I spent days testing the Dell 14 Premium vs Apple MacBook Pro 14 to find out which is the best 14-inch laptop – and the results are in

As laptop clashes go, they don't get much bigger than Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch vs Dell 14 Premium. These two premium devices are both among the best laptops and come in at similar prices – but which should you buy?

The Dell 14 Premium is the successor to the very popular Dell XPS 14, and while it doesn't change much from its XPS pedigree, it does have some new hardware under the lid that makes it more powerful than its predecessor.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch, meanwhile, consistently ranks as the best laptop for creatives owing to its powerful hardware, sleek design, longevity, and accessible price.

Choosing between them is no easy task, but I've spent days testing the two laptops to answer this very question. Read on to learn the pros and cons of each device and look at the data I've collected to see which one is right for your needs and budget.

Dell 14 Premium vs Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch: Price

The Dell 14 Premium and Apple MacBook Pro 14 are priced in the same ballpark, but the Dell has a slight advantage here. It starts at $1,499.99 / £1,499 / AU$2,798.40, while the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M4) is $100/£100 more at $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499.

As you move up the spec stack, the Dell 14 Premium maintains its pricing advantage, with the highest-spec 14 Premium configuration coming in at $2,399.99 / £2,364.59 / AU$4,207.50, while the MacBook Pro 14-inch's top spec configuration with an M4 chip comes in at $2,599 / £2,749 / AU$4,229.

If you opt for M4 Pro or M4 Max chips, then the price of the MacBook Pro 14-inch will be much higher, and at that point it is really competing with the Dell Pro 14 Premium and Dell Pro Max 14 Premium, not the Dell 14 Premium.

I've left those models out of this comparison and just focused on the base machines – and in this category the Dell just pips the MacBook.

• Price: Dell 14 Premium

Dell 14 Premium vs Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch: Specs

In terms of specs, it's a bit difficult to directly compare the Dell 14 Premium to the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch, since Dell actually has three different lines that could go up against it, depending on which Apple M4-series chip you configure it with.

Starting out, though, the Dell 14 Premium stacks up fairly well against the base configuration of the MacBook Pro 14-inch.

There is one major area where the MacBook Pro 14 totally outclasses the base-spec 14 Premium, though: its display.

Unlike the 14 Premium, the MacBook Pro 14-inch uses the same mini-LED liquid retina XDR display for every configuration, so it's going to look great right out the gate, while you'll have to pay extra to upgrade to an OLED panel for the 14 Premium.

Like I said, if you're talking about the top configuration for the MacBook Pro 14-inch, you can configure it with the much more powerful M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, and those are not really comparable to the Dell 14 Premium. For those chip configurations, you'll need to look at the Dell Pro 14 Premium and Dell Pro Max 14 Premium, respectively.

If we limit this comparison to MacBook Pro 14-inch with standard M4 chip, though, the top-spec configuration of the 14 Premium definitely has the advantage thanks to its discrete Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU. That is much more powerful than anything you'll get with Apple's integrated gaphics.

• Specs: Dell 14 Premium

Dell 14 Premium vs Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch: Design

When it comes to the design of these laptops, the Dell 14 Premium and Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch both have plenty of things going for them – and interestingly enough, where they stumble, both do so in exactly the same ways in a couple of key areas.

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The 14 Premium retains much of the same aesthetics as the previous-gen XPS 14, including the borderless trackpad and virtual function keys, which aren't great for accessibility.

The laptop itself is well-built and sleek, if a bit boring, and it is only slightly heavier than the MacBook Pro 14-inch, though it is still very portable.

The MacBook Pro 14-inch, meanwhile, is also little changed from its M3 model, but it is still an iconic-looking laptop, and its design is certainly one of its biggest draws.

Its keyboard and trackpad also have a better feeling in use than those on the Dell 14 Premium, and even though the Dell machine's OLED panel is more than a match for the MacBook Pro's mini-LED display, the base-spec 14 Premium will not look nearly as nice as the MacBook.

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The biggest gripes I have about the 14 Premium beyond the accessibility issues with the trackpad and function keys are its rather boring color options and the lack of a privacy shutter for its webcam.

These complaints equally apply to the MacBook Pro 14-inch, which might have made this category a tie were it not for the MacBook's superior trackpad and function keys and its slightly better overall design. As it is, I have to give this one to the Apple device.

• Design: Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch

Dell 14 Premium vs Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch: Performance

Comparing performance is a bit tricky with these two devices, since the two units I had on hand to test aren't exactly equivalent (the Dell 14 Premium has twice as much RAM and SSD storage).

That said, the two devices I tested are close enough that I feel comfortable making some direct comparisons, especially in tests where RAM and storage capacity don't really affect the final result, such as direct CPU and GPU benchmarking.

Note that each of the charts below features multiple benchmarks which you can switch between via the drop-down arrows. To get the full picture, you'll want to look at them all.

On the CPU side of things, the Apple M4 chip overpowers the Intel Core Ultra 7 255H in the Dell 14 Premium, especially in single-core performance, which drives a number of high-intensity apps such as Adobe Photoshop.

Things swing in the Dell 14 Premium's favor when it comes to GPU performance, though, thanks to the discrete Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU.

The base-spec 14 Premium won't come close to these numbers, seeing as it uses integrated Intel Arc graphics, but the upgrade to the RTX 4050 is highly recommended, even if you don't go with an OLED display.

Technically, both laptops use PCIe 4.0 SSD storage, but the MacBook Pro 14-inch's SSD is a lot slower than the 14 Premium's.

The 14 Premium's read speeds mean that the laptop will start up faster, apps will load more quickly, and opening large files will feel noticeably faster. The write speeds for both laptops are close enough that you likely wouldn't notice much difference in real world use.

Both of these laptops are good for creative pros, though in different ways. If you plan on doing a lot of 3D modeling work, the Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU offers substantially better performance in this regard, but if you are looking to do some serious video or photography work, the MacBook Pro 14-inch is going to give you noticeably better performance.

Turning to gaming, neither of these are making any best gaming laptop lists any time soon, but the RTX 4050 GPU combined with nearly every PC game treating Windows as its target platform puts the Dell 14 Premium well ahead of the MacBook Pro 14-inch in this regard.

Given how each laptop has its strengths and weaknesses, it's hard to come down and declare a clear winner here. It's really going to be a matter of which workload you expect to focus on, so all I can really do is call it a tie.

• Performance: Tie

Dell 14 Premium vs Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch: Battery life

I can't speak directly to the battery life of the base-spec Dell 14 Premium, which might be substantially better than what I got in my testing with the top-spec configuration – but I think it's safe to say that the MacBook Pro 14-inch with M4 will walk away with this category.

In our standardized battery life testing, the Dell managed just over 8hrs, while the MacBook lasted for more than 18 hours. That's a phenomenal performance and a real mark in its favor.

Sure, if you choose a different spec for the Dell the numbers above might improve a little, but really it's only a matter of how badly the 14 Premium gets beaten.

• Battery Life: Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch

Dell 14 Premium vs Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch: Verdict

If you take all of my benchmark scores and average them all out to get a final tally, the Dell 14 Premium comes out ahead purely on the strength of the discrete RTX 4050 GPU. If you opt for the Intel integrated graphics option, things might turn out quite differently.

In either case, the MacBook Pro 14-inch has some other non-quantifiable factors in its column, including a better design. And of course there's that battery life. For a laptop like this, which is meant to be used on the go, the fact that it lasts for a substantially longer time needs to be weighted a bit more heavily in the final average.

With that in mind, I'm inclined to call it a draw between the Dell 14 Premium vs Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch. Both are noticeably better in different use cases, so depending on what you need your laptop for, things can go either way.

If gaming and 3D modeling are important to you, go with Dell. If you're a video editor or photographer, or if you need seriously long battery life, go with Apple.

• Final Verdict: Tie

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