Pros: Lightweight, compact, good battery life
Cons: Annoying port and jack configurations, Vista
The bottom line: Dell has finally caught on and made a laptop with appealing specs as well as an eye catching design.
I bought this new dell laptop after my 4 year old inspiron couldn't handle life anymore. I'm a college student, and the main reason I chose this laptop was because of its compact size, lightweight, and long battery life(if you chose the largest battery). I love how it's lighter than most of my textbooks and bringing it to class to take notes on is no hassle at all.

The build quality of dell notebooks seems to have improved drastically from my first dell purchase. Unlike my old inspiron, on the XPS there doesn't seem to be anywhere that a screw could loosen causing the whole laptop to fall apart(true story). One feature that is really nice is how the larger battery lifts the back of the laptop up creating better ventilation and creating a more comfortable typing position. The touch sensitive buttons are nice, but it's a pain to navigate them in the dark as you can't feel for them.

I have owned this laptop for 9 months and only have three complaints thus far. The immediately noticeable flaw to me was that the ports for the charger, ethernet, USB and everything else are on the left hand side of the laptop rather than in the back. It's a pain to have the cables running across the desk if your outlet is near the right side. Also, the headphone jack is at the front which is seemingly a good idea, but you'll soon realize what a pain it is. Secondly, a few of the keys have started to squeak when you press on them. Thirdly, this laptop is only available with vista. I can't stand being asked if I'm sure every time I want to delete a folder or disable my wireless network.

Overall I am very happy with my purchase, it serves me well for all of my needs.