For decades I have exclusively been a desktop computer user. I've had laptops, but they were purely utilitarian and always super cheap. For at least five years now my primary laptop has been an MSI netbook. While it's served me well, it's clearly far too small to do much - I've even had applications that refused to install because the resolution was too low.

Instead of a good laptop I've always chosen to put my money into my desktop. I like having the space to spread out (I have a 30" monitor), I like the keyboard and mouse, I like the expansion options and all the other usual reasons for having a desktop computer.

But things change and there are reasons that I want to move to something else. Now that one of our rooms is a nursery I'd like to have the option to make my office a convertible guest room at the very least or hand it over entirely. If we ever have a second child I'll need to lose it anyway.

There are a few concerns I have though. The laptop I'm currently considering is the new Dell XPS 13. The portability is good for my work (going around to people's homes and fixing their computers and/or networks). I'll easily be able to move it to anywhere in my home, too. I'm not terribly concerned about the drastic decrease in screen size. If I ever need more screen I'll set my 30" monitor up somewhere in my basement and use it there.

What I'm most concerned about is performance. My current computer is OLD by computer standards, and wasn't top of the line when I put it together, but the XPS might be a step down. Here's my current specs:

CPU: Core i7 920 (one of the first Core processors, from 2008)
RAM: 24GB DDR3 533MHz
Graphics: EVGA GeForce GTX 260
Windows 7, SSD for OS drive

I don't know if benchmark tests are the be-all end-all metric, but according to this and this, I'm going to see quite a drop there alone.

In real world use, how do you think these two systems would compare? I'm not a huge gamer. Most of what I'm doing is heavily browser-based, with some image editing. I'll need something capable of playing HD video smoothly, too.

How would these two systems compare? Is it apples and oranges?