Dell XPS 14 review: A course correction

Best Prices Today: Dell XPS 14

In 2022, Dell took a big swing with a new XPS 13 that reimagined how a modern laptop should look. Dell replaced the physical function keys with touch-sensitive buttons and replaced the touchpad’s borders with an edgeless design.

It didn’t go over well. The changes looked sleek but made the laptop a bit more difficult to use. To make matters worse, competitors like Lenovo, Asus, and even Apple went a different direction, shifting towards making their laptops look and feel more tactile.

Now, Dell is trying to make up for lost time with a redesigned Dell XPS 14. It restores the physical function row and adds subtle tactile bumps to define the touchpad’s borders. It also upgrades to the latest Intel Core Series 3 chips. The result is a solid premium laptop with enviable performance, though it’s still not at the top of its game.

Dell XPS 14: Specs and features as-tested

This review covers the Dell XPS 14 with the OLED display and Intel Core Ultra X7 358H processor. While all new Dell XPS 14 models are quite similar in 2026, there are a few slight differences beyond the hardware specifications of each configuration. The OLED model is a hair thinner than the IPS model, and also a few ounces lighter.

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra X7 358H
• Memory: 32GB LPDDR5x-9600
• Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc B390
• NPU: 50 TOPS
• Display: 14-inch 2880×1800 120Hz OLED touchscreen
• Storage: 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD
• Webcam and microphone: 4K webcam with IR camera
• Connectivity: 3x Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort 2.1 and Power Delivery, 1x 3.5mm audio jack
• Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0
• Biometrics: Windows Hello facial recognition
• Battery capacity: 70 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 12.19 x 8.26 x 0.58 inches
• Weight: 3 pounds
• Operating System: Windows 11 Pro
• Price: $2,259.99

The configuration we reviewed is priced at $2,259.99 on Dell’s website, which is a significant increase from the $1,349.99 entry-level MSRP. This price includes the option to use Windows 11 Pro instead of Windows 11 Home, which adds $60 to the price.

Shoppers with larger budgets will currently find only the option to add more memory (up to 64GB) or more storage (up to 4TB). These upgrades work out to an all-in price of $3,109.99 for a model with 64GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD. Dell says it will eventually add the option to upgrade to an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H, however.

Dell XPS 14: Design and build quality

Foundry / Matthew Smith

Dell positions the XPS 14 as a return to the best of the laptop’s design legacy, and it fulfills that promise. This laptop is a looker, though not in an overt or flashy way. It instead focuses on the details to deliver a refined, complete package. 

The exterior is clad in thick aluminum panels with pleasant curves that lack any sharp edge or surface, and the graphite colorway delivers a beautiful dark luster. The only branding is a small, glossy XPS logo on the lid, and the interior isn’t marred by stickers.

Opening the laptop with a single finger is easy. The frame of the display is very slightly larger than the lower half of the laptop’s chassis, creating a small lip, and the tension of the hinge is well-tuned. 

Placing the laptop on a scale will reveal it comes in at three pounds, which is heavy for a 14-inch Windows laptop in 2026. That’s something to keep in mind. Many competitive laptops, such as the Asus ExpertBook Ultra, are closer to 2.5 pounds or less. On the other hand, the heft adds to the XPS 14’s premium feel, and the laptop is still light enough that it won’t feel like a lump in an average laptop bag.

Dell XPS 14: Keyboard, touchpad

Foundry / Matthew Smith

The keyboard was the weakest link in the most recent Dell XPS and later Dell Pro models due to the company’s controversial decision to replace the physical function row keys with touch-sensitive buttons. Fortunately, the keys are now back and work just as you would expect.

Despite that improvement, I still find the keyboard to be lackluster. I don’t like Dell’s big, slab-like keys, which have tiny gaps between them. I don’t think the plastics used for the keys look or feel as premium as the rest of the device, either. Key travel is shallow and keys activate with a timid bottoming action. That’s not to say the keyboard is bad. It’s fine. Still, I prefer the keyboard on other premium 14-inch laptops such as the Asus ExpertBook and Lenovo Yoga 9i line.

I have more praise for the touchpad. Prior models didn’t provide any visual indication of where the touchpad was located, but the new model fixes that with subtle but noticeable bumpers on the left and right. The touchpad is also large, measuring about six inches wide and three inches deep. That’s better than competitors, most of which have a touchpad that measures around five inches wide. The added space is helpful when waggling fingers through documents with multi-touch gestures.

The touchpad also uses haptics to simulate physical mouse clicks without physical movement. I’m a fan of haptic touchpads, and it’s a perfect fit for a premium yet portable laptop like the Dell XPS 14.

Dell XPS 14: Display, audio

Foundry / Matthew Smith

This review is for the Dell XPS 14 with the OLED touchscreen, which is a $150 upgrade over the IPS model. Although Dell’s pre-baked configuration selector also pairs the OLED display with the laptop’s most powerful available Intel chip, the Core Ultra X7 358H, choosing a custom configuration lets you snag the OLED with any internal hardware configuration.

And the OLED is definitely worth the upgrade, at least so long as battery life isn’t your top priority (more on that in the battery section). The OLED display ups the resolution from 1920×1200 to 2880×1800, and while the 1200p display already looks rather sharp, the improvement is noticeable. Even more noticeable, of course, is OLED’s outstanding contrast and color gamut. The IPS display looks fine on its own but, when placed side-by-side with the OLED, the IPS panel looks flat and dull by comparison.

The OLED touchscreen has a refresh rate up to 120Hz, though the IPS display provides a 120Hz refresh rate, too. Interestingly, the IPS display has a wider adaptive refresh rate range (from 1 to 120Hz) than the OLED display (from 20 to 120Hz). I’d still recommend the OLED for motion clarity, however, due to OLED’s lower pixel response times and reduced motion blur.

While the OLED display is nice, the XPS 14’s speakers are exceptional. The laptop has a quad-speaker sound system with a pair of three-watt speakers and a pair of two-watt tweeters. The sound system manages to deliver some sense of bass wallop, and while it’s (probably) not going to bother your neighbors, it can easily fill a studio apartment, home office, or small kitchen with sound. Lenovo’s Yoga 9i is the only Windows laptop I can recall with similarly excellent audio quality, and most competitors are far less enjoyable.  

Dell XPS 14: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

Dell’s specifications list a 4K webcam, though I had some trouble achieving 4K resolution. According to Dell, this is a result of Windows Studio Effects, though the issue persisted even with Studio Effects turned off. I could only manage 1440p resolution. That’s still sharper than most laptops (1080p is the standard), and the camera looks decent for a webcam. The camera doesn’t have a physical privacy shutter, though.

A dual-microphone array is provided for audio capture and does its job admirably. It picked up strong audio in my testing with little background noise. It’s not exceptional in this, as many laptops now offer good audio arrays.

Biometric login is available through Windows Hello facial recognition. A fingerprint reader is not available.

Dell XPS 14: Connectivity

Foundry / Matthew Smith

While the Dell XPS 14 changes course on some decisions made by recent Dell XPS/Dell Pro models, it sticks to the company’s modern approach to connectivity. The laptop has three Thunderbolt 4 ports (which also support USB-C, DisplayPort, and Power Delivery) alongside one 3.5mm audio jack, and that’s it.

On the upside, this is a solid range of high-speed modern connectivity for a Windows laptop. The array of three Thunderbolt 4 ports provides a lot of options for connecting a dock and high-speed storage.

However, the laptop entirely lacks USB-A, dedicated video-out, a card reader, and other handy physical connectivity. For most people, that means you’ll need to live the dongle life. Thunderbolt 4 and USB-C are common, of course, but it’s still almost impossible to entirely avoid older connection standards.

While the physical connectivity has trade-offs, the wireless connectivity is firing on all cylinders. The XPS 14 has Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0. Both standards are new enough that there’s a good chance you don’t own any other devices that benefit from them. Still, it’s good to see them included as it will help future-proof the laptop’s wireless connectivity as the years roll on (and a laptop like the Dell XPS 14 certainly has the potential to remain useful for five to 10 years).

Dell XPS 14: Performance

The Dell XPS 14 in this review has not only the OLED upgrade, but also a hardware upgrade from the entry-level Intel Core Ultra 5 325 to the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, which is currently the best available silicon (however, Dell says the Core Ultra X9 388H will be available in the future). The Core Ultra X7 358H pairs a 16-core CPU with Intel Arc B390 graphics and, in this configuration, is flanked by 32GB of speedy LPDDR5x-9600 memory.

Foundry / Matthew Smith

First up is PCMark 10, a holistic system benchmark. It has favorable things to say about the Dell XPS 14 and reaches a score of 8,809. As the graph shows, that is an excellent score when placed next to a variety of Intel and AMD laptops from the prior generation. It does fall behind the Asus ExpertBook Ultra, however, as that laptop posted an even better score of 9,892 in this benchmark.

Foundry / Matthew Smith

Next we turn to Cinebench, a heavily multi-threaded render test, and the story here is similar to PCMark. Intel Core Series 2 chips did not perform well at all in this benchmark, as represented by the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI. The Dell XPS 14 nearly doubles the Swift Edge 14 AI’s result.

The Asus ExpertBook Ultra remains in the lead, though. The HP Elitebook X G1a with AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 also scores a victory. That’s representative of AMD Ryzen AI 9 chips generally, as they tend to perform well in this benchmark.

Foundry / Matthew Smith

In Handbrake, a video encoding test that relies on the CPU, we see the Dell XPS 14 scores its first win. And, perhaps more importantly, the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H once again delivers a huge gain over the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 chips that were found in similar laptops last year. This is about as good as CPU performance gets for a 14-inch Windows laptop.

Foundry / Matthew Smith

While the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H is a strong performer in CPU tests, that’s only half the story. The chip also has Intel’s latest Arc B390 integrated graphics and it, much like the CPU, delivers a big gain over its predecessor.

As the graph above shows, the Dell XPS 14 can deliver major gains over older Intel chips with Arc 140V graphics and AMD chips with Radeon 890M graphics. Arc B390 is often 40 or 50 percent quicker than the best integrated graphics available last year.

That has real-world benefits. Cyberpunk 2077 can average 36 frames per second at 1080p resolution and Ultra detail, and that’s without Intel XeSS image scaling. Shadow of the Tomb Raider, meanwhile, averaged 52 frames per second at 1080p and Highest detail, once again without XeSS in use. 

Using XeSS image upscaling can boost the average framerate in both games beyond 60 frames per second. That’s remarkable for an integrated graphics solution.

Dell XPS 14: Battery life and portability

Dell ships the XPS 14 with a 70 watt-hour battery and boldly claims the laptop can last up to 40 hours on a charge. That claim is only applicable to the versions with the IPS display, however, and was achieved by local playback of a 1080p video file at 150 nits of brightness.

Foundry / Matthew Smith

PCWorld’s standard test does involve playing a video, but we use a 4K file of the short film Tears of Steel and test at 200 nits of brightness. As the graph shows, our results were mediocre at best. The XPS 14 endured about 16 hours, which is a good but not exceptional result.

It’s worth mentioning, though, that I’ve also tested the Dell XPS 14 with the LCD display. I’m still working on the full review, but I can confirm it lasts about twice as long on a charge, as I’ve managed to hit at least 22 hours of battery life in this same test. The Dell XPS 14 with LCD display also has the less power hungry Intel Core Ultra 5 325 chip, which likely contributes to that model’s superior battery life.

Dell XPS 14: Conclusion

The Dell XPS 14 with OLED display is a luxurious Windows laptop with solid CPU and integrated GPU performance. I also like the large, responsive touchpad and commitment to high-speed connectivity, which includes Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 7. The OLED display is gorgeous and the built-in audio is among the best available from a Windows laptop. Dell still needs to improve the keyboard, which feels more shallow and less premium than many competitors.

All of this results in a laptop that’s outstanding but just a hair away from being my top pick. The Dell XPS 14 looks spectacular and proves enjoyable to use, but I didn’t like it as much as the Asus ExpertBook Ultra, which is lighter and has a better keyboard. Still, the new Dell XPS 14 might be for you if you’re all-in on Thunderbolt 4, or you crave Windows laptop with an elegant and refined look.