One has the new Snapdragon 600 quad core CPU clocked at 1.7GHz, 2 gigs of RAM and 32 or 64 gigs of storage. The phone has 4G LTE, dual band WiFi (including support for 802.11ac), Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, a GPS with GLONASS, a consumer IR port for AV gear control, USB OTG host, a front 2.1MP camera and a 4MP main UltraPixel camera. The HTC One supports DLNA and Miracast wireless display and it has stereo speakers with Beats (called BoomSound).

The HTC One features a unibody aluminum casing that's available silver with white accents and black, though not all carriers will offer both colors. It looks and feels like a high quality product with styling and design that equals the iPhone 5s. Simply put, this is a stunning and elegant phone. At 5 ounces it feels serious but not too heavy and the size is in line with other 4.5" to 5" smartphones. The casing is milled from a single piece of aluminum alloy, that's injection molded with polycarbonate in blank areas that allow antenna access. In fact, HTC's design and diversity antenna make for perfectly good reception despite all that RF-blocking metal. The phone has absolutely no flex and no unsightly seams. Given the thin design and conductive aluminum, the phone does get warm (sometimes quite warm) when playing 3D games like Real Racing 3. However it never overheated when playing games or recording video. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 2.

The curved back with tapered sides makes this relatively large phone feel comfortable in hand (disclosure: I'm 5' 10" and have large hands and long fingers). The fairly straight edges provide grip points so the phone won't easily slip from your fingers. The aluminum back is by no means slick and it doesn't show fingerprints. Good stuff. At its thickest point, the HTC One measures 0.36", which isn't as uber-skinny as the 0.31" Sony Xperia Z, but it is slimmer than the Nokia Lumia 920. The phone's front 2.1MP camera is located above the display as is the notification LED.

The headphone jack is up top, as is the power button that also functions as the IR window for the AV remote. The phone has a micro SIM card slot but no microSD card slot--that's right, there's no expandable storage. For those of you with large media libraries that you want to carry with you, the 64 gig developer unlocked and AT&T 64 gig versions are the ones to get. The micro USB port also supports USB OTG host (we've used it with flash drives) and MHL out for HDMI to a TV, monitor or projector. Given the sealed unibody design, the battery isn't removable. In fact, the phone is very difficult to take apart, so even adventurous types won't want to disassemble the HTC One to replace the battery.

HTC thinks different when it comes to front facing buttons, and we're not sure that's a good thing. The One has two capacitive buttons rather than the usual three: Home and Back are here but not the Menu button. The HTC Logo sandwiched between the capacitive buttons is merely a logo; it doesn't function as a button. We like capacitive buttons since screen real estate isn't taken away by on-screen equivalents, but apps that don't support Google's preferred new way of doing things will get a bottom overlay strip on-screen just for the on-screen menu button. The buttons aren't very sensitive to touch, and we sometimes had to hit a button a few times before it registered.

I could spend all kinds of words telling you just how great the HTC One's Super LCD 3 display is, but I'll cut to the chase: it's superb. Awesome. It's one of the best screens on a mobile phone. I can't imagine anyone wouldn't love it. OK, now for the specifics: it's a full 1920 x 1080 with an absurdly high 468ppi pixel density. Honestly, once we surpass the mid 300's, most eyes can't see the difference. It looks very sharp with smooth text and clean graphics. Colors are natural and balanced (more so than Super AMOLED displays) and blacks are deep. Contrast is excellent and the display looks painted on when viewed from an angle because the image doesn't degrade off axis. The ambient light sensor works well and keeps the screen fairly bright, unlike Samsung Galaxy phones whose auto-brightness is too dim for my tastes.

The HTC One and the iPhone 5 (326ppi) have two of the most impressive smartphone displays on the market (the HTC One X is no slouch either). Yes, the One has higher pixel density than the iPhone 5, but the naked eye isn't sharp enough to see the difference. Where the HTC One wins is resolution: it's significantly higher than the iPhone 5's 1136 x 640, and that higher resolution makes sense given the significantly bigger panel compared to the 4" iPhone 5. That big display feels like you've made the move from a 32" to 55" TV: it's simply capacious. Of course, you'll pay the price in the added height and width of the HTC handset.

Is the name BoomSound cool or kinda embarrassing... I'm not sure which, but I can tell you these are the best speakers you'll hear on a mobile phone. Granted, that doesn't say much since phone speakers are often meek and mono, but the front-facing stereo speakers with Beats Audio enhancement sound like a tablet or Ultrabook more than a phone. The HTC One makes my Samsung Galaxy Note II sound thin. If you listen to multimedia through speakers, you'll appreciate BoomSound and its built-in amplifiers. Oddly, the speakerphone and notification sounds aren't as impressive as multimedia audio, but they're certainly adequate and comparable to other phones.

Sound through the headphone jack is very clear and the included trendy spaghetti wire earbuds are better than average for bundled buds, though we like the richer bass in Apple's EarPods better.

The HTC One on AT&T is a quad band GSM world phone with 3G HSPA+ (which AT&T likes to call 4G) and LTE 4G. On Sprint, the One supports that carrier's CDMA network with EV-DO Rev. A 3G and LTE and it has GSM roaming. T-Mobile's version is likewise a GSM world phone with 3G and 4G LTE. So far, Verizon hasn't said they'll offer the One. All variants have a micro SIM card slot on the phone's left side, and HTC includes a SIM eject tool in the box (a paperclip works too).

Data speeds on our AT&T model in the Dallas, TX area were excellent on the carrier's LTE network. Download speeds averaged 18.5Mbps and uploads averaged 15Mbps, with download speeds as high as 33Mbps. Those are good numbers for our area. Web pages download quickly and thanks to the fast CPU, they render quickly too. The phone ships with both the older Android web browser that works with Adobe Flash Player (and yes, Flash Player is pre-installed) and the Chrome web browser. We're absolutely thrilled to have the quickly disappearing Flash Player for those videos with no HTML5 equivalent.

Call quality on our AT&T phone has been good, but not as crystal clear and loud as the Samsung Galaxy Note II, iPhone 5 and BlackBerry Z10 on the same network. Good news: our first review unit was defective and our replacement AT&T HTC One and our recently received Sprint HTC One have excellent call quality for incoming and outgoing voice.

Bluetooth behaved well with a variety of headsets and BMW built-in Bluetooth, and the bug we noted on the HTC One X+ is happily behind us. Volume is good and there were no problems with call clarity on either end.

Horsepower and Performance

Powered by a very fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad core 1.7GHz CPU with Adreno 320 graphics and 2 gigs of RAM, the One is currently the phone to beat for speed. The Samsung Galaxy S4 will soon be here with the same CPU, and will likely score similarly to the HTC One. But for now, the HTC One earns serious bragging rights with some first place benchmark scores. 

 

We had our doubts about HTC's new UltraPixel camera that's just 4 megapixels, but just as with dedicated digital camera technology, a large sensor with bigger pixels really can make a revolutionary difference, particularly for low light photography and capturing fast motion scenes. The HTC takes better low light photos that we've ever seen with a camera phone, and it rarely needs the flash. Even daylight photos hold up decently vs. the very good Nokia Lumia 920 and iPhone 5 with much higher megapixel ratings. In comparisons of daylight photos with those phones and the very good Sony Xperia Z (13MP camera with Exmor RS sensor), the HTC One's photos lacked fine detail when viewed at 100% on a PC monitor. Tiny details like the lettering on a street sign aren't as sharp and clear in the HTC One's photos, and while that won't be noticeable when viewing photos on the One's screen or after shrinking them for your next Facebook post, it does make a difference when viewing on a TV, PC screen or printing at full resolution. We also noted a slight purple tint on outdoor photos and a tendancy toward high contrast (but many folks enjoy lots of contrast). If you generally shoot photos in good lighting, you'll likely prefer the Samsung Galaxy S4, Nokia Lumia 920 and iPhone 5 cameras for their greater detail and better exposure settings. The HTC One's daylight photos often needs a little processing to improve contrast, something the built-in photo editor does well. If you're a low light shooter, you'll love the HTC One.

Switch to low light situations and the HTC One shines, and no we don't mean the flash that rarely fires. Contrast, brightness and color detail are unusually good, and even photos taken in near darkness (a wine bar, a living room at night lit by only one 60 watt bulb) had a surprising amount of detail and accurate color. Yes, the photos have noise as well, but we're hard pressed to think of any camera phone or point and shoot that wouldn't produce images with noise under the same conditions.

The camera has a fast f/2.0 lens, a backside illuminated sensor (BSI), HDR for photo and video recording, panorama sweep and a plethora of shooting features. The optical image stabilization reduces image blur and results in less video shake. It's really remarkable that most users won't notice the difference between the 4MP UltraPixel shots and those taken with today's 8-13MP camera phones.

The HTC Zoe feature shoots one 3 second video and 20 still photos that creates something like a Vine video. It's also useful if you want to pick the best shot of a rapidly moving subject. There's a separate on-screen button to start Zoe and a progress bar fills in to let you know when it's done. We also like the animations in gallery where video thumbnails play in grid view and HTC's customization of the event view where photos taken on the same day morph into a slideshow complete with a music track and special effects. You can choose from 6 presentations (visual effects plus a music track) but you can't use your own tracks or effects. Fortunately, HTC's selection is very good and that means it offers appeal even after the novelty wears off.

BlinkFeed is addictive, really. By default it's the dominant home screen, though you can swipe to the standard home screen easily enough or set another screen to be your default. I'm a purist and I don't like fluff, but in a day I let BlinkFeed live to see another day... or 10... or forever. It's a highly visual news reader (something like Flipboard and Pulse, which I also enjoy), but it also brings in your TV show schedule via HTC TV, Twitter and Facebook feeds and calendar entries. It quickly became my one stop place for things I needed and wanted to know. When the tragic events of the 2013 Boston Marathon broke, it kept me informed, just as it did for less weighty things like the next episode of Bones on TV and the latest tech tidbits. My only complaint is though it has a healthy set of news sources to choose from, you can't add your own favorite RSS news feeds. Bah.

Though Samsung has been doing consumer IR and TV remote for a while on their Android tablets, HTC TV, the relative newcomer, impresses us more than Samsung's latest on the Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet. While the Note 8.0's TV app only listed a few of the many providers in our (Dallas, TX) area, HTC had them all covered. You can use the app to control your home theatre gear including TV, AV receiver and cable box via the IR port on the top of the phone--that's both cool and rare on a smartphone but we've seen it on Sony and Samsung Android tablets (the Samsung Galaxy S4 will also have this feature). Even more appealing is the content presentation: you'll side-swipe through featured shows (based on your preferences), a TV programming grid (always useful), your own locally stored videos and scheduled shows. Scheduled shows are those that you mark as favorites, much like iTV, and it will notify you of upcoming new episodes. While HTC TV is running, picking the phone up will wake it up from sleep (you can disable this, but it's quite useful). It also has top taskbar quick access so you needn't hunt for the app every time you want to control your TV or cable box.

There's surprisingly good news here: the 2300 mAh Lithium Ion battery that's sealed inside the phone provides solid battery life. I easily made it through a full day (9am-11pm) on a single charge with moderate to somewhat heavier than moderate use that included lots of BlinkFeed checking, social networking, web surfing, streaming 30 minutes of video, playing an hour of locally stored MPEG4 HD video, talking on the phone for 30 minutes, playing Real Racing 3 for 30 minutes, controlling the home theatre gear at night and shooting 30 photos and 5 short videos. That same usage pattern killed our Sony Xperia Z by 4pm. While not quite as good as the Samsung Galaxy Note II with its huge standard battery, it's very good compared to other current high-powered smartphones with big screens and LTE 4G. HTC phones aren't fast when it comes to charging, and the HTC One is no exception. It took 4 hours to charge our phone from 10% to 100%, but it did reach 90% in 2.5 hours.

If you really like the HTC One M8 but didn't care for the aluminum casing or the flagship pricing, the HTC One E8 might be your phone. I know, the aluminum unibody design is the main reason some of you pine for the M8, and it is a classy and elegant design. But the One E feels darned good in hand, is less slippery and is a tad lighter. As of this writing, the E8 is only available on Sprint in the US, though it's sold by a variety of overseas carriers. The hardware is nearly identical to the HTC One M8, from the 2.3GHz quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with Adreno 330 graphics to the 2 gigs of RAM and the 1920 x 1080 SLCD 3 display. It has the same front 5 megapixel camera, NFC, GPS with GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.0 and dual band WiFi 802.11n (not ac according to HTC's website).

So what's different? The casing is polycarbonate and available in your choice of Polar White or Misty Gray. Instead of the 4 megapixel equivalent Ultrapixel duo camera you get a traditional 13 megapixel rear camera. The phone has 16 rather than the M8's 32 gigs of internal storage, though they both have a microSD card slot for storage expansion. Lastly, the E8 lacks the IR blaster for AV Remote control and thus there's no HTC TV app. Those concessions save you $100 on the contract and retail price compared to the M8. For those of you on GSM networks like AT&T and T-Mobile, there are GSM unlocked versions of the HTC One E8 sold by importers online, though you won't get 4G LTE.

Despite the different casing material, there's little different here from the HTC One M8. The One E8 has the same pleasingly curved back, microSD and nano SIM card slots (one slot on each side) and the power button up top. Unlike the M8, the power button on the E8 is centered and is metal since it doesn't double as the IR blaster window. From the front, you might be hard pressed to tell the E8 from the M8 since it has the same full HD 5" display and HTC BoomSound speakers flanking top and bottom. We have the gray model in for review, and I really like the soft touch back that's somehow silky yet grippy.

Voice quality has been a mixed bag on Sprint in the Dallas, TX metroplex with sometimes digitized voice, but the HTC One E8 sounded very clear and full for both incoming and outgoing voice. Sprint's network is improving and the E8 is an excellent voice phone. It supports HD Voice (when calling another Sprint HD Voice phone) and Sprint Spark that uses 3 LTE bands to channel bond for faster data speeds (AT&T and Verizon's version is xLTE). The HTC has GSM and 3G HSPA+ for world roaming and it uses a nano SIM.

Sprint shows data network improvements here as well, and even with 1 bar of LTE (in much of the metroplex that's all we got), the HTC One E8 averaged 16Mbps down and 5.6Mpbs up according to Ookla's Speedtest.net app. In one neighborhood with full bars the phone managed an incredible 75Mbps down and 12Mbps up, showing the effects of Sprint Spark.

The front 5 megapixel camera with BSI and a fast f/2.8 lens is better than most selfie cameras on the market. Again, it's identical to the M8's camera and it's a pleasure for video chat with less noise and richer colors.

The rear traditional 13MP camera with BSI, HDR and panorama mode is a selling point in my book. I'm not a great fan of HTC's duo camera and its 4MP equivalent resolution. Yes, it does well in low light settings thanks to the larger sensor sites, but the resolution is too low for anything but small format presentations and cropping results in noisy or watercolor-ish photos. The 13Mp rear camera still has some typical HTC flaws such as blown out highlights in bright sunlight, but overall it captured good detail, rendered pleasing colors and was quick to focus. It's not the best camera on the market; the LG G3, Samsung Galaxy S5 and higher end Nokia Lumia models like the Lumia 930/Lumia Icon and Lumia 1020 do a better job, but the One E8's camera is pretty good. It can record 1080p (but not 4k) video and has a white LED flash rather than the two-tone flash on the M8.

The One E8 runs Android 4.4 KitKat with HTC Sense 6 software, just like the M8. As ever, we really like HTC's light touch that's refreshing compared to Samsung TouchWiz and LG's heavy remaking of Android's UI. The phone has HTC BlinkFeed for news and social networking as the leftmost home screen, and HTC Zoe that creates a short video from shots taken on a given day with music and visual effects.

Again, just like the One M8, the E8 has a 2600 mAh Lithium Ion battery that's sealed inside, and battery life is very good compared to today's flagship smartphones with big screens and fast CPUs. We had no problem making it through the day with heavy use and averaged 1.5 days per charge with moderate use. Should you need extra staying power, there are micro USB battery packs that can top up the battery.

The Dell XPS 12 joins the short list of Windows 8 convertible tablet-Ultrabooks to hit the market after that new OS launched in late October. The XPS 12 started shipping in December 2012, and it has everything you love about the XPS line mated to the older Dell Duo's easel-mounted touchscreen. The build is extremely solid, upscale and attractive with Dell's signature carbon fiber surfaces (top and bottom this time), an aluminum frame and soft-touch painted magnesium wrist rest. Unlike the Dell Inspiron Duo, this isn't a plasticky netbook with a touchscreen, but a premium ultraportable that starts at $1,199. It features third generation Intel Core i5 and i7 ULV CPUs, 4 to 8 gigs of RAM and fast SSD drives. The XPS 12 runs both the Modern UI with Live Tiles and the traditional desktop with support for Windows 7 programs (x86, .exe apps).

Other goodies include an excellent island style backlit keyboard that's every bit as wonderful to use as the XPS 13's, a 1.3MP webcam, dual band Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 WiFi (compatible with WiDi) and Bluetooth 3.0.

The XPS 12 has a lovely 12.5" full HD IPS touchscreen with 400 nits brightness and Gorilla Glass. It has wide viewing angles, extremely sharp text and pleasing colors. 1920 x 1080 means 1080p videos play without scaling and photos look very detailed. Windows 8's new Live Tile interface scales perfectly on high res displays, keeping everything the same readable and touchable size as they'd be on 720p displays, but the desktop UI (the other half of Windows 8 that looks much like Windows 7) still suffers from shrunken touch targets and text. You can scale fonts on the Windows desktop side of things, and Dell wisely ships it set to 125% zoom, as does Sony with their Vaio Duo 11 that runs full HD on an even smaller 11.6" display.

The laptop weighs 3.35 pounds, which is heavier than the 2.89 lb. Vaio Duo 11 but a little lighter than both the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 and 12.5" Lenovo ThinkPad Twist convertibles. It's easy to hold and grip thanks to the carbon fiber finish and is fine for use on a table or lap. At twice the weight of the iPad and Android 10" tablets, you won't be holding it in your hands for an hour of reading unless you're a body builder.

The styling and looks are pure XPS, and that's a good thing. We really like the XPS line's attention to detail, good build quality and high quality materials. It feels rugged and strong without looking bulky or ungainly. Quite the opposite, it looks slim and sleek with modern lines.

The tablet has two USB 3.0 ports, a mini DisplayPort (more versatile than HDMI since you can use adapters for VGA, HDMI and DisplayPort for ultra-high resolution monitors) and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. Like the XPS 13, there's no SD card slot. The tablet's power button is on the side, as is the display rotation lock button and volume rocker so you can access these even when the tablet is closed. There are multimedia controls including volume on the Fn row of the keyboard as well.

The side mounted stereo speakers put out clear sound that's lacking in bass, as you'd expect from a small computer. Volume was loud enough to fill a small room and was fine for watching a feature length film on Netflix. There's a 3.5mm stereo jack for higher quality audio output and/or private listening, and you can use Bluetooth headphones and speakers as well.

The 1.3MP webcam yielded bright and relatively detailed video in Skype and the built-in dual array mics did a good job of picking up our voice.

Third generation Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 and i7 ULV CPUs power the machine, with Intel HD 4000 graphics. In other words, it's a standard Ultrabook. The base model has the usual 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U, 4 gigs of DDR3 1600MHz RAM and a 128 gig Samsung PM830 SSD drive. For a pricey $1,699 you can get it with the 1.9GHz Intel Core i7-3517U ULV CPU, 8 gigs of RAM and a 256 gig SSD. You can also order it in a variety of in-between configurations, like the tempting $1,499 Core i5 with a 256 gig SSD and 8 gigs of RAM. While the performance gain of the Core i7 isn't huge, many of us will be tempted by more storage space. The 4 gig model uses single channel RAM and the 8 gig uses a dual channel configuration for a slight speed boost.

The XPS 12's performance is in line with other Windows Ultrabooks running on the same hardware. Our Core 1.7GHz i5 unit with 4 gigs of RAM performed similarly to the Asus Taichi 21, Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A and Sony Vaio Duo 11. The machine feels responsive and is more than adequate for Office, web, streaming video, photo editing and light video editing. It has the power to be a main machine unless you do a lot of heavy lifting with computationally intensive applications or lots of HD video editing. Clearly, with Intel HD 4000 graphics, this isn't a gaming rig, though it can play older games and casual games perfectly well.

Dell Ultrabooks tend to be a little noisier than other Ultrabooks, as are some Lenovo machines. Dell builds corporate products that are built to last years, and we suspect their cooling errs on the side of longevity. That said, the CPU runs in the 40's Centigrade, which isn't unusually cool. Fan noise isn't bad at all when the XPS 12 is unplugged, but when plugged into power you'll hear the fan more often at moderate volume. Thanks to the carbon fiber casing, the laptop doesn't get too hot to touch, even when working moderately hard.

 

Like the XPS 13, the XPS 12 has a superb island style keyboard that's a joy for those of us who spend a lot of time writing. The sculpted keys keep your fingers located and there's good key separation along with better than average travel for a thin machine. The white backlighting is effective and it has three levels (off, medium and bright). The XPS and Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga have the best keyboards in the convertible Ultrabook space.

The keyboard has a standard layout with the expected oversized keys for both shift keys, backspace, enter, caps lock and the tab key. There's a small arrow pad and the Fn row up top does double duty with multimedia and notebook control keys (you'll have to hit the Fn key to use functions like volume and wireless control).

The Cypress trackpad is fairly large for a 12.5" machine and gestures such as side swipes to bring up the Charms menu and multi-tasking list worked fine, as did pinch zooming. Given the touch screen, we suspect most folks will use touch rather than the trackpad for Windows 8's grand gestures and zooming. Though the trackpad visually blends into the wrist rest area, its texture is smoother than the soft touch wrist rest area and the border is physically distinct so your finger won't unwittingly wander off. The trackpad uses the now standard buttonless design where the entire trackpad moves down and up with an audible click when you left or right click.

So far, Windows 8 convertible Ultrabooks haven't had stellar battery life. That said, the Dell XPS 12 leads this lackluster pack with 5 hours and 30 minutes of runtime on a charge with average use at 50% brightness. In our test we edit MS Office documents with Outlook running in the background, stream HD video for 45 minutes, surf the web with 8 tabs open and play music for 30 minutes. The Dell comes out ahead of the Vaio Duo 11 (not including the Vaio's optional sheet battery) by 30 minutes and lasted a full two hours longer than the Asus Taichi 21. It also outlasted the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 (which admittedly drives a larger display) by 35 minutes.