We first got acquainted with Dell's ultra-thin XPS 14z at the IFA 2011 fair in Berlin earlier this year, but now the company has finally announced this new notebook that will start shipping in the US on November 1st .
The XPS 14z is actually the second laptop to be released by Dell in its new series of ultra-thin notebooks after the introduction of the XPS 15z.
Dell has built this new product range to continue from where Adamo has left off, so it includes a series of design choices meant to make these laptops a lot more compact than their competitors.
One of the most important of these is the inclusion of an LG's Shuriken display, which narrows the bezel to the point that the XPS 14z fits inside a chassis the same dimension as that used by 13.3-inch notebooks.
The compact aluminum chassis used by Dell was also designed to be extra thin and I would say that the company managed pretty well to turn this into a reality as the XPS 14z measures no more than 0.9 inches (about 22.8mm) in thickness.
Despite the thin chassis, Dell managed to install some pretty high-end hardware in its latest creation as users have the choice of opting from various Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors, seconded by as much as 8GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GT 520M 1GB graphics card with support for the Optimus technology and a slot-loading DVD burner.
Storage is provided by 7200RPM hard drives with up to 750GB of storage space, or SSD with a maximum capacity of 256GB, while the 8-cell battery can provide up to six hours and 49 minutes of runtime.
“When Dell looks at innovation and product development, we start with the customer. For us, it’s about delivering the right feature-set and design to provide the best user experience for our customers,” said Sam Burd, vice president of Dell’s Consumer and Small/Medium Business product group.
“With the XPS 14z, our challenge was to build a laptop that provided customers the performance and portability that they need, with the design and finish they desire,” concluded the company's rep.
The XPS 14z will be available in US and Canada starting November 1st with a base price of $999, about 712 Euros, while worldwide availability is scheduled for November 15.
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