Embrace the stylish new XPS 13 and bid adieu to the iconic XPS 13. During CES, Dell caught us off guard by introducing the sleek and somewhat contentious design of its XPS 13 Plus from 2022 to its whole flagship range, which now includes the larger XPS 14 and 16 models. They all feature this new design, which includes wider gap-less keyboards with no key spacing, invisible haptic trackpads concealed beneath the glass-covered wrist rest, and a capacitive top row of function keys that can instantly switch to media controls. Are they now better computers than Dell’s previous XPS lineup, though, given these upgrades? That is dependent upon how much you find their appearance appealing.
I was astonished by the XPS 16’s power and beauty when I reviewed it, but it was harder to sell than the XPS 15 due to its expensive price and a few oddities. For the XPS 13 and 14, this is largely accurate. With the new Intel Core Ultra 7 chip, the smaller model is simply the XPS 13 Plus. Because it seeks to match the XPS 16’s power without being as bulky, the XPS 14 is much more interesting. They are intended for a very similar audience—people who require both speed and portability—which is why I am reviewing them jointly. It all boils down to how much power you require and how much weight you are willing to carry.
The Dell XPS 13 (2024)
The XPS 13 from Dell is a beautiful, lightweight, and powerful laptop. Its design features may require some getting accustomed to, and its price is significantly higher than those of previous versions.
Advantages
- Beautiful and contemporary style
- Excellent performance for a little portable
- Fantastic keyboard
- Beautiful exhibition
Disadvantages
- An invisible trackpad leads to usability issues
- Function keys disappear in sunlight
- The trackpad feels sluggish at 60Hz
- Could use more ports
- Expensive
Dell XPS 14
Dell’s XPS 14 is a stunning and potent rival to the MacBook Pro, but its contemporary style comes at a premium cost due to its peculiar use.
Advantages
- Quick operation
- Beautiful OLED display
- aesthetically pleasing contemporary design
Disadvantages
- Invisible trackpad cause problems with usability
- When exposed to sunlight, function keys vanish.
- costly
- Trackpad slow at 60 hertz
Like it’s bigger sister, the XPS 13 and 14 are stunning devices to look at. Their all-aluminium casings (which come in bright or dark versions) and simple designs around their keyboards make them minimalist workouts. Indeed, these screens also feature incredibly small bezels, a feature that Dell made popular more than a decade ago with the XPS series. With their lack of visible trackpads and function buttons, the XPS 13 and 14 make more of a statement than by trying to stand out with unnecessary features like dual screens or an abundance of LEDs. The XPS 14 review is one of the best windows laptops, highlighting its portability, machined aluminium, and Gorilla Glass construction. Dell’s XPS 13 and 14 laptops share the same design quirks, featuring CNC machined aluminium and Gorilla Glass for durability and style. The XPS lineup now includes the new XPS 15, offering powerful performance with 13th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA RTX 4050 GPUs. Dell offers the best gaming laptops with the XPS Plus series, featuring RTX 4050 GPUs and haptic touchpads for a seamless experience. The XPS 14 and 16 are Dell’s most powerful laptops yet, boasting 3.5K displays and Intel Core Ultra processors for heavy workloads. With a capacitive function row and typical laptop design, the XPS 14 is perfect for both work and play. Shop the Dell XPS lineup now at Dell.com for the latest XPS laptops with refreshed specs and design enhancements.
Similar to the XPS 13 Plus, the XPS 13 of this year has just two USB-C ports in addition to no other interfaces, including a headphone jack or even a dedicated charging port. Still, I would prefer to see the MacBook Air’s USB-C ports on the opposite side, which is at least something Dell did. With its three USB-C connections, headphone jack, and micro-SD card slot, the XPS 14 is arguably a better option if you need any more connectivity. However, a full-sized SD card reader would be more useful for professionals, and an HDMI connector like that of the MacBook Pro 14-inch would be good.
Dell XPS 14
The XPS 13 and 14 differ primarily in weight: the smaller model weighs 2.6 pounds, which is somewhat less than the MacBook Air, while the XPS 14 is substantially heavier at 3.7 pounds. Dell is somewhat copying Apple’s product approach; the 13-inch MacBook Air weighs 2.7 pounds, while the 14-inch MacBook Pro weighs 3.4 to 3.6 pounds. Both the XPS 13 and 14 are lightweight and comfortable to hold all day, but if you’re attempting to travel light, the bigger model could upset you more due to its one-pound weight differential.
Nevertheless, the XPS 14’s increased weight is justified by the amount of hardware it contains. It can be fitted with the 30-watt NVIDIA RTX 4050 GPU. It also has stronger cooling, enabling it to attain a greater maximum thermal envelope of 47 watts. The XPS 13, however, is limited to a continuous performance of 28 watts. Even though the Intel Core Ultra CPUs in both computers are identical, the XPS 14 will perform much faster during extended tasks like 3D rendering or video encoding. (Once more, that is comparable to the distinction between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with base setup.)
Because the XPS 14’s 14.5-inch screen is one inch bigger than the XPS 13’s, using multiple programs at once or working on media timelines is more comfortable. Regardless of the model you select, you will still receive small bezels that Apple can’t match, combined with a brilliant and immersive display. With Full HD+ (1,920 by 1,200 pixels, non-touch), Quad HD+ (2,560 by 1,600), or 3K+ OLED (2,880 by 1,800) panels available for the XPS 13, its bigger sister gets Full HD+ (non-touch) and 3.2K+ OLED (3,200 by 2,000) screens.
All models come with Dolby Vision as standard, although the more expensive screens only support 100% of the DCI-P3 color range. Except for the OLED panel on the XPS 13, which has a maximum refresh rate of 60 Hz, all of the displays provide refresh rates up to 120 Hz. (In the end, a high refresh rate LCD will produce a smoother image, so I’d advise avoiding that choice totally.)
Intel’s Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD were featured on both the XPS 13 and XPS 14 that I evaluated. Moreover, the XPS 14 included an NVIDIA RTX 4050 GPU, while the smaller laptop was dependent on Intel’s integrated Arc graphics. They didn’t really vary from each other on CPU benchmarks like Geekbench 6, as I had anticipated. In contrast, the XPS 14 outperformed the XPS 13 by twice as much on the Geekbench 6 Compute test, which uses the GPU for heavier processing. In the Geekbench Machine Learning GPU test, the XPS 14 outperformed the 13 by almost three times because of the NVIDIA technology.
Even though the XPS 14 isn’t a gaming laptop, I was still able to play Halo Infinite in 1080p with medium graphics at 40 frames per second thanks to its NVIDIA GPU. Though it’s playable, it’s not exactly how I had hoped to experience Halo. By contrast, the Intel Arc graphics in the XPS 13 could hardly maintain 25 frames per second. On the XPS 14, the RTX 4050 GPU is mostly helpful for creating media. With Handbrake, I was able to convert a 4K clip into 1080p in 26 seconds, compared to 36 seconds on the XPS 13.
I had no trouble with my daily workflow on either machine, but I enjoyed carrying the XPS 13 around town far more than the XPS 14, simply because it’s lighter and easier to manoeuvre. I could slip it into a tote bag without a second thought, bring it to Starbucks, and get up and running easily. Thanks to its additional bulk and weight, I sometimes had trouble stuffing the XPS 14 into the same bag amid the attendants of parenthood. This won’t be much of a problem if you’re using a backpack (and not trying to fit in kids’ toys and snacks), but it was a reminder of how useful a sub-three-pound notebook can be.
I loved typing on Dell’s luxuriously broad keyboards, just like I did with the XPS 16. There is a pleasing amount of key travel and the big key caps are simple to strike. On the XPS 13, the keyboard is more visually striking since it extends to the edge, but on the XPS 14, speakers are positioned on each side of the keyboard. While the capacitive function keys work well most of the time, they nevertheless vanish under strong light conditions like sunshine.
And lastly, the trackpad. I’m accustomed to Dell’s invisible design by this point, and I liked the XPS 14’s larger trackpad. However, getting used to it is still required, particularly for newbies. Additionally, I’ve discovered that it may occasionally be difficult to distinguish between left and right clicks, which has resulted in a few irritated efforts to copy and paste URLs from Chrome.
I’m much more certain that Dell’s invisible trackpad and capacitive function row are errors now that I’ve used them on four different PCs. Although their unique design makes Dell stand out in the drab world of Windows laptops, the usability problems remain. I also saw fractions of a second of latency when navigating Windows on the XPS 13 and 14. I had to force both PCs to operate at 120Hz in order to solve the issue, but doing so also utilises more battery life than operating at 60Hz. I feel as though I’m attempting to swipe through a second layer of glass. I saw the same problem on several XPS 13 and 14 computers, although Dell claims that it hasn’t been able to reproduce any slowness in its testing facilities. The company will be doing a further investigation into our review units, and I’ll report back later on what it finds.
Regarding the remainder of its hardware, the XPS 13 and XPS 14 include reliable 1080p cameras that allow Windows Hello for facial recognition. Because Intel’s latest Core Ultra CPUs have NPUs, you can also utilise Windows Studio Effects to adjust your gaze and blur backgrounds during video conversations. Their 8-watt speaker systems are passable for listening to background music or viewing YouTube videos, but they pale in comparison to Apple’s laptop speakers. Additionally, there was an unexpected discrepancy in the amount of time the two computers’ batteries lasted: in PCMark 10’s Modern Office benchmark, the XPS 13 operated for 13 hours and 15 minutes, while the XPS 14 only lasted for four and a half hours. That can be attributed to its more powerful GPU.
Another drawback to the stylish design of the XPS 13 and 14? increased costs. With the configuration we tested, the XPS 13 now starts at $1,399, while the XPS 16 starts at $1,699. (Our review unit’s OLED screen and NVIDIA GPU would have cost $2,399 otherwise.) I’ll give Dell credit for including 16GB of RAM as standard, as opposed to the 8GB seen in earlier versions, but overall, the better trackpad comes at a premium. Is it truly worth the effort? When you consider that you can get a 14-inch MacBook Pro for $1,599 and an M3 MacBook Air for $1,099, Dell’s pricing is especially outrageous. Although adding $200 will cost you an additional 16GB of RAM, even the most basic versions are quicker. Another drawback to the stylish design of the XPS 13 and 14 is increased costs. With the configuration we tested, the XPS 13 now starts at $1,399, while the XPS 16 starts at $1,699. (Our review unit’s OLED screen and NVIDIA GPU would have cost $2,399 otherwise.) I’ll give Dell credit for including 16GB of RAM as standard, as opposed to the 8GB seen in earlier versions, but overall, the better trackpad comes at a premium. Is it truly worth the effort? When you consider that you can get a 14-inch MacBook Pro for $1,599 and an M3 MacBook Air for $1,099, Dell’s pricing is especially outrageous. Although adding $200 will cost you an additional 16GB of RAM, even the most basic versions are quicker than Dell laptops.
Conclusion
Although the new XPS 13 and XPS 14 have many positive aspects, we are less inclined to recommend them than Dell’s previous XPS models. Their good looks and functionality come at the expense of usability, battery life, and, well, actual cost. In other words, you pay extra for equipment that looks nice. However, the XPS 16 stands out as our most powerful offering yet, boasting upgraded specs including a touchpad with haptic feedback, seamless glass touchpad, and a neural processing unit for enhanced performance. With Gorilla Glass 3 protection, durability is ensured without compromising on style. Despite these advancements, we acknowledge that the overall user experience and battery life may not meet everyone’s expectations. It’s essential to consider these factors before investing in the latest XPS lineup.
