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If you're a student — whether at school, college, or university — there’s a good chance you’re either considering a laptop upgrade or looking at buying your first notebook to use for your studies. Not to heap any pressure on, but it's an important decision: this laptop could be a piece of hardware that you have for years, helping you to tackle your coursework, and entertain you during downtime.
Hopefully it'll be a laptop that lasts for years to come, and that brings up an important point. While it may be tempting to save money and buy the cheapest portable you can find, going for the basement-bargain option may not prove wise down the road when that device gives up the ghost prematurely.
What you want is an affordable laptop, but one that strikes a compelling balance between an accessible price point and a level of quality and performance that impresses. The freshly revealed Dell XPS 13 fits the bill, and this article will explore why it's a strong choice for any student in terms of performance, battery life, build quality, and much more.
TL;DR
- Dell's new XPS 13 punches above its price bracket, delivering fast, smooth and responsive performance plus great features, making it the ideal choice for a student who wants a good laptop for college or university yet doesn't want to stretch their budget too far
- The XPS 13 offers enough performance — with a choice of efficient Intel processors and high-capacity SSDs, and the option for 16GB of RAM — to deal with all your needs regarding work and entertainment
- This laptop is also impressively portable and light, so you can easily take the XPS 13 anywhere, and with a high-quality touchscreen, long battery life, and a premium as well as durable construction, it's a great all-round choice for any student
No-compromise performance at an accessible price
Dell has positioned the XPS 13 to be keenly priced, yet this laptop delivers enough in the way of raw performance to tackle any task you might throw at it in terms of your everyday studies, or for entertainment duties.
The secret here is the Intel Core Series 3 processor. It’s a new range of chips that are efficient and fast mobile processors capable of easily driving multitasking. So, if you want to have a bunch of browser tabs and documents open while you're video chatting, and you are also, say, switching out to do a bit of image editing here and there, the XPS 13 can handle all this without breaking a sweat.
When you use AI features in Windows 11, they'll be accelerated — the processor has a built-in NPU rated at 18 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second, basically a measure of how fast a processor can run AI), which is perfect for everyday AI usage. Plus you also get fast LPDDR5X RAM and a high-capacity PCIe Gen 4 SSD to store all your files.
It's also worth bearing in mind that the cooling system in the XPS 13, consisting of dual fans, helps to make sure the device stays cool on your lap or desk. These fans are commendably quiet, too, so you can use the XPS 13 while you're researching in the library without annoying other students with any intrusive fan noise.
Note that the RAM loadout for the Dell XPS 13 can be configured at 16GB if you wish, and unlike some rival laptops at this price point, you're not constrained to just having 8GB of RAM — although that option is present, too.
Wi-Fi 7 support means you get the fastest wireless internet standard to make, for example, streaming a bit of Netflix a much better experience. And nippy integrated graphics from Intel round off the performance package on offer here.
Overall, compared to rival machines at similar wallet-friendly price points, you're getting premium build quality, a crisp display and good battery life. Dell has ensured that the value proposition is one of the strongest suits for the new XPS 13.
Is the Dell XPS 13 portable enough to take anywhere?
Yes, the XPS 13 is very compact and portable, and indeed it's the thinnest and lightest XPS laptop that Dell has ever made.
The XPS 13 is super-slim by nature at just 0.5 inches (12.7mm), with a small footprint of 11.7 x 7.9 inches and (297 x 201mm) ensuring that it'll easily fit in any backpack, bag, or case. Those dimensions are impressively compact for a laptop packing a 13.4-inch screen, with the InfinityEdge display having vanishingly slim bezels and allowing the XPS 13 to be much sleeker than rival notebooks in respect of the screen size compared to the laptop body.
Weighing in at 2.2lbs (1kg), you'll find the XPS 13 is easy to carry with you around campus, town, or wherever you're headed. This featherweight device will also happily fit on a small desk, or the likes of a pull-down airplane or train tray table when you're traveling.
But if you've got performance and portability in a laptop, isn't battery life sacrificed – doesn't something have to give?
No, because Dell has designed the XPS 13 for battery longevity — and chosen the laptop's components with that goal firmly in mind — as well as ensuring it's compact and performant.
For example, the XPS 13's LCD screen is optimized to sip power more frugally, especially with Dell's addition of VRR (variable refresh rate) tech that can dynamically adjust itself based on the content being displayed. This panel is capable of a butter-smooth 120Hz refresh rate, which is great for a day-to-day experience of using your XPS 13 laptop. But it can also drop down to as low as 30Hz intelligently when static content is on-screen, such as a document or web page. This adaptive tech saves a surprising amount of battery power.
Intel's Core Series 3 processor is also highly power-efficient, a great example of mobile silicon designed for exceptional battery life.
The end result is a claimed up to 17 hours of Netflix streaming for the XPS 13. That isn't to suggest that you should be binge-watching Netflix for 17 hours straight, but it means you’re able to stay away from a power socket between lectures and study sessions. And if you are working late at night on, say, an essay in your dorm room, it's worth noting that the XPS 13 has a backlit keyboard — a very useful extra for easier typing in more dimly-lit conditions that most rival notebooks in the same price bracket are lacking.
The XPS 13's screen is more than just power-efficient
There's more to the LCD display on the XPS 13 than just VRR helping to extend battery life, and it's an excellent screen that packs a lot of features not seen with similarly priced rival laptops.
That includes the fact that the 13.4-inch display has a 2.5K resolution, making images and text very sharp, with 500 nits of brightness to help visibility even in well-lit rooms — that's far more than most competitors. This is a display that's great for watching films or TV shows in your downtime (and it's paired with a high-quality set of quad speakers, firing sound both upwards and downwards for a 360-degree spatial sound experience).
100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut also means that colors are highly accurate. If you're editing some photos you took on your last holiday, for example, it's great to see true-to-life colors on those snaps. That's an unusual bonus on a laptop in this price bracket, and the same is true for the display being a touchscreen; this is something other big-brand rivals miss out to save money.
Having a touchscreen as standard on all models of the XPS 13 is seriously handy for fuss-free scrolling of web pages or documents, gesture controls when image editing, or simply flicking through photos. Turning to health aspects here, the display also benefits from Eyesafe technology which reduces harmful blue light emissions without negatively impacting the colors displayed.
The XPS 13 really looks the part, too
There's a theme you may have noticed by now, namely that the XPS 13 punches above its weight for the price category this laptop is in — and that's markedly true when it comes to the build quality and appearance of the device.
Dell has ensured that, despite its wallet-friendly price tag, this laptop still bears all the hallmarks of an XPS device. From its premium, streamlined chassis and the machined aluminum construction, to that high-quality touchscreen with those tiny bezels, Dell has created a notebook that looks a class above its rivals.
That also includes a chiclet keyboard, which benefits from backlighting as mentioned, a precision touchpad, and a webcam that supports Windows Hello for facial recognition — convenient and secure logins for the laptop that happen with just a glance at the screen.
With an elegant, subtle silvery blue Sky color scheme, this isn't a flashy or in-your-face device, but it looks undeniably polished. On top of that, the XPS 13 is built to be durable and last.
A premium laptop without paying a premium
It's clear enough, then, how Dell has equipped the XPS 13 with a host of what would traditionally be considered 'premium' trappings — like that top-notch, color-accurate touchscreen — and yet kept the notebook at a palatable price level which might even seem to be a mismatch for the quality on offer.
It isn't just the thinnest and lightest XPS laptop yet, but the most affordable. This makes it an ideal pick for a student who wants a good notebook to accompany them throughout their college or university life — and beyond — but at the same time, doesn't want to stretch their budget unduly. With the XPS 13, you get fast, responsive performance and battery life in a compact form factor at an accessible price point.
If you think a Dell XPS 13 is right for you, find out more on the Dell website: US readers click here, AU readers here, CA readers here and UK readers 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, CA readers here and UK readers here.