It's a far cry from the XPS 13's über-cool carbon fiber bottom casing, its coy weave subtly exposed to the world. Here, now, is a large rubberized pad upon which the laptop sits, surrounded by a slightly elevated soft-touch ring with slots on the front for the speakers and on the back for the (unfortunately noisy) CPU ventilation. From above, then, this looks just like a bigger 13, but flip it over and things change.

The lid is a similar aluminum design with the glossy, embossed Dell logo again stuck square in the middle and standing out as the least aesthetically pleasing part of this package. It's largely the same clean, simple visual language here. The feeling for the XPS 14 is, unsurprisingly, much the same, but this is not the 10 percent scaled-up clone you might be expecting. The attention to design was obvious in every facet of the thing - except for the decidedly low-rent power brick that came along for the ride. It was a sleek, finely hewn husk of aluminum nestled inside of a dark, sophisticated box.

We were kind of blown away when unboxing the XPS 13. Look and feel This is not the 10 percent scaled-up clone you might be expecting.

Dell xps 13 2012 loud