Dell XPS 10 review

Windows RT includes Microsoft’s Office productivity suite, which is great for getting work done on the move, but there’s very little else bundled with the tablet and you must use the Windows Store to download apps. There are a few notable apps at present, including Skype, Dropbox and Fresh Paint, but it’ll be a while until there’s a huge selection from which to choose. It’s worth noting that desktop apps (ie. anything not from the Windows Store, which was intended for traditional x86 PCs) won’t run on the ARM-based tablet, so you’re reliant on the Windows Store for software.

The 5-megapixel rear camera isn’t particularly adept at taking high quality stills. The test shots we took were filled with noise and it struggled in both bright light and dark rooms, losing a lot of detail unless we found the perfect balance. It’s no replacement for a digital camera.

For everyday use, the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor is well suited to Windows RT. The dual-core chip runs at 1.5GHz and handled all the RT apps we installed from the Windows Store, including 3D games. It can also play HD video smoothly although, without an official benchmark that runs across all operating systems, it’s difficult to give a direct comparison to Android and iOS devices. The XPS 10 completed the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark in 954.8ms, which puts it roughly on par with the fastest Android smartphones, but still significantly behind Intel and AMD-based laptops.

With two separate batteries, assuming you dock the tablet with the keyboard, we were expecting good things from the XPS 10 in our video playback test. It didn’t disappoint, lasting an incredible 20 hours in combined mode, making it a far better buy than the Surface RT if a keyboard dock and long battery life are important to you. By itself the tablet managed eight hours and 35 minutes hours from a single charge – 2 hours down on the Surface RT.

The plastic construction of the XPS 10 doesn’t feel as high quality as the Microsoft device, but the superior keyboard dock and stunning combined battery life make it a better choice if you’re looking for a modern take on a netbook as much as a tablet. The better keyboard and battery life (by four hours) put this just ahead of the Asus VivoTab RT.

We think Windows RT is currently too limited to replace a laptop completely – simply due to the limited selection of apps on offer. Buty, if you’re looking primarily for a tablet, then the Surface RT is stil the obvious choice, the XPS 10 is an alternative, but you should also seriously consider a full-blooded Windows 8 device such as the Acer Iconia W700.