Dell XPS 10 review: a great business tablet with one Achilles' heel

Dell XPS 10 review: a great business tablet with one Achilles' heel

Light and slender, Dell's XPS 10 tablet computer looks like a small laptop, except the optional keyboard (not pictured) can be removed, transforming it into a pure 10.1" touch screen tablet.

We spent a couple of days using the XPS 10. Here are our first impressions.

Solid and weighty

The XPS 10 is an attractive, understated piece of kit. It feels solid and - when you choose to use it - the keyboard is pleasant and quiet, if a little undersized.

It would be nice if the keyboard had a backlight, but the large trackpad works nicely without feeling at all cramped.

Because the keyboard contains extra batteries, when you use the XPS 10 in its 'laptop' configuration, the battery life is fantastic. It'll keep going for 16+ hours, which is great if you're on a long flight or simply don't want to recharge so often.

However, the flipside of this staying power is the significant weight of the keyboard. In pure tablet mode, the Dell XPS 10 weighs in at 635g, which is slightly less than an iPad. But adding the keyboard more than doubles this to 1.3kg.

A well-connected tablet

The XPS 10 impresses with its connectivity too. The screen includes a micro-USB port and micro-SD memory card slot, as well as the dock connector for the keyboard. When the keyboard isn't attached, this doubles as an HDMI output via an adaptor, allowing you to connect an external screen when in tablet mode.

There are extra ports on the keyboard, including two USB connections and a mini-HDMI port, for hooking up screens and projectors.

The touch screen is clear and bright - even in sunlight - and allows multi-touch gestures just like a decent tablet should. It responds well when you tap and swipe, comparing favourably with other tablets in this bracket.

Adequate storage, good performance

The XPS 10 includes either 32GB or 64GB (gigabytes) of storage space. That's not a huge amount, particularly when you realise the pre-loaded software can leave as little as 16GB of usable space on the smaller-capacity model.

It is still room for lots of text documents or thousands of images. However, it would be wise to avoid downloading large video or music files, as these could eat up that space quickly.

Overall, the XPS 10's performance certainly feels snappy. Chuck in the enormous battery life and this Dell tablet starts to look like a real winner.

Is Windows RT enough?

The XPS 10's Achilles' heel is that it comes with Microsoft Windows RT, a special version of Windows designed for tablets.

The problem with Windows RT is that it can't run most standard Windows software. That means some of the programs you use in your business are unlikely to work on the XPS 10.

The tablet does come with a web browser, email software and other tools which mean it's fine for browsing the internet and using many cloud services. There's also an app store where you can download apps that will work on the tablet, although it's sparsely populated compared with competing app stores from Apple and Android.

Most usefully, the XPS 10 includes a special version of Microsoft Office, meaning you can work on Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

However, when you buy the tablet you'll get the Home & Student Edition of Office, which is not licensed by Microsoft for commercial use. As ZDNet has revealed, you'll need to buy an additional commercial license to legally use this version of Office in your business.

It's worth noting this isn't really Dell's fault. Microsoft hasn't made other versions of Office available with Windows RT. But it still seems bizarre that a tablet specifically marketed as being 'great for work and play' comes with key software that you can't legally use for work.

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