ZDNET Key Data for Van

• The Dell XPS 14 The laptop starts at $1,499, but many users will want to pay for upgrades.
• This is a sleek, powerful laptop that has a premium feel and a unique minimalist aesthetic.
• Upgrading components from the base model quickly raises the price of a laptop to a whole new level.

Dell’s latest XPS 14 the laptop features a sleek, minimalist style that highlights the design with an “invisible” trackpad, a unique keyboard and LED light bar, and an incredibly impressive display. However, many of its best features don’t come with the base model, meaning you’ll be paying for upgrades.

The XPS 14 is a very compact laptop that feels solid and is by no means bulky. However, this is not a particularly light laptop either. With the OLED display, it weighs 3.8 pounds, making it heavier than most other 14-inch competitors, including the MacBook Pro 14, Zephyrus G14, and Specter x360 14.

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Armed with an Intel Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” processor, Dell’s XPS lineup is AI-ready with a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that handles machine learning tasks locally. This frees up processing power for the rest of the CPU and GPU for better performance and lower power consumption.

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The display on the Dell XPS 14 is one of its best features. However, the base model of the laptop only comes with a 1900 x 1200 screen, which is a little disappointing. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an upgraded model and ran a 3200 x 2000 @ 120Hz OLED display, which looked fantastic, but it left me wondering why this machine didn’t come with this level of display in the first place. place, especially in this price category.

However, it is quite bright (up to 500 nits) and lively, with extremely thin bezels around the screen, maximizing the visible field to a few centimeters from the physical edge. Dolby Vision and a variable refresh rate of 120 Hz allow for smooth, vivid image quality.

As for the GPU, the integrated Intel Arc card that comes with the base machine isn’t particularly inspiring, so for more performance-based tasks and gaming, you’ll want to pay the extra $300 to upgrade to the GeForce RTX 4050, a 6GB card, which again, it’s a shame that it’s not included.

Even with this upgraded card, this is not a gaming laptop by itself and will struggle to run anything particularly demanding. The Dell XPS 14, however, should be able to handle video editing, animation, or graphic design workloads relatively well. However, the laptop doesn’t come with a full-size SD card reader and HDMI, but instead: three USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, a microSD port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

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The lack of an HDMI port and a full-size SD card reader is an odd design choice, as both would further build the identity of a premium-looking laptop for visual creatives. Fortunately, the XPS 14 comes with a USB-C dongle to help with most creative tasks.

Comparison of specifications

As for the external appearance of this laptop, the “invisible” trackpad is, like the year before, very well made. I’m surprised this design hasn’t made it to other laptops, as I’m a fan of the crisp and clean minimalist aesthetic Dell has here. In addition, the material used on this part of the laptop feels premium and premium. This is not a laptop you want to touch with dirty fingers.

The first thing you notice about the keyboard is that it’s all one unit with the keys flush with each other — there’s no space between them. However, the individual keys are large enough to have a subtle indentation and a shallow – if satisfying – keystroke depth. This keyboard is also incredibly quiet, with almost no sound from the keys even when typing quickly.

Pressing the fn key instantly toggles the lights on the function bar between their “media” modes (controlling volume, brightness, etc.) and “function” modes (F1-F12). Esc and delete remain in the same positions in both modes.

I’ve talked a bit about fiddling with function keys in reviews of other machines, and I’m still against it. Manufacturers like to experiment with these keys because they are the least used on the keyboard, but when the functionality doesn’t work, it can be a bad user experience.

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On the Dell XPS 14, the function row is so minimal that there aren’t even any physical buttons at all; there’s no tactile feedback or physical indication of a key press, you just interact with a small LED icon, and that’s a design choice that certainly won’t be for everyone. While working with the XPS 14, I never got used to having the Home, End, and Delete buttons connected to those “lights” and realized that I preferred to just have them attached to the physical inputs.

ZDNET’s shopping advice

The Dell XPS 14 is a quiet, elegant and minimalist laptop with bold aesthetics. It is one of the best-looking laptops on the market and can be equipped with some pretty powerful hardware. However, these upgrades come at a price.

This is not a shabby, unpretentious workhorse, but a high-end, ultra-modern device. It all comes down to personal preference, but for many users competitors like the MacBook Pro 14 or Zephyrus G14 might be a more practical choice. However, if you want to make a statement, there’s nothing quite like the Dell XPS 14.