Customer Ratings & Reviews

This Dell XPS 13 might be the best system from Dell that I have ever used. There are too many positives to list, and only 2-3 aspects of this Copilot+ PC that I wish were different. Let's address the elephant in the room: based on my real-world testing over a week, I found the battery life to be mixed, and I could not replicate Dell's claim of 20+ hours. That being said, the battery life is at least double what I have come to expect from Windows machines. The battery life is absolutely incredible and lasts me all day without having to worry about bringing a charger when I'm on the go. I can comfortably say that I experience between 14-16 hours of use. Again, absolutely incredible. I know that the Snapdragon X processor is new and different, but it's snappy and handles everything I threw at it without breaking a sweat. Every application I use for everyday tasks runs flawlessly. I'm sure there are programs out there that haven't taken advantage of ARM yet, but I haven't found one that impacts my day-to-day. I spent some time using Copilot, and it is an absolute game changer. Imagine having a personal assistant at your side to help you find settings, generate complex searches and recommendations, and even create images with the push of a button and a brief prompt. Copilot is going to increase your productivity substantially, and I don't see a world where this isn't standard. THE SCREEN IS AWESOME. The OLED panel is rich in color, high resolution, and it's even touchscreen. Dell finally took the best features from every PC and packed them into this 13" powerhouse. Text is crystal clear, and the blacks are inky black. This makes consuming content an absolute pleasure. The keyboard feels great, and I have zero issues with the keys not having gaps. If anything, I now prefer this keyboard over anything I've used. I did see some complaints about the Touch Bar at the top and the fact that there are only two USB-C ports, but I have a few thoughts on this. The Touch Bar works every time I've used it. It really feels like people need something to complain about, but this is something you shouldn't fixate on. As for the two USB-C ports, if you need more, then you should look for a larger PC. This is built to be portable, and I/O has always been a tradeoff. As far as I'm concerned, this may be the best PC I've ever used. The build quality is also incredible: all aluminum case, slim bezels, great speakers, fantastic battery life, beautiful screen, crazy snappy performance... what more could you want? I highly recommend the Dell XPS 13 Copilot+ PC OLED. You won't be disappointed.

As with many things in life, laptop design ultimately is a study in trade-offs. Power of the hardware vs battery life, size of the screen vs portability and so on. This Dell XPS 13 uses the power and power efficiency of the new Snapdragon X Elite processor to achieve a balance that few other computers I've seen can match - and I've seen quite a few in over 20 years as an IT professional. It's not perfect and some of the choices are a bit perplexing, but it's the best ultra-portable laptop I've yet seen. Is it for you? Read on to find out! The first thing that strikes you about this laptop when you unbox it is the design. It's fairly minimalist, particularly in the dark gray color, but it's amazing how thing and compact it is - it can even make the Macbook Air look a bit chunky. It does have some heft to it, but it's still easy to carry around all day and fit in a bag or backpack. The materials throughout are very high-end and the laptop is very well-built. The inside is even better looking with the screen surrounded by only the tiniest of bezels and a fully integrated / no outline trackpad (which is exactly where you think it would be so I've had no trouble with my fingers "finding" it and the click action haptics are very good). The keyboard is the full width of the laptop and the keys are densely packed (not chiclet style) which does take a bit to get used to but I've found them generally comfortable to type on once you get used to them. The function keys are touch spots that change from controlling things like the brightness and volume to the standard "F" keys when you hold the function key - the light up labels on the touch sports ch accordingly. There is a shockingly good (at least for how small it is) webcam in the top bezel. Let's come back to that screen for a moment. There are multiple screen options here - I'm using the OLED at "3K" resolution and it's a glorious thing - it gets super bright with blacks so deep that you have to see it to believe it and vibrant colors at all brightness levels. This might be as close to perfection as a laptop display can get (though, this not being a gaming PC, it is limited to 60Hz, but with great response times). It is somewhat smaller at 13.4" but that contributes to this being a super portable form factor. The "guts" of the laptop are perhaps the most special thing, with the new Snapdragon X Elite processor as the star of the show. This chip, and it's "ARM64" architecture (vs the normal "x86" architecture in standard Intel and AMD chip) sets a new standard for power efficiency and performance. ARM chips have long been power sippers - they're what's in your phone and most tablets after all - but only in recent years have they also been powerful enough to drive solid full computing experiences. Paired with 16GB of FAST DDR5 RAM, the X Elite is plenty to power through work and play - I haven't seen any slow downs while performing normal office tasks, browsing the web, playing media (locally or streamed), writing / compiling code or even editing photos / videos. This isn't really a gaming laptop, but the onboard graphics are sufficient for many older/mid-tier games or emulation and some higher end games will work as well. The CPU has a built-in NPU or neural processing unit to enable onboard/offline AI as part of the "Copilot+" PC program. I've been working with the various Copilot+ features for a week now and while some are incredibly useful, others need a bit more work. The most helpful features turn out to be the Windows Studio Effects for the webcam, which can perform real-time blurring / background changes much better than any I've seen in conferencing software (there are other effects too that are pretty cool). The Cocreate / Image Generator is decidedly a work in progress, but it IS helpful to have a generative AI that is creating along with you. Though to some extent your own creativity (or in my case, the lack thereof) will limit the ultimate output....it's still far better than anything I could create on my own and likely will only improve over time. Some of the applications demonstrated during the Copilot launch (such as LiquidText and DaVinci Resolve) haven't yet fully enabled AI features in their production builds so I expect that the NPU will only become more useful over time. The 512GB SSD is quick - and is user replaceable if you remove the bottom of the laptop (there's only one slot, so you'll have to image the operating system and all over to the new drive - that slot can hold a 2230 or 2280 sized PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD though the included heat spreader will only fit 2230s, so a 2280 will go without it). The SSD is the only user upgradeable part as all other components are soldiered to the motherboard except the battery (which can be replaced but of course not really upgraded). I've included a picture of the interior of the laptop with the bottom panel removed. Given the power-sipping nature of the ARM64 CPU, battery life is incredible, and I'm regularly seeing over 12-13 hours of normal usage with the laptop before charging. Charging is also fast, using USB-C and either the included 60W charger or another USB-C charger of similar power you might already have. So all that is great - you might then be asking what are those trade-offs I mentioned? Well, there are a few... * The ARM64 "Architecture" - Having an ARM CPU onboard enables incredible battery life with strong performance, BUT it does so at the cost of some compatibility. Application have been built for decades to play nicely on x86 based systems (which this isn't) so you'll need to either find new versions of applications compiled for ARM64 (Chrome browser and many other applications have these versions available if you look for them) OR rely on the Prism translation layer built into Windows. Translated applications (or, more properly, emulated applications) aren't quite as fast or power efficient as native applications, but they do largely work. That said, demanding applications (i.e., games or high end engineering tools) or applications that directly access the hardware (backup applications and device/printer drivers) may not run at all if you can't find ARM64 specific versions. For example, my Canon printer/scanner driver won't load on ARM64, so I have to use the Windows default driver which is ok but loses some of the capabilities of the device. This is probably the biggest trade-off for most. * Only two ports - To enable the minimalist design and keep the laptop small and thin, you only get two ports total, USB 4 on both sides that support Thunderbolt as well. These are powerful type-C ports that support full speed charging, video out and high speed data in and out. But there are only two of them (one on each side) and that plus the lack of other specific ports like HDMI or a headphone jack means that you'll almost certainly need a dock or dongle(s) to connect to your ecosystem. * The screen vs battery life - The 3K OLED panel on this laptop might be spectacular to look at, but opting for that screen really cuts in your battery life. While I'm seeing 12-13 hours, users with the fullHD base screen are reporting thtat they're seeing 19-20+ hours of battery life. Sure, both are all day and on balance, I'd rather have the really nice screen than be able to go two days without charging..but some folks might reasonably disagree. * Style vs the keyboard design - While I can certainly say that the design of the keyboard deck is astounding and striking, it might not be the most functional with the "touch" spots for the hotkeys/function keys and the "cammoflaged" touchpad. The keyboard also prioritizes design over functionality. Overall, I do like the balance that Dell has selected here on each of those trade-offs, I think they came out with a stunning laptop with great performance, a tremendous screen and strong battery life. If that sounds good to you, give the Dell XPS 13 a try today!

Pros: Good performance, battery life and wireless connectivity Cons: No option to upgrade hardware and limited ports

The most notable thing about this latest Dell XPS entry is the use of a Qualcomm processor (CPU), the Snapdragon X Elite. This chip uses different architecture than Intel or AMD processors (ARM vs X86), and this laptop is categorized as a Windows Arm laptop. Chip reviews that I read cautioned that some apps may not work with this chip. While all of the Microsoft Windows apps work just fine on this laptop, my external SSD does not work. While it shows in windows explorer as drive D, the laptop cannot access it, I just get the spinning circle. My external SDD works just fine on my Win 10 & 11 computers with Intel x86 processors. I downloaded some common non-Windows apps to check for compatibility. Chrome, Zoom, and Discord all downloaded, installed and worked without issue. Chrome automatically downloaded the Windows ARM version; Zoom gave the option for Win x86 or Win ARM, so you have to choose ARM. Discord did not indicate x86 or ARM but it worked just the same. Besides the above, the Snapdragon processor works just fine multitasking with the Windows apps. I ran multiple apps simultaneously including Exell, Photos, Notepad, while also playing music videos on the Edge browser and everything functioned smoothly. This processor is also supposed to give increased battery life, and while I didn't time my usage, I only used about 30% of the battery life after several hours of very heavy usage. This seems decent to me, but I usually don't pay much attention to battery usage because I'm a home user and I run plugged in. The OLED 3K (2880 x 1800) touchscreen display is fantastic - the color is sharp and brilliant. Also, the Qualcomm Aqstic Audio with Dolby Atmos is outstanding. The surround effect is excellent, the highs are crystal clear, there's no distortion at high volumes and the bass is very good for a laptop. The Copilot app is an AI assistant that integrates with Microsoft 365, can automate tasks, can generate create content and is also good for general search. I found it better than using the usual default search engines. I'm sure content creators will find it very useful. I was glad to see the Dell Support Assist app was still included. It's very useful if you run into system issues. Two things I do not like- there are only 2 ports, USB C Type, on this laptop. That's it, no USB A port, and not even an audio jack, and one of those 2 USB C ports also has to be used for charging, there's no separate charging port. The other thing is the keyboard backlighting has to be turned on every time the laptop is turned on and it turns off after a few seconds being idle. There's nothing in Settings to change it. It could be that there's a setting in the BIOS to change it but I didn't pursue it. Overall although there are a few things I don't like and there could be compatibility issues with some apps, I think this could be an excellent laptop for the average user or student. Anyone considering it though should be sure that any non-Windows apps or devices they intend to use with it will work with Windows ARM and that they don't need more than 2 USB ports, one of which also serves as the charging port.