Congratulations, You (Virtually) Made a MacBook

Dell nonetheless desires to recreate the MacBook. That turned clear with final 12 months’s boneheaded move, during which it modified the title of its whole PC portfolio, calling laptops “Dell Professional” or “Dell Professional Max.” Now, it’s brought back the age-old XPS branding with a smooth new emblem, nevertheless it nonetheless appears to be attempting to ascertain itself because the skilled’s first alternative for PCs. Have its efforts lastly paid off?

Nicely, nearly. This new XPS 14 is extra MacBook Air-like than ever earlier than, from elevated efficiency to restricted ports. As you’ll be able to anticipate, it’s packing Intel’s Panther Lake chips with the additional GPU cores. Meaning it’s an important laptop computer for some use instances—particularly for average graphics duties. However its off-putting keyboard can be certain to frustrate fingers.

The newest model of the corporate’s “excessive efficiency programs” has the sort of battery life we’ve been hoping for since they began making laptops this small. Dell despatched Gizmodo two variations of its laptop computer for assessment, although the cheaper $1,700 mannequin largely serves for example of why you need a higher-end chip. The midrange Intel Core Extremely X7 358H can’t hit the identical CPU benchmarks as Apple’s main MacBook Pro M5, nevertheless it wins out in iGPU efficiency, which makes it glorious for gentle graphics duties. Need to sport on this factor? It’s doable, as long as you’ll be able to settle for some tradeoffs.

We’re inching in direction of Apple by way of not solely efficiency but additionally locked-down {hardware} and worth. This laptop computer nonetheless has soldered RAM, so don’t anticipate to improve anytime quickly (not that you’d with RAM prices being so high). The XPS 14 with an X7 358H will value $2,200. That’s aggressive with a number of 14-inch laptops that includes a discrete GPU, reminiscent of final 12 months’s Razer Blade 14 and Apple’s M5 MacBook Professional, which have comparable reminiscence specs.

The upper-end XPS 14 with 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and an OLED display screen is nearer to the laptop computer you truly need. However whether or not it’s truly the very best laptop computer for you’ll rely on the dimensions of your pockets and your tolerance for odd keyboards.

Oh, look, a bodily operate row

Dell’s penchant for oddball XPS design lastly combines appears to be like and performance. The corporate excised the moronic light-up operate row on the 2024 XPS 14 models, which had made the ESC, brightness, and quantity keys not possible to seek out when the laptop computer was turned off. That earlier design was an accessibility nightmare for individuals with low imaginative and prescient. Now—fortunately—the operate row is a typical set of keys.

Dell additionally added two skinny traces alongside the previous seamless trackpad that will help you determine the world you’ll be able to contact. I by no means ran out of runway throughout day-to-day use. Then again, Dell has caught with the seamless keyboard on these newest XPS fashions. Meaning each key sits almost flush to the one subsequent to it. There’s a delicate divot within the heart of every key to supply extra of a tactile really feel, nevertheless it’s not sufficient to cease me from by chance hitting a number of keys without delay, and it’s definitely been garbling my phrases whilst I “writye thjis trevbiew.”

With sufficient follow, I could ultimately get the texture for this keyboard. Perhaps it’s definitely worth the effort for the sake of such a cool-looking system. The identical can’t essentially be stated for the trackpad, nonetheless, which is so huge that it overlaps with the world the place I naturally place my wrists. This has led to all types of palm-rejection points, unintended clicks, and extreme slams of CTRL+Z.

Regardless of all that, the XPS 14 does make me really feel like a easy operator. The low-profile keys really feel snappier than these of a typical small laptop computer. The haptic trackpad (which makes use of a motor to simulate the texture of a bodily click on) is glassy with simply sufficient texture that your finger doesn’t really feel like a skater on an ice rink. The truth that the keys are so shut collectively means I didn’t see almost as a lot mud buildup between them. And that’s excellent news for messy eaters like me. Much less distance between keys means there’s much less probability a crumb would possibly slip between the cracks.

The 2026 XPS 14 is a sq. laptop computer with a skinny base, solely .58 inches thick. It’s additionally gentle, with the OLED mannequin weighing in at simply 3 kilos and the LCD at 3.05. A MacBook Air weighs 2.7 kilos and is .44 inches thick. That is sensible, for the reason that XPS makes use of a comparatively quiet fan setup in comparison with the Air’s passive cooling.

Sadly, as is the case with the Air, the XPS’ slim body comes at the price of inputs and outputs. This system sports activities three Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, and that’s it. To make my most popular multiscreen setup work, I needed to drag a dock round throughout testing. In the event you’ve ever used a MacBook Air as a every day driver, you’ll know that restricted port choice additionally will get annoying if you wish to cost your laptop computer and use different docks or dongles on the similar time. There’s additionally the limitation of Thunderbolt 4 as an alternative of Thunderbolt 5 and its larger switch speeds, which is a casualty of the Intel Core Extremely Sequence 3’s design.

Audio system: higher than anticipated

The XPS tandem OLED display screen could appear squat once you sit in entrance of it, although it’s nonetheless one of many prettier variations of this design we’ve seen on laptops. The bezels to both facet of the show are comparatively minuscule, as is the 1080p webcam cutout on prime.

Tandem OLED gadgets stack a number of layers of diodes, rising brightness and effectivity. This one clocks in at 2,880 x 1,800 pixels. It’s a contact panel with a 20-120Hz refresh fee and a said brightness of 400 nits. In normal use, that’s luminous sufficient for shade or direct daylight.

The OLED model gives crisp visuals, and deep blacks allow nice distinction. In the event you go for the cheaper mannequin with IPS LCD, you’re caught with a 1200p monitor with a barely larger brightness setting and never a lot else to jot down house about.

This system can work as your principal platform for a snug streaming session, as long as you don’t thoughts cuddling shut along with your accomplice round a 14-inch display screen. Regardless of its down-firing audio system, this laptop computer delivers a powerful soundstage. It’s utilizing a 10W quad-speaker design with two 3W audio system and two tweeters. The system virtually reverberates with bass ranges you usually can’t get from a laptop computer of this dimension.

I even have to provide props to the webcam. My image high quality in a video name was far clearer than that of any of my colleagues at Gizmodo throughout our weekly assembly. Is {that a} cause to be smug? If any individual bragged to me with a smug face that that they had a clearer image in a Zoom assembly, I’d have to withstand the urge to slap them. Nonetheless, it’s value noting.

Midrange Panther Lake is a blended bag

I had simply completed reviewing the $2,400 Asus Zenbook Duo with its top-end Intel X9 388H, the chipmaker’s flagship 16-core CPU, delivering robust graphics efficiency in a comparatively compact design. Dell instructed Gizmodo it might provide a variant of the XPS 14 and XPS 16 with an X9 chip sooner or later, however couldn’t present an actual timeline.

As an alternative, you will have two variants of Dell’s newest 14-inch mannequin to start out. As I discussed earlier than, the Intel Core Extremely 7 and X7 variants may have totally totally different efficiency traits, which means one will likely be higher suited to demanding work duties whereas the cheaper model can suffice for shopping, phrase processing, and different common work use instances.

The Intel Core Extremely X9 stacks up properly in opposition to the M5 in virtually all our productiveness, graphics, and gaming benchmarks. The X7, alternatively, is extra of a blended bag. By way of CPU efficiency on single-core duties, the XPS 14 scored simply 100 factors shy of the X9 on Geekbench 6’s benchmark. It’s about 1,000 factors shy of that chip on multicore duties as properly. It nonetheless manages to beat the Intel Core Extremely 7 288V, one of many main last-gen Intel chips powering the Acer Predator Triton 14 AI.

In a contest of CPU efficiency between Mac and Dell, the M-series has the higher hand. On Geekbench, the midrange Intel CPU remains to be near 800 factors behind the M4 MacBook Air in single-core and 1,600 factors behind in multicore. Although the X7 358H can beat an M4 on Cinebench 2024—measuring the CPUs’ rendering capabilities—in multicore settings, it’s nonetheless 300 factors shy of Apple’s newest M5, which launched late final 12 months. It took greater than six minutes to transcode a 4K video to 1080p in Handbrake; the MacBook Air took simply over two minutes.

Nice for average graphics duties and lightweight gaming

Fortunately, the competition measures pure CPU efficiency. The “X7” and “X9” variants of Intel’s chips have a trick up their sleeve, due to the 12 additional Xe3 GPU cores. By way of extra intensive productiveness duties, the XPS 14 will render a scene of a BMW in Blender just some seconds slower than the Zenbook Duo when working on the Arc B390 GPU. The iGPU (built-in graphics processing unit) on this system makes this laptop computer a shock hit for rendering duties.

In 3DMark benchmarks, such because the Metal Nomad check, which measures a system’s potential efficiency for full 3D graphics rendering, it may obtain scores simply shy of the Zenbook Duo’s. In something involving ray tracing or extra superior lighting, the Dell PC carried out worse than the Intel X9, nevertheless it nonetheless wins out over the M5. This machine has a powerful edge in opposition to Apple for graphics efficiency.

And I do know what all you sickos are questioning: is that this factor able to gaming? In the event you’re keen to drop your decision to 1080p or 1200p, then it’ll do surprisingly properly. In my checks with Cyberpunk 2077, the Intel Core X7 358H hit almost the identical benchmarks because the 14-inch MacBook Professional with M5. At 1200p, the laptop computer can attain 31 fps, with out having to depend on XeSS, with graphics settings set to excessive. XeSS—Intel’s model of AI upscaling—allows an appropriate 50 fps.

In checks with different graphically intensive titles, 1080p or 1200p appeared to be this laptop computer’s restrict. I may obtain 27 fps in benchmarks with Horizon Zero Daybreak: Remastered on excessive graphics settings utilizing XeSS upscaling. It’s the identical story with Black Fable: Wukong and Whole Struggle: Warhammer III. All these benchmarks could spell good tidings for the eventual Intel Core Extremely X7 handheld, however in the case of this laptop computer, they’re extra of a actuality verify concerning the limits.

A full day of awkward typing

Dell’s XPS 14 with the OLED show may have worse battery life than the one with LCD. That is sensible, since this can be a higher-resolution show and OLED is usually worse for total battery efficiency. Regardless of the case could also be, you don’t have to fret an excessive amount of about Dell’s newest pocket book making it by the workday.

Throughout an energetic workday, once I was utilizing the laptop computer for shopping and writing with out closing the lid or taking breaks, the laptop computer lasted a full six hours earlier than begging me to plug it in. I used the Dell Optimizer app’s “optimized” thermal administration profile when on battery energy. The system by no means heated as much as the purpose the place I may really feel it beneath my palms, both.

I can’t assist myself from craving for a model of this laptop computer—or extra seemingly the 16-inch mannequin—with an Intel Core Extremely X9 388H hidden inside. The additional CPU efficiency pushed Intel’s novel iGPU to new heights at a comparatively low TDP (thermal design energy, often measuring how a lot juice is required to gasoline the cell machine). The X7 does sufficient to moist my whistle, however at $2,200, I can’t assist however really feel like I ought to anticipate extra.

As a result of now I’ve to start out evaluating costs. I already talked about that the Zenbook Duo prices $200 greater than this system and has twice as many screens. A MacBook Air with M4 prices $1,400 for a model with 1TB of storage, 16GB of RAM, and the 10-core GPU. There are lots of 14-inch laptops with discrete GPUs from 2025 that strategy the XPS 14’s worth level. For a lot of PC patrons, the maths gained’t add up.