Awesome!  Let me check and see if there is an official way we can recognize your sale as attributed to project Sputnik.  This is an issue that we have had as we are building our case.  In your case i now am aware of it (im the project lead) and will let others know.

thanks!

My XPS 13 arrived on schedule today and the install of the Sputnik ISO went perfectly smooth.  I didn't even give Windows a chance to do it's "first-time setup".  I've only been getting things installed and configured for a little while and everything has been great.  I'll check back in with my feedback after some extended use.

Awesome!  Great to hear!

So, I've been using my Sputnik (I named it Vger, btw) for several days now and I'm pretty happy.  A few concerns I had before it arrived and how I feel now:

1) The keyboard looked cramped but it's really not - it feels excellent.  2) A resolution of 1366x768 seemed low, but it's quite sufficient given that Unity seems to waste less real-estate than Windows and I prefer my fonts small.  3) I worried that battery life might not be so great without the tightly integrated proprietary drivers that Windows uses, but I'm content with 5-6 hours.  4) Having never used an SSD before, I wondered if it was going to have a noticeable enough effect to warrant the premium price tag - it did and does.  5) Four GB of RAM didn't impress me upon but honestly Ubuntu can go pretty damned far on 4GB of RAM.  I opened everything I could find installed (sometimes with multiple instances) simultaneously and didn't use more than 2.5GB. I know one way to eat up all the RAM is launch Windows in a VirtualBox - lol.

Other things that have reinforced my choice are the build quality and light weight.  It feels very sturdy and has a good stiff hinge.  The trackpad is enormous and the momentum scrolling is a favorite new toy (wasn't available on my older laptop).  The materials on the various surfaces are all soft and smooth, definitely giving it a premium feel.  The speakers seem beefy and adequate but I'm no audiophile.  The ports available were never a serious point of interest or concern for me as long as I had a USB port for random connections.

I have many of my developer tools installed and it's kinda fun watching them launch so fast and having them behave so responsively.  My new developer ultrabook has three big deal-makers for me: high quality craftsmanship, Ubuntu 12.04, and the SSD.  Secondary perks are the backlit keyboard, its low weight, and how quiet it runs.  I struggled internally with whether I should order the XPS 13 Ultrabook or the XPS 14 Ultrabook, but eventually decided that the XPS 13 was going to make me happier based on its smaller size, plus getting an XPS 14 with an SSD was $2K.  I would have gotten a lot more for that $2K but again, the size kinda turned me off.  Anyway, those are my thoughts so far - I hope it helps someone.

thanks for the detailed report!!

Lucky you, MightyWok! I ordered mine on 08/08 but will have to wait until 09/01 to put my hands on it.

So you prefered the Sputnik ISO to the standard Ubuntu, heh? No second thoughts about factory reset or dual booting? Just whacked all partitions? =)

I ordered an XPS 13 as well and I would love to attribute the sale to project sputnik :)

Thanks Victor, ill let the team know!

Not sure how much it matters, but I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 with sputnik PPA updates as well.  

The trackpad isn't quite as smooth as I'd like, but it does work ok for me and once I get used to it, will probbly be just fine. My intitial impressions of Ubuntu 12.04 on the xps 13 ultrabook are that you have hit a home run.

I do have one small issue that I'll raise in a new thread, but it doesn't seem to affect usage of the laptop.

Awesome, thanks for the feedback!

interested in seeing if we might be able to address the issue you are going to raise in a separate thread