Dell Finally Did It… The XPS 13 Is Fantastic!

[00:02] several years, Dell have completely fallen off a cliff. They used to be the best laptop manufacturer for consumer laptops, but they just kept making these really dumb decisions. Yet at the same time, they've

[00:16] been charging ludicrous amounts of money for their laptops like they are perfect. Well, surprisingly, Dell have just released one of the best laptops of released one of the best laptops of 2026, the new XPS 13. And guys, given

[00:29] how crap the new Alienware is, we were absolutely shocked. Now, since I value your time, I'm not going to make you watch this entire video to find out why just going to tell you right now. The XPS is really doing what the Neo

[00:43] did, but for Windows laptops. It's bringing this premium well-built device into the sub-seven-hundred-dollar price point. In fact, less than $600 if you're a student. And just like the Neo, the XPS 13 is very well built and looks

[00:56] great. It has a fantastic display. It's just a really all-round perfect package, which is rare at this price point. You see, most laptops have major cons like terrible displays or bad build quality. In fact, the XPS is even better than the

[01:10] Neo in several material ways. It has a backlit keyboard, it comes standard with more storage, it is lighter yet its display is larger, and you can configure the XPS with 16 gig of memory. Speaking personally, I think the XPS 13 is the

[01:23] best laptop at this price point if you can handle its major con, which is the same as the Neo. Poor performance. This laptop's performance, it really limits browsing the web and using office applications. And upgrading it to 16 gig

[01:39] above that. We of course have both models. So, just like I said with the Neo, people like students, they need to be very careful about buying this laptop. Only buy it if you are certain that what you're studying has basic

[01:53] computing needs like say nursing. And you are sure that in the future, you aren't going to want to switch courses or try something different that will require more performance. The XPS 13, great coffee store laptop, but just

[02:05] don't expect it to do video editing or anything like that. bestlaptop.deals. That's where you want to be going if you want to see a different recommendation. In fact, over there we just launched our new student

[02:17] laptop buying area. On that page, you can find a laptop based on your specific Sierra who's going to walk you through this review. >> Thanks, Josh. Let's start with how it looks. The XPS 13 looks extremely

[02:31] stylish for what it is and what it costs. Thanks to its light blue gray color and super thin aluminum build, the XPS leans modern and sleek. This is mainly in comparison to the Neo, which I'd call cute and bubbly by contrast.

[02:46] Although, I still find the XPS to be cute in its own way. compact and lightweight. It's slim like a MacBook Air, but much smaller. This is impressive it has a similar screen size of around 13.4 to the Air's 13.6. It's

[03:02] closer in size to the MacBook Neo, which only has a 13-in screen. This makes it a joy to carry around. It was so small and light, I found myself carrying it with one hand. Despite its lighter weight, it's extremely well built. This means

[03:16] and minimal screen wiggle, which blows most budget laptops out of the water. Both the Neo and the XPS have brought higher quality construction into a price tier that rarely had it before. On the XPS, the hinges aren't quite as

[03:29] stiff as I expect on a touchscreen laptop like this one, meaning the screen does move a bit more than I'd prefer when touching it. On the other hand, this does have the benefit of making it easier to open with one hand, which is

[03:41] not always a given on small laptops. When you open it, you'll see a bit of a sharp edge at the front of the keyboard deck. With a laptop this thin, this won't always be noticeable or annoying, but you may find it cutting into your

[03:53] wrists if you don't have support for your arms like on a plane. Speaking of more common use cases, when I was using the XPS in bed, I couldn't sit up as straight as I'd like because the screen doesn't go as far back as I'd

[04:05] like. Another place the XPS shines is its display. It's a high resolution 2560 by 1600 IPS panel. You heard me right. It is not an OLED, but it still looks fantastic. It has top tier color accuracy covering almost 100% of the P3

[04:20] spectrum, which will make movies look wonderful. It also gets very bright around 500 nits. On top of that, it has a very effective anti-reflective coating that makes it appear like a matte display. It's probably the best laptop

[04:33] to use outdoors around this price point. Great if you're a student using it out on the quad or at a coffee store. The display refreshes at up to 120 Hz, so moving content looks nice and smooth compared to the 60 Hz one of the Neo.

[04:46] many pixels they've packed into this tiny 13. 4-in screen lead to a very beautiful display. And like I said earlier, it is a touchscreen, which is a huge bonus. It does not support pen input, but that's something you're less

[05:00] since it doesn't flip around into a tablet. Overall, this display also punches way above its price point just like the chassis. The keyboard on the XPS 13 is decent, but far from great. It's a very

[05:14] low travel keyboard at 0.8 mm. When writing this script, my fingers were bottoming out. That means I'd hit the bottom of the keyboard deck and usually pretty hard because my hands expected there to be more space.

[05:28] I also switched directly over to this one from a 1.6 mm Lenovo keyboard, which is a stark adjustment. Josh is more used to lower travel keyboards as he frequently uses MacBooks, which have 1 mm of key travel. He felt the MacBook's

[05:42] the keys have a little more travel and they have less resistance to the press with a more noticeable click. I prefer the XPS as I like more resistance when the keyboard is so low travel. So, it really depends on what

[05:55] type of keyboard you like. Keep in mind, a downside of the kind of keyboards Josh likes is that they are louder to type on. The XPS 13 is very quiet, great for The keyboard layout is also standard, which is great. And there is a physical

[06:10] function row, unlike prior XPS 13s. I want to confirm we didn't have the keyboard typo issues that we had on the XPS 14. On paper, the XPS 14 has the keyboard.

[06:23] 13 has a backlight that's actually pretty effective in darker environments. the keyboard, so you won't press it accidentally like what happens on many other laptops. Lenovo does this a lot.

[06:36] mechanical with smooth tracking and an accurate click. The click isn't loud at all, and it's not too deep either, which minimizes distractions and misclicks. Ports on this laptop are scarce and one of its major cons. There are two USB-C

[06:51] ports on either side that support up to 10 gigabit speeds as well as DisplayPort and charging. Having a port on both sides makes docking or charging more convenient, which is nice. I have a Bluetooth mouse and headphones, so I

[07:04] only needed a single USB-C cable coming from my monitor that also happens to Not everyone has this sort of clean setup, though. Many mice use USB-A, lots of headphones are wired, both at the lower end and higher end. Many

[07:18] peripherals still connect via USB-A or headphone jack. These ports are going to to buy something special because the laptop doesn't have the right ports or you have to use a dongle, it's annoying. Speakers are not a strong suit. They

[07:31] sound pretty loud, but when you listen to them for a while, you'll notice that there is no bass. On top of that, most of the spectrum is overly processed and processing, we could literally hear compression the volume would be pulled

[07:43] down during peaks. We could not find any obvious software to adjust this.

[08:05] sounds on the new XPS 13 in studio lighting. I think the image looks a little grainy, but the audio does sound all right. When graininess does become a bit more obvious on the XPS 13, but it does have

[08:18] IR for Windows Hello, which is a bonus over the MacBook Neo. For performance, let's start with the elephant in the room. As Josh said, this uses a very low-powered processor. We even refer to it as poor performance on our website,

[08:31] which means it's only suitable for light use, browsing the web, Microsoft Office, and studying disciplines with basic computing needs. As you can see from our graphs, the XPS 13 performs around the same as the

[08:43] MacBook Neo, and that laptop uses a mobile phone processor from 2 years ago. better performing laptop at this price point. It just won't be as nice of a laptop as the XPS or the Neo. Going into this video, my biggest question was if

[08:59] Windows 11 could run well on 8 gigs of RAM. Josh and the team also wanted to know if the upgraded XPS 13 with 16 gigs makes it a better buy than the Neo, as that laptop maxes out at 8. The short answer is, it depends on what you're

[09:12] I did syncing with Dropbox and OneDrive, in-browser graphic design like Canva, as PowerPoint work, including running macros. Both XPS's and the Neo felt snappy enough with short loading times. No major complaints. I was even pleased

[09:27] to see that I could play super light games like Terraria, and even was able frame rates. We weren't sure this would be the case because the Core Series 3 chips have a cut-down two-core GPU of the Core Ultra, which have four. This

[09:41] have labeled them both Intel Graphics, but the expensive one is twice as good. because we bought both XPS configs to show you the difference. You'll notice that in Windows Task Manager, 8 gigs of memory always looks bad. You'll see 6 to

[09:56] 7 gigs constantly in use during normal tasks. When you are shopping in a store, you might hear sales people saying you'll need more than 8 gigs if you have lots of browser tabs open. So, we tested that. The XPS 13 with 8 gigs started to

[10:09] see longer loading times with 24 Chrome tabs open, but it was still usable until The Neo with 8 gig only started to show slowdowns at 40 tabs. macOS does much

[10:21] compared to Windows. I had heard this before, but we had never tested it ourselves. The XPS with 16 gig was able to get up to 60 tabs before its load times got noticeably worse. And keep in mind, we didn't have any other

[10:34] applications open. So, your mileage will probably be less. There are really two ways not having enough memory will affect you. As memory fills up, unused browser tabs or apps are swapped to storage to free up memory for new ones.

[10:48] did. The other way 8 gigs of memory may affect you is some apps or projects simply won't open, particularly specialist applications. You run this risk on both the Neo and the XPS with

[11:02] that config. Let's now talk about heat and fan noise. For my normal use, I you are doing heavier tasks like installing an application, the laptop can get warm. Josh and Sam agreed it was

[11:14] still comfortable enough to use even on your lap. I only ever heard the fans going on our 8 gig XPS during the Chrome tab browser stress test, but it was so quiet, I had to hold my ear up to it. Next, let's talk battery life. Again, in

[11:27] real-world use, I found battery life to be pretty great. In our testing, this lines up. When running office tasks until the battery died, it lasted almost is probably because the Neo has a smaller battery, but it is impressive

[11:40] that the XPS 13 weighs less with a larger battery. The more expensive XPS 14 lasts much longer. That has an even larger battery and a display that goes right down to 1 Hz. For upgradeability and maintenance,

[11:52] you can replace the short 2230 SSD and these shorter SSDs do tend to be more expensive. You can also replace the battery. The Wi-Fi 7 card is soldered though. This is a bit disappointing as the Wi-Fi 7 card only uses the 160 MHz

[12:06] channel. It doesn't use the 320 MHz one. This means you don't get a major bump over Wi-Fi 6E. For Linux, we tried Ubuntu and Fedora, the latest versions, and it didn't quite work on either. The Wi-Fi card wasn't recognized and neither

[12:20] were the speakers. Let's wrap. Overall, this is a great laptop for the right type of user. The best laptop at this price point that I've ever used, but there is no room for a laptop like this to grow with you over time. It might be

[12:34] but it might not be ideal if you pick up new hobbies or switch courses. So, buy If you want more performance, you will have to give up the quality of this laptop or the Neo if you're staying around this price point. Look for a

[12:48] laptop with a Core Ultra processor or a Snapdragon one. I've linked some options down below and of course, you'll find them on our website bestlaptop.deals. We specifically highlight if a laptop's current price is a great deal.

[13:02] wonderful rest of your day and I will catch you later.