Dell refreshes XPS 13 and 15 and new Android tablets

Dell Venue 8
The new XPS 13 in action

As advertised, Dell outed a number of products today. We fully expected more details on the already-announced Venue 8 Pro, but the big D went whole hog in unveiling its resurrected Venue line.

Turns out Dell's new Windows 8.1 tablets weren't the only Venues to stride into town as a pair of Android slates bearing the name dropped by as well.

The Venue 7 and Venue 8 run Android 4.2.2, and as you can surmise will be sized at 7- and 8-inches, respectively.

Both will be sold in Wi-Fi and 4G configs, and the pair share screen specs (1280 x 800 IPS) and last-gen processors (2GHz dual-core Intel Z2580).

As noted by Engadget, the Venue 7 will only be available in a 16GB flavor, though jumping up to the Venue 8 will snag you the option of either 16GB or 32GB internal storage. There is microSD support for both tabs, so that's a plus, while the pricing isn't a big turn off either.

When the tablets become available Oct. 18, the Venue 7 will retail for $149.99 (about £92, AU$160) while the Venue 8 hits a $179.99 (about £110, AU$192) price mark.

XPS Ultrabook updates

Dell also threw in some extra-appendaged devices in the form of a refreshed XPS Ultrabook lineup.

We already bumped into the XPS 11 at June's Computex, but at the the time Dell was only showing off a prototype of the Windows 8.1 laptop/tablet hybrid.

Today we have a more flushed out picture, though naturally we already knew Haswell (Core i3 or Core i5) was humming along as the Yoga 11S-like Ultrabook's processor. In fact, not a whole lot has changed since we saw the XPS 11 in Taiwan, including that 11.6-inch 2560 x 1440 touch display.

The same flat keyboard we saw at Computex is still there too, fully reminiscent of the Touch Covers Microsoft produces for the Surface family.

PC World noted the laplet (laptop, tablet, get it?) will have 4GB of DDR3/1600 memory and 80GB, 120GB or 256GB SSD options. The XPS 11 will be available in November for $1,000 (about £616, AU$1,067).

Dell also updated the XPS 13 and XPS 15, jamming Haswell into each.

The XPS 13 will also hit retail in November with a starting price of $1,000 (about £616, AU$1,067). Core i3, i5 and i7 SKUs are the available options, and Dell is offering a version with a 13.3-inch touchscreen as well.

Touch and non-touch XPS 13s will each have a 1920 x 1080 display, four to 8GB DDR3/1600 memory and 128GB or 256GB solid-state drives. Two USB 3.0 slots and a mini DisplayPort find their fit in the XPS 13 too.

As for the new XPS 15, it will knock about with either an Intel Core i5 or Core i7 chip, a 15.6-inch display with resolutions of either 1920 x 1080 or a whopping 3200 x 1800 and either an SSD cache-backed mechanical hard drive or 512GB SSD.

Options obviously aren't lacking here.

The $1,500 (about £924, AU$1601) starting price nabs you an XPS 15 featuring 8GB or 16GB memory and a Nvidia GeForce GT 750M GPU towing a 2GB frame buffer. Look for it on Oct. 18.

Read our updated Dell XPS 13 review

Michelle Fitzsimmons

Michelle was previously a news editor at TechRadar, leading consumer tech news and reviews. Michelle is now a Content Strategist at Facebook.  A versatile, highly effective content writer and skilled editor with a keen eye for detail, Michelle is a collaborative problem solver and covered everything from smartwatches and microprocessors to VR and self-driving cars.