TL;DR
- Dell's XPS 14 is built around a powerful Intel Panther Lake CPU that can handle all your multi-tasking needs, with fast integrated graphics capable of executing creative tasks, yet it remains quiet, cool, slim and highly portable
- The XPS 14 has two excellent choices in terms of screens: a 2K LCD with great image quality and power-efficiency, or an OLED with vivid colors, deep blacks and a higher resolution of 2.8K for pin-sharp detail
- The highly efficient Intel CPU and the display's variable refresh rate technology help to extend battery life to new highs, with Dell boasting that the XPS 14 is the world's top performer for battery longevity in 14-inch laptops
Dell's XPS 14 is back in town, following on from last year's Dell 14 Premium, and with the return of the XPS brand in the 14-inch form-factor, expectations are doubtless high.
The good news is that Dell looks to have achieved something special with the XPS 14 for 2026. Powered by a cutting-edge Intel processor that's only just arrived on the market, and sporting an all-new design, this laptop more than maintains the reputation of the XPS brand, and it could be an ideal upgrade from your current notebook.
Why exactly? This article will put forward six compelling reasons why the Dell XPS 14 is an exciting purchase and an excellent choice for your next laptop.
1. Will the Dell XPS 14 be fast enough to cope with everything I throw at it?
Thanks to its cutting-edge Intel Core Ultra CPU from the new Panther Lake family, the new Dell XPS 14 will indeed be powerful enough to deal with all the common tasks you might want to perform.
This is a powerful and efficient processor, capable of dealing with demanding multi-tasking or running the likes of Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, or productivity apps. It also packs a highly performant integrated Intel® Arc GPU and a beefy NPU to back it up, ensuring everything happens quickly and responsively.
With the NPU offering up to 50 TOPs (which is a measurement of AI performance), and the Intel Core Ultra chip hitting around 180 TOPS in total, AI tasks will be completed in a swift manner, whether that's on-device AI-powered searches (including Windows 11's Recall feature), or AI-based image generation.
To complement this Panther Lake chip, Dell has used faster system RAM than previous XPS models (it runs at 9600MT/s) and quicker storage, too, with a PCIe 4 SSD in the Dell XPS 14, ensuring that loading apps is going to be seriously snappy.
These components are not just speedy choices for today, but impressively future-proof as well. However, it's the Panther Lake silicon in particular which gives the Dell XPS 14 a big advantage over existing rival laptops which don't have the benefit of these newest processors from Intel.
2. How thin is the Dell XPS 14 exactly – is it easy to carry around?
Dell has considerably refined the XPS design here and given the laptop a slick new look, while ensuring it's ultra-thin and a highly portable notebook that's easy to take with you on your travels – and yet still maintains impressive performance levels.
The XPS 14 is 14.6mm thin, and it’s also light at just 3lbs, as well as compact – indeed it's smaller than a MacBook Air 13-inch, so it'll fit in your backpack or bag with ease.
Don't let its lightweight nature fool you into thinking that the Dell XPS 14 is at all fragile, though. The XPS 14 is more robust than its predecessor with a new unibody design featuring machined aluminum that minimizes any gaps and lines on the laptop's body, and integrates the structural side walls of the chassis into the base for better strength and rigidity.
The result is an XPS laptop which is more durable than ever, and this notebook is tested to ensure it's tough enough to survive real-world knocks and bumps. Dell's durability testing includes opening and closing the laptop lid some 20,000 times to check the hinges don't start to give out and loosen, to pick one example from an array of stress tests.
3. How good is the Dell XPS 14 display?
Dell's display for the XPS 14 won't disappoint whether you choose the LCD or OLED option, as both are excellent InfinityEdge (edge-to-edge) screens with different strengths – as well as a striking innovation.
The LCD screen sports a resolution of 2K and offers a detailed, crisp image, and choosing this display means you get even better battery life with the Dell XPS 14 due to its low power consumption. On the other hand, the tandem OLED boasts a higher 2.8K resolution, as well as OLED's vivid colors and deep blacks which are going to be a boon for creatives tackling serious image editing work – this screen is nicely bright, too.
The mentioned innovation here is the addition of variable refresh rate (VRR) tech for both displays, which allow the laptop to intelligently change the refresh rate. While the Dell XPS 14's screen offers up to a 120Hz refresh rate for LCD and OLED – meaning it refreshes 120 times per second for a smooth image (and gaming frame rates) – you don't always need that.
In fact, when there's a static image on the screen and nothing's happening, it's pointless refreshing the screen 120 times every second – it's a waste of processing power and battery. What VRR does is to allow the refresh rate to be adjusted down to 1Hz when needed with the LCD screen to save resources and battery life. VRR is slightly different with the OLED as it has a minimum floor of 20Hz, although that's still very low.
This VRR tech and the capability to drop to just 1Hz is new to the market, so it's another compelling reason to upgrade to a Dell XPS 14. It's also part of the formula that allows the Dell XPS 14 to perform so well in the battery life stakes, as you'll see in the next section.
4. Does the Dell XPS 14 have a battery that lasts all day?
Dell's XPS 14 laptop can last for an entire day away from a power socket.
The XPS 14 has a high energy density battery – a 900ED rated power pack, in fact – which means it can fit more juice into a smaller sized battery. This isn't a tech you'll find in rival laptops currently on the market.
However, do note that the battery longevity that you get from the Dell XPS 14 varies depending on the type of screen you choose, and whether it's LCD or OLED, but either way, you're not going to be disappointed.
One of the benefits of the 2K LCD is that it really pushes hard in terms of battery life, with Dell claiming that this version of the XPS 14 targets up to 27 hours of longevity (streaming with the Netflix app at 250 nits brightness). That's quite an achievement and it outguns the likes of Apple's MacBook Air, and indeed other rival Windows 11 laptops – it even beats Snapdragon X (Arm) notebooks which are famously top of the tree for battery life (or were). Dell claims that this new laptop is the longest-lasting 14-inch model in the world, in fact.
The OLED-toting Dell XPS 14 still has excellent battery life with a claimed 18 hours, which is still plenty to last you a full working day (and more, likely, though how fast a battery depletes will always vary depending on the workloads running).
All this is thanks in large part to Intel's Panther Lake CPU, which takes processor power-efficiency to a new level, and also Dell's display, which is up to 30% more energy-efficient than the last-gen XPS screen (and also has that new VRR technology which really helps to extend longevity).
5. What about supporting hardware components – does the Dell XPS 14 have anything interesting to offer here?
Away from the main laptop components – the screen, CPU, GPU, memory and storage – the Dell XPS 14 has serious depth in its cast of supporting hardware.
For starters, there's an expansive glass touchpad that features haptic feedback and now has tactile markings to outline the (sizable) active area. It's partnered with a zero-lattice keyboard that's been revamped for a better, more responsive typing experience.
There's something different with the webcam for the new XPS 14, too, as Dell has used an ultranarrow model that fits neatly in the (slim) bezel. Indeed, Dell says this is the thinnest, narrowest, 8-megapixel 4K webcam on the market.
The new design of the XPS 14 captures a suitably premium appearance. Even the trackpad surround is subtle, for example, to stay in keeping with the seamless aesthetics, and there are no visible speakers either. The 10W of audio comes from an up-firing quartet of speakers that are hidden below the keyboard deck.
There are also nifty extra touches such as a slick hinge mechanism that can be opened with one hand, and a USB-C port which is a combo Kensington lock slot for security.
Dell says the XPS 14 has the largest and thinnest fans it's ever made, and with a unique bearing design, this allows for not just cooler, but also quieter operation compared to the previous-gen XPS models. That's going to be a real benefit when carrying out work on the XPS 14, as you'll have a minimal level of distraction in terms of fan noise.
As you can see, there are quite a few fresh innovations away from the central hardware components which make for some additional reasons to tempt you into an upgrade to the Dell XPS 14.
6. Can the GPU in the Dell XPS 14 do justice to PC games?
The integrated Arc GPU in the Panther Lake processor is capable of playing mainstream games, like Fortnite, and running them well.
In fact, this is one of the most eye-opening leaps in performance with Intel's latest laptop chips, as the GPU offers an up to 50% uplift for gaming frame rates compared to the previous generation (Lunar Lake – this is based on testing conducted in Cyberpunk 2077 and Borderlands 3, as well as 3DMark).
This means that the GPU in Dell's XPS 14 can handle mainstream gaming, not just casual play. It's capable of running titles such as Fortnite and Minecraft at over 60 frames per second at 1080p resolution for an impressively smooth gaming experience, with Intel XeSS 2 upscaling helping to ensure crisp levels of graphics detail while maintaining that fluid frame rate.
Dell claims that the most powerful configuration of this Arc GPU (with 12 Xe3 graphics cores) offers the equivalent of a discrete graphics card in a laptop, all packed into a compact processor chip, saving space in the chassis for other components – and allowing the notebook to be slimmer.
In short, the XPS 14 can tackle relatively demanding games without any trouble, but there's obviously a caveat here. It's still true that dedicated gaming laptops, such as Dell's Alienware devices, are what you really want for truly taxing games and achieving the smoothest frame rates. However, what you'll see with the Dell XPS 14 represents a truly surprising level of performance in a svelte laptop.
If you currently own a thin-and-light laptop, you might find that somewhat difficult to believe. Many slim notebooks are distinctly lightweight when it comes to trying to run anything but casual games, but the Dell XPS 14 offers a very different, much better experience – a game-changing one, quite literally.
If you think a Dell XPS 14 is for you, find out more on the Dell website: US readers click here, UK readers here, and coming soon for AU readers click here.
And there’s one more thing to know before you buy: Dell offers a price match guarantee. To learn more about the Dell price match and price guarantee, including the terms, exclusions and restrictions, US readers can click here, AU readers here and UK readers here.