You need to consider what your usage will be. My wife needed something super-portable with long battery life. The previous generation base model (i5/4/128) was more than sufficient for her needs. She's on it all day doing work on Facebook, word processing, and playing Plants vs Zombies.
XPS13 is an awesome laptop. It's a 13" laptop in a 12" case. The battery life is fantastic. The
XPS 13 is on sale right now at the Microsoft Store. They sell the Signature version which is basically just the OS. No crapware. It starts at $1200 for the i5/8GB/128.