The more Ultrabooks that get unveiled here at CES, the more convinced I am that it’s silly to discuss them as if they were a coherent new class of portable computer. No two manufacturers seem to agree on what an Ultrabook should be. That’s neat, since it means they’re experimenting. And on Tuesday, Dell introduced my favorite answer so far to the question “What is an Ultrabook?” in the form of its new XPS 13.

The company is an old hand at building laptops that aim for a MacBook-air level of wafer-thin panache, having first tried its hand at the idea back in 2009 with its first Adamo. But the XPS 13 looks way better than the rather odd Adamos–and it doesn’t look much like a MacBook Air at all.

Closed, it’s only a slosh larger than 11.6″ version of the MacBook Air, a machine which, while neat, has a display that’s decidedly on the dinky size. Open the XPS up, though, and you see that it’s got a much more spacious 13.3″ screen. Dell says that the display is frameless” and “edge-to-edge.” That’s pushing the facts of the matter a bit, but the border is thin, allowing for the incorporation of a surprisingly big screen in a highly portable form factor. It also uses Corning’s Gorilla Glass, which protects it from damage and helps to reduce flex.

The system weighs in at just 2.99 pounds and is three-quarters of an inch thick; it has an aluminum lid and a carbon-fiber bottom. (The use of carbon fiber makes the XPS pleasant to hold and helps keep it cool, a plus if you do indeed use your laptop in your lap.) It has a backlit keyboard and a roomy touchpad, and you’ll be able to order it with an Intel  i7 processor and up to 256GB of solid-state storage, uncommonly powerful options for such a diminutive machine.

Like Apple (and unlike some other Ultrabook makers) Dell chose to cut down on the number of ports to make the XPS thin and small. It’s got one USB 3.0 port, one USB 2.0 one, and Mini DisplayPort, but there’s no built-in HDMI or slot for SD cards.

In person, this is an impressive computer. The fit and finish on the one I saw when Dell recently demoed the machine for me was impeccable, and the design elements just all come together in a manner that’s worthy of comparing to Apple even though there’s nothing particularly Apple-like about the aesthetics. It’s a computer that comes off as being comfortable in its own skin.

Pricing for the XPS 13 starts at $999–which seems reasonable given its posh feel–and Dell plans to ship it in late February.

Here are the ratings for 2011, on a scale of 100. (Unfortunately, there are some major players that it doesn’t have specific data for, such as Lenovo, Sony, and Toshiba–they’re part of “All Others.”)

Trends are more interesting than any one point in time, so here are the ACSI’s PC scores from 1995 to the present.

The chart shows everyone edging up a skosh compared to 2010, but the ACSI folks say that statistically, it’s a wash: Everybody did about as well as they did last year. That still amounts to an all-time high, which is better than a meaningful decline–and it leaves Apple with a clear lead, and everyone else squeezed together.

I can’t look at these numbers without thinking back to the ten years or so that I helped put together PC World’s Reliability and Service study, another project that involves ranking PC companies based on data collected from real people. The data-collection and analysis techniques are different, as are some of the broad pieces of takeaway. But the historical trend has been very comparable: Back in the 1990s, Dell was a leader and Apple was an also-ran. Along the way, Dell lost its reputation for great customer service and Apple earned one.

In the case of the ACSI, I don’t know a lot about the methodology, so I can’t say what specifically accounts for Apple’s rise. But I’d tend to think it reflects everything–the return of Steve Jobs, the growing popularity of iMacs and MacBooks, the introduction of the Apple Stores and their Genius Bars, and the general halo effect that almost everything Apple does has these days.

Over the past year or so, there seems to be less talk out there about the dreaded Apple Tax–the pointless extra dollars that Mac users supposedly line Apple’s pockets with compared to their friends and neighbors who buy Windows PCs. The “tax” is usually calculated based on a comparison of specs–how much you pay for a machine with a particular CPU, quantity of RAM, hard drive size, and so forth. Sometimes (but not by any means always) a similar-sounding Windows PC costs a lot less than a Mac.

I am, of course, a fan of beefy specs. But I’d love seeing proponents of the Apple Tax theory try to defend it in the wake of studies like this. If Mac owners are meaningfully happier overall than Windows PC ones, mightn’t it be a sign that you can’t compare computers on specs alone–and that the price you pay for a Mac is not unreasonable given the overall experience that you get in return? If Macs and Windows PCs are essentially identical, someone needs to tell Dell, HP, and Acer owners to start enjoying their systems more. And the rest of the industry needs to get to work building MacBook Air -like Windows laptops that cost no more than the Air does.

(Here I must pause to acknowledge the fact that some people will believe that happy Mac owners are brainwashed cult members who have been tricked by a wily Apple into believing themselves to be contented customers. The saps!)

So how can the rest of the industry narrow Apple’s lead, short of building nationwide chains of Acer, Dell, and HP stores?

The general consensus is that the Streak 5 was too big to be a good phone and too small to be a good tablet, but I’m not convinced of that argument. Phone makers have successfully made 4.3-inch screens desirable, and are now pushing toward 4.5 inches with the Samsung Infuse 4G and rumored HTC Holiday. And whenever I write about 7-inch tablets, I’m shocked by the number of commenters who want to use them as phones. I think there’s a niche for oversized handsets. Dell just failed to capture it. In hindsight, it’s easy to see why.

No clear identity: Although Dell called the Streak a tablet, AT&T treated it like a phone, requiring two years of voice and data service to get the Streak’s subsidized $300 price tag. Best Buy also buried the Streak among its smartphones. Dell and its partners needed a clearer marketing message to sell the Streak 5 to the masses.

A messy launch: As I wrote for PC World more than a year ago, mixed messages marred the Streak 5′s launch. The unlocked price was $50 higher than Dell had originally announced, the launch date was repeatedly pushed back, and the voice plan requirement came out of nowhere. Dell also waited until the last minute to debunk rumors that the Streak would be available on T-Mobile, angering a subsection of users who were waiting to buy the device on their carrier of choice.

Moldy Android: The Streak 5 launched with Android 1.6 at a time when most phones were getting Android 2.1 or higher, resulting in a sluggish interface compared to newer devices. An upgrade to Android 2.2 didn’t land until November of last year.

Dell has since launched a 7-inch Streak worldwide and a 10-inch Streak in China only, but in a market flooded with Android tablets in those sizes, the 5-inch Streak was the most unique in Dell’s portfolio. It’s a shame the company couldn’t make it work.

I’m not making any predictions about what’s going to happen at either company–except to note that lack of change is usually a more likely outcome than change in these situations, at least in the short term. But the stories got me thinking about the durability of many of the top executives in tech companies. I decided to graph out the management of a few major corporations.

This chart starts in 1975 and all the companies included have been around since at least the mid 1980s; the bars for each executive indicate that person’s tenure as president, CEO, and/or chairman of the board. (Click on the graphic for a larger, more legible version.)

For several reasons, it’s hard to grind this stuff down into an infographic. The roles of president, CEO, and chairman can vary wildly from company to company. (For instance, Steve Jobs was chairman of the board of Apple in the early 1980s and deeply involved with his company’s everyday management; Bill Gates is chairman of the board of Microsoft now, and isn’t.) I may have missed some folk who should be here–I’m not an expert on the changing of the guard at Oracle and HP.

Overall, though, I’m struck by how many major figures in the industry have stuck around for most of the history of the industry. In 1984, when the PC business was still just getting going, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, Chuck Geschke, John Warnock, and Mike Lazaridis were all running the companies they’d founded. And in 2011 they all still have posts at those corporations, although some (Gates, Geschke, Warnock) are chairman of the board and removed from day-to-day affairs.)

The day will come when none of the people currently running these companies are involved with them in any way. But I bet it won’t come soon. Chances are pretty decent that some of them will hit forty years of service–I wonder if anyone will make it to a half-century?

Others, however, aren’t so sure that these newfangled gadgets are here for the long haul. In “Why Tablets Are Just a Fad” (a story that’s been widely, um, commented on), PCWorld’s Katherine Noyes says she doesn’t like ‘em–especially the iPad–and believes that everyone else will come around to her way of thinking:

It’s no secret that I am not an Apple fan, as its devices are so closed and restrictive. For that reason, I’d be far more inclined to look at Android tablets such as the Motorola Xoom–which, I should add, could certainly be useful in niche applications such as health care and inventory control.

For my purposes, though, I just can’t be bothered. I see no reason to own a tablet, and fully expect them to fade out of the mainstream over the next few years.

Meanwhile, Microsoft research and strategy head Craig Mundie has what seems to be a more nuanced–but still skeptical–take on tablets:

Speaking at a lunch held in Sydney by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), Mundie, who reports directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, said he did not know whether tablets like the iPad would “remain with us or not”.

Mundie said he believed the smartphone “as it emerges more will become your most personal computer”, while laptops would occupy a space he dubbed the “portable desk”.

“I think there’s an important distinction – and frankly one we didn’t jump on at Microsoft fast enough – between mobile and portable,” he said.

“Mobile is something that you want to use while you’re moving, and portable is something that you move and then use.

“These are going to bump into one another a little bit and so today you can see tablets and pads and other things that are starting to live in the space in between. Personally I don’t know whether that space will be a persistent one or not.”

As quoted, Mundie’s remarks are a tad murky: I’m not sure whether he’s drawing a distinction between tablets and pads; whether the reference to “in between” means in between tablets and pads or in between phones and PCs; or exactly which types of products fall into the space whose persistence he’s unsure about. To me, the most interesting thing about his sound bites is that he says that the smartphone “will become your most personal computer”–we’re entering new territory when a Microsoft bigwig suggests that something other than a traditional PC is the most important PC.

Then there’s Dell marketing honcho Andy Lark, who has a different perspective: He likes tablets but thinks that business users will reject the iPad as too pricey and limited:

“We’ve taken a very considered approach to tablets, given that the vast majority of our business isn’t in the consumer space,” he said. “[A company] like Samsung has to aggressively go after their business, but we’ve got a far more diversified footprint than some of these players.”

The cost of Apple products was another deterrent to iPad deployments, with Lark claiming that a the economics on a fully kitted iPad did not add up.

“An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600; that’s double of what you’re paying,” he claimed. “That’s not feasible.”

I’m not a big fan of the acronym FUD, but in this case, it’s exactly what Lark is spreading. Even if a company bought a 64GB iPad with 3G, a leather case, and a keyboard, it would add up to $967, not $1500 or $1600. And as for an iPad mouse…well, I’m not sure what Lark is talking about. It’s kind of like he’s only read stories about Apple’s tablet published before the iPad existed.

Oh, and Dell’s approach to tablets for the enterprise is so “considered” that when you go to Dell.com, click on “For Large Enterprise,” and then select “Laptops & Tablets,” you go to a page with laptops. But no tablets.

So what’s your take?

Dell's new XPS 15

Release dates for Dell’s refreshed XPS laptops have turned into a moving target, and all the specs haven’t been quite clear. Yet Dell on Tuesday suddenly announced immediate US availability for both the 15- and 17-inch models, along with a finalized feature set that now officially includes 3D video.

In a Dell press briefing session I attended during CES in January, Alison Gardner, a Dell product manager, sketched out new features for “AV enthusiasts”–such as JBL speakers and MAXXAudio 3–and for “immersive multimedia.”

Dell asked reporters to hold off on publishing stories about the new notebooks pending a formal announcement then slated for February 20. Yet Dell’s Lionel Menchaca detailed some preliminary specs–for the XPS 17 only–in a blog posted on Dell’s Web site, also during the week of CES.

Sure enough, while Dell’s formal announcement on February 20 didn’t happen, a follow-up blog post by Menchaca on February 22 made it clear that both the XPS 17 and XPS 15 will indeed offer previously outlined features such as Sandy Bridge Dual Core i3/i5/i7 processors; NVidia Optimus graphics options for the i7 versions; USB 3.0 ports; Skype-certified HD Webcams; a “full Stage experience” on all panels; and the aforementioned high-end audio.

In his post on Tuesday, Menchaca added some new information to the previously intimated facts about XPS. Somewhat vaguely, he mentioned support for “a range of Sandy Bridge or Huron River CPU options: i3/i5/i7. Dual core and Quad core.” Huron River, Intel’s mobile platform, integrates Sandy Bridge, but the two are not one and the same.

Menchaca also spoke on Tuesday of a new panel on the 17-inch model that “brings 3D capability with a 1920-by-1080 screen.”  When used with the new optionally available 1920-by-1080 screen and a 3GB NVidia GeForce GT 555, the XPS 17 can deliver “new levels of performance in 2D and especially 3D gaming, and beyond,” according to the Dell blogger.

In a statement e-mailed to me soon afterward that same day, a Dell spokesperson dubbed the XPS 17 “the first laptop to integrate 3DTV play software for 3D Blu-ray playback, gaming and photos.” The XPS 15 also offers an option for a WLED (1920-by-1080) screen, she said.

Just last week, a Dell insider told me that Dell planned to postpone its XPS announcements from February 20 to March 15–or even later–due to “the problems with Intel’s chips.”

But things can change fast in laptop land. In the announcement released through Menchaca’s blog on Tuesday, he also alluded to chipset snares, but he strongly suggested that Dell has found workarounds.

“[One] thing to make clear is that all configurations of the new XPS 15 and 17 feature updated hardware from Intel that is not affected by the chipset issue,” he wrote.

Menchaca linked his blog to earlier reports detailing Intel’s plans for a mid-February release of new chips to replace Intel 6 Series (“Cougar Point”)– a chipset supporting Sandy Bridge — in mid-February, due to the that can interfere with SATA connectivity between PCs and other devices.

Earlier this month, Menchaca said that the Cougar Point problems hare impacted four already available Dell products – the XPS 8300, Vostro 460, Alienware M17x R3 and Alienware Aurora R3 – along with planned products such as a 3D edition of XPS.

Although Dell’s statements on Tuesday answer a lot of questions, they raise some more. However, more clarification about Intel chipsets and 3D options for XPS laptops will undoubtedly emerge from Dell as future days unfold.

As Dell delves more deeply into smartphones, the veteran PC maker is aiming its Android phones mostly at consumers, said Matt Christiansen, a Dell senior training analyst, in an interview at the event. The Venue Pro, on the other hand, is targeted at businesses, as well as at long-time RIM BlackBerry customers, other major users of texting, and anyone who is brand new to smartphones.

In checking out the Venue, Streak 5, and Venue Pro side-by-side, I found that the Venue is meaningfully lighter to hold and carry than either of the existing phones. Indeed, the lack of a keyboard subtracts extra baggage of around 30 grams, leaving the Venue with a total weight of around 160 grams, or about 5.6 ounces, Christiansen estimated. In contrast, the Streak 5 tips the scales at about 220 grams, or 7.8 ounces. Dell’s display at the event didn’t include the company’s first phone, the Android-driven Aero.

Aside from the presence of the QWERTY keyboard on the Venue Pro and its absence on the Venue, the only really major difference between these two devices is the interface. While the Android-based Streak 5 and the new Venue use Stage, the Venue Pro is outfitted with a purely Windows Phone 7 interface.

Actually, the version of Stage appearing on the Venue and Streak is a smaller subset of the tile-based Stage UI now gracing Dell consumer PCs such as the Inspiron One 23, a Windows 7 all-in-one. The smartphone edition of Stage includes only around 10 widgets. Specifically, the widgets give you direct touch access to things like Google searches, social networking sites, personal photo and music galleries, and e-mail.

My own favorite is the e-mail widget, which lets you manage up to five mailboxes in a single place. Instead of navigating around to multiple sites such as Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail to see all the mail that’s arrived in your various mailboxes, you can view it all in Stage, just by touching on icons that you’ve linked to the mailboxes. You can compose and reply to mail in the same space, too. Stage will also alert you to incoming mail.

For internal use among its employees, though, Dell picked the Venue Pro when deciding to replace its BlackBerries. Dell staffers are accustomed to using a physical keyboard for texting, Christiansen told me. Also, like many other enterprises, Dell uses Microsoft Exchange messaging servers. Christiansen suggested that, beyond those factors, some new smartphone initiates might prefer the Windows Phone 7 UI, since it’s based on the familiar Windows model and the tiles are bigger than those in Stage.

As I saw during my hands-on, at 4.1-inches, the screen of the Venue (and Venue Pro) is practically a full inch smaller than the Streak 5’s 5-inch display. Although both are without the Streak 5’s front-facing camera for videoconferencing, the Venue phones fit more comfortably into your hand.

Especially on the new Venue, Dell makes savvy use of the side panels. Unlike Acer’s Liquid Metal smartphone, the Venue isn’t equipped with the convenience of a message and battery status indicator on the top panel. But through a button on the left-hand panel you can unobtrusively put the ringer into silent mode, without having to take the phone out of your pocket,

In addition, on both Venue phones, the right-hand panel contains another two mechanisms, one for volume and the other for accessing the rear-facing camera–an 8 megapixel (MP) camera in the case of the Venue, and a 5 MP model for the Venue Pro.

Some critics have contended that the AMOLED screen used on the two Venues phones doesn’t produce all that much brightness. But during my hands-on session, Web pages and apps certainly seemed to show up brilliantly enough.

Other features of Dell’s new Venue smartphone include a 1 GHz Qualcomm QSD825 processor, 512 MB of RAM, a MicroSD card slot, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

For the moment, at least, the Streak 5 is available on both T-Mobile and AT&T in the US, whereas the Venue Pro is available only for T-Mobile. Christiansen declined to comment on rampant speculation that the Venue Pro might also appear on AT&T. Dell hasn’t yet announced a carrier, pricing, or release date for the Android-based Venue.

Dell Streak 7

T-Mobile USA has rolled out new tablets from Dell and LG, a new USB stick for upping end users’ access times, and intends to double the speed of its underlying network, all in the face of intensifying 4G wireless competition from Verizon, Sprint and AT&T.

In announcing the availability of the Android 2.2-based Dell Streak 7 tablet over the next few weeks during a CES news conference, T-Mobile also gave quick sneak peeks at a second tablet, dubbed the G Slate, and the new speed stick from ZTE.

At a press reception afterward on Thursday night, I did a bit of hands-on with the Streak 7, while getting perspectives from a couple of T-Mobile engineers about how T-Mobile’s network stacks up against the rivals.

The G Slate and new 42 Mbps USB speed stick were both absent at the reception, however. A spokesperson told me that T-Mobile is keeping both devices away from close-up scrutiny for the moment, since the gear is still under development. The G Slate is T-Mobile’s emerging version of LG’s Honeycomb tablet.

As you might expect, the Streak 7 looks like a jumbo edition of Dell’s Streak 5 phone-tablet. If you like a larger screen, you’ll obviously get that in the Streak 7, but the Streak 7 lacks the Streak 5’s voice calling capabilities.

The Streak 7 sports a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, Swype navigation, and rear- and front-facing cameras. The front-facing camera supports Qik video conferencing.

The Android-based tablet also supports Android Market, of course, although T-Mobile only loaded the Streak with a few applications for the press demos, including Angry Birds and a T-Mobile user access test app.

The touch screen seemed admirably responsive when I used it to play around with Android Market and the test app. In test results, I came up with 3103 Kbps on the downlink and 1143 Kbps on the uplink over T-Mobile’s existing network.

Brian Olsen, a senior technology engineer at T-Mobile, told me that test results had been better earlier in the day, but that latency seemed to be increasing with the convergence of more and more techies upon Las Vegas.

Notably, though, elsewhere in and around CES, people keep complaining that the wireless networks of Verizon, Sprint and AT&T are getting bogged down, too.

T-Mobile already offers a USB speed stick, but the current stick supports network speeds of only 21 Mbps.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile plans to double the speed of its underlying network by bonding new HSPA+ cell towers with existing ones. T-Mobile is dubbing its new network HSPA+ 42, said Mark McDiarmid, T-Mobile’s senior director of engineering and operations, in an interview at the press reception.

The carrier expects to start the network upgrade in its top 25 US markets, later expanding to the remaining top 100 markets, all of which now have 3G in place.

T-Mobile’s network upgrade strategy is quicker and more cost effective than the approaches Verizon is taking with LTE and Sprint is following with WiMax, because unlike the others, T-Mobile doesn’t need to install new types of cell towers, McDiarmid said.

Speeds on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 42 network will be comparable to those of Verizon’s LTE 4G network, according to the engineer.

Also, since T-Mobile isn’t building a whole new network architecture, its sped up network will be backward compatible with older tablets and phones, meaning that end users won’t need to buy new devices, he told me.