Dell’s new XPS 14 is better in almost every way

The 2026 XPS 14 is the best laptop we’ve seen from Dell in a while, with amazing specs for a small machine and great performance thanks to Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” chips. Bonus: Dell killed the disabled “Premium Plus” code name. XPS is back!

I can’t believe how much this new version has changed from XPS13 graphics I rewatched it last year, which at the time was set to be a disappointing hit for the screen. The new XPS has improved in almost every way, with a true F-row, better speakers, and amazing battery life. The worst part is that it is very expensive.

Dell sent us two XPS 14 laptops to test: The $1,999.99 entry-level model with an 8-core Intel Core Ultra 5 325 chip, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 1920 x 1200 IPS display, and the $2,899.99 X169999999 touchscreen Ultra, X16 Core X16X beefier graphics power, double the RAM and storage. Each has three Thunderbolt 4 ports and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The design is beautiful and impressive. It’s a little heavier than the MacBook Air, but at about a third of a pound heavier, it feels like a solid slab. The next thing that strikes you, especially if you’ve been bothered by XPS laptops in the past, is that the borderless trackpad has less lines and the keyboard has a proper line. No more unsightly trackpad buttons and capacitive touch keys for the Escape and F-keys. Alleluia!

While these two changes are reason enough to be excited, I still have my quibbles. Border lines or not, the haptic trackpad is still cool. Sometimes I have to press hard to click to register, and sometimes I accidentally double click even when I press lightly. Sometimes I misjudge if my hands are too busy while writing.

Speaking of typing, I still can’t get behind this infinity keyboard. It has a little 0.8mm of key travel, although it doesn’t feel as shallow as it sounds. This is due to the fact that the stroke is located above each key, which gives it an incredible power. Although intellectually, I don’t like to write about it. It feels slow, steady, and easy to type. It’s a big improvement to have a working row, but this keyboard just wasn’t for me. At least now it’s more of the “YMMV” type.

Elsewhere, the 8-megapixel / 4K webcam looks sharp in bright light but loses punch and quality in low light or when you turn it on again. The speakers are excellent for laptop size, producing clear sound that you can listen to without distortion – although unsurprisingly they don’t have very strong bass.

But the display on the OLED screen, obviously, is a display. The 2880 x 1800 tandem OLED display is bright and has rich contrast and vivid colors. It’s amazing. The 1920 x 1200 IPS panel at the lowest setting is almost humdrum in comparison. It reaches a minimum brightness of 500 nits and controls glare well, but next to OLED it’s a little light. However, the IPS screen has a feature of its own: a refresh rate that goes from 120Hz to 1Hz when you’re looking at things that aren’t moving. OLED is equivalent to 120Hz, but its lowest refresh rate is 20Hz.

These low refresh rates help give both XPS 14s excellent battery life. On the OLED, I can get more than 10 hours of non-stop use (loading Chrome tabs, occasional music or video downloads, and playing a video or two). The same task on the IPS model reached more than 14 hours, probably due to the smaller screen with a 1Hz refresh rate, and you can stretch it longer if you are careful. (I didn’t.) The IPS configuration even cracked our battery test with 26 hours of continuous run time, even beating all the Arm laptops we’ve tested. I believe we will see these types of panels in more laptops. Like mobile phones, making a refreshing phone call while looking at text helps save battery.

The Intel Panther Lake chips in these laptops also outstrip the XPS 14s in terms of power efficiency, but they’re not inferior in the performance department. With solid thermals, the fans are quiet – even when under load. And during stress testing the bottom case is warm but most of the keys remain cool. The OLED model with the X7 chip and its integrated 12-core GPU is excellent for graphics-heavy tasks such as 3D rendering in Blender, and it can also sing while playing some AAA games. I ran Battle 6 at a good 50fps at 1920 x 1200 resolution on Low preset with XeSS set to Ultra Performance. Not surprising, but not the potato version – and in a thin and light laptop.

However, the cheapest MacBooks beat the newer XPS models in terms of performance. No fan 15-inch M5 MacBook Air it wipes the floor with the entry-level XPS 14, and even beats the OLED display in most non-GPU-heavy benchmarks. Go to 14-inch M5 MacBook Proand the scales go a little further in Apple’s favor – plus you get an HDMI port and an SD card slot.

This brings us to the XPS 14’s biggest issue: price. When it launched, the entry-level IPS model cost $1,600. Now that $2,000. The OLED model with the X7 chip started at $2,200, and now it’s getting more expensive $2,900. This is because of the “continuing market,” also known as RAMmageddon. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is a waste of money for what you’re getting. Dell recently announced a low price XPS13 graphics price at $700 ($600 for students as a temporary discount). It’s interesting to see upcoming attempts to compete with the MacBook Neo, but for now Dell’s OLED XPS 14 has gone up in price at the expense of the rest of the XPS 13.

It is sad to see these kinds of prices. The $2,200 OLED XPS 14 felt about right for a high-end computer with a great display. But at $2,900? For less than $200 you can get one Asus Zenbook Duo and two 14-inch OLED and better Intel Panther Lake processor. And for less entry-level XPS 14, and Zenbook A16 it offers triple RAM and a 16-inch OLED in a lightweight package. And when you compare Apple’s offering with the XPS 14 in price for performance? It is murder.

I applaud Dell for righting the ship and reviving the XPS line after its debacle. But while the new XPS laptops are better than ever, they are now selling strongly for a new reason.

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge