The "new" low end xps 13 looks like it starts around $800. Macbook Air is roughly in the same ballpark. For my purposes, the raw tech/price specs were not enough to matter.
My old xps 13 dev had a higher resolution screen, but it ended up being more of a problem than a bonus, mainly due to the inability of most of the ubuntu ecosystem to scale gui elements well. I could go on in more detail on this, but the fact is that Apple chose an even multiple for pixel scaling in retina displays (so non-retina apps can simply be displayed at effectively at twice normal size). In FullHD, some manner of fractional scaling must be employed on a 13" screen, and it needs to be done across the OS gui elements, as well as the rest of the app ecosystem in order for it to look right. I don't believe Ubuntu has this completely covered yet. In Ubuntu's defense, I haven't seen a fractional pixel scaling done "right" in a desktop environment (e.g. Windows 8).
My old xps 13 dev had a higher resolution screen, but it ended up being more of a problem than a bonus, mainly due to the inability of most of the ubuntu ecosystem to scale gui elements well. I could go on in more detail on this, but the fact is that Apple chose an even multiple for pixel scaling in retina displays (so non-retina apps can simply be displayed at effectively at twice normal size). In FullHD, some manner of fractional scaling must be employed on a 13" screen, and it needs to be done across the OS gui elements, as well as the rest of the app ecosystem in order for it to look right. I don't believe Ubuntu has this completely covered yet. In Ubuntu's defense, I haven't seen a fractional pixel scaling done "right" in a desktop environment (e.g. Windows 8).
As far as the opening/closing issue goes (as well as the other small fit and finish nits), this Forbes article mentions these details as well on the latest xps 13: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2015/01/26/dell-x...