XPS 14 Dell (2020)
The Dell XPS 14 is a new addition to the XPS line; it is a 14.5-inch business laptop with a redesigned lattice-free keyboard—that is, without spaces between each key.
Apart from a redesigned screen bezel and a shrunk-down webcam, the XPS series now features a solid unibody aluminum chassis with a Piezo haptic touchpad included into the palm rest and completed with a soft-touch texture.
Starting at $1,699, the XPS 14 has a 14.5-inch, 1920 x 1200, 60Hz IPS display, 512GB of storage, 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM running at 6400 MHz. Standard components on all versions are an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU and integrated Arc graphics.
Though it has only a maximum power of just 30 watts, the type we tested has 1TB of storage, 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM clocked at 7467 MHz, an optional 120Hz OLED screen, and a separate mobile Nvidia RTX 4050 graphics card. For $400 more, buyers can have up to 64GB of RAM overall and storage capacity of up to 4TB. Dell offers graphite or platinum XPS 14 and 16; we looked at the latter.
Dell XPS 14(2024) specifications
Starting at $1,699, the Dell XPS 14 base configuration has an IPS display, 16GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage.
Prices as set: $2,699
Intel Core Ultra 7 155H boasts 22 threads, 16 cores, turbo clock up to 4.8GHz.
Graphics: Intel Arc integrated graphics; Nvidia RTX 4050 6GB, discrete, 30-watt maximum
RAM: soldered; 32GB LPDDR5x at 7467 MHz
One terabytes M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 solid state drive
Show: 14.5-inch 3200 x 2000 OLED 120Hz with capacitive touchscreen
Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 6E offer wireless connectivity.
Three x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) with power delivery and DisplayPort out; one x microSDXC card reader (v6.0), one x 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack
6-Cell battery with 69.5Whr
Windows Hello compatible camera with 1080p at 30 fps FHD RGB-IR.
weight: 3.9 pounds (1.77 kg)
Dimensions: 12.6 x 8.5 x.71 inches.
Included USB-C to USB-A and HDMI converter, VESA DisplayHDR 500-rated display, borderless Piezo haptic touchpad with Gorilla Glass surface, inbuilt fingerprint reader.
Warranty: onsite diagnostic supported by one-year hardware and software support. 1-year hardware and software support including onsite diagnostics.
What are our preferences?
Gorilla Glass adds to the laptop’s robust feel and covers above and below the keyboard, including the outstanding touchpad.
It is quite strong and brilliantly crafted
Regarding XPS line build, Dell has consistently exceeded expectations; the XPS 14 is no exception. Above and below the keyboard on the aluminum chassis, Gorilla Glass covers the palm rest, touchpad region, and touch bar below the screen. Even if you try to jiggle the screen, absolutely no flex elsewhere on the laptop since all of this glass weights the XPS 14 more than competitors at almost 4 pounds.
The new trackpad is remarkable; it mimics a click with Piezo motors instead of real buttons. Six inches broad makes it large, simple for fingers to roam around, and it features what looks to be perfect palm rejection. Dell has fit a 14.5-inch screen into a 13-inch laptop by squeezing the extremely thin bezels around the screen.
Thank heavens, camera quality has not suffered. Even with a strong window and lamp right behind me, I obtained test footage that seems good for a laptop webcam and maintains my face correctly exposed. Although I did find some chromatic aberration—that is, colorful fringing—around the borders of several objects—including my hair—the colors seem to be really realistic. With working integrated mics, I wouldn’t feel weird answering a Zoom call from this laptop.
Because everything fits and finishes so securely, my spudger tools almost broke trying to remove the bottom cover (after releasing eight T5 torque screws). Should it be necessary, replacing a dead fan should be easy since once inside every other component is similarly secured using T5 torque screws. Though the storage is upgradeable, the RAM and Wi-Fi card are soldered down unfortunately.
Beautiful even are the new color options. Features of the graphite colorway that sorely lack from the basic aluminum surface of the M3 Apple MacBook Pro include richness and depth as well as a sense of reflection. Still, it creates bizarre fingerprints. Right away, fingerprints covered the rear of our test unit; a microfiber wipe would not remove them.
The new keyboard is pretty lovely
Having already owned a Dell XPS 13 without the Plus, I was first dubious of the new keyboard, which jams every key into a single, unbroken block. That all disappeared the minute I started typing on the XPS 14.
The layout was instantly recognizable to me, and in the Monkeytype typing test I averaged 92 words per minute and 97% accuracy—akin to my everyday 8Bitdo Retro Mechanical Keyboard. Every key depresses with a pleasing tactile sense, and it depresses the same everywhere you press on the keycap. Although Dell claims a.3 mm indent, the keys are softly curved—so much so that they are hardly invisible to the untrained eye but nevertheless direct your fingertips into the center of each keycap.
It’s calm and cool
One thing never changed, no matter how carefully we stress tested the XPS 14: this is a quiet, cool laptop you could use in bed or on your bare legs without worrying about overheating. Dell deleted all of the air vents from the bottom of the device and shifted most of the cooling to the area under the touchbar. This keeps the underside, keyboard, and palmrest cool to the touch.
The XPS 14 runs also remarkably silently under normal operation. The noise level was around that of a desktop air cooler even with the Performance mode setting of the MyDell software turned on, unlocking maximum performance. Neither did the supporters ever fly off without notice.
Though it performs a great job at keeping its outside cool, the XPS 14’s innards can get hot. Although it had no effect on our results, we did find that the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU routinely rose above 105 degrees Celsius and heat throttled. At least in terms of processor, the XPS 16 beat the XPS 14 followed by the several models of M1/M2/M3-powered MacBook Pros, which, at least generally, ranked near to the top of our productivity laptop rankings.
The XPS 14 on the single-core and multicore Cinebench R23 tests obtained respectable scores, artificially stressing the CPU to produce a picture. Having the same Core 7 155H processor, the XPS 16 scored 1703 and 17873 on the corresponding tests, respectively, most likely due to the better cooling system.
On our Geekbench 6 single and multicore tests, where the XPS 14 ranked in the top 10 for the former with scores of 1671 and 12191 respectively, similar findings were observed. Whether your needs for robust multicore performance for data processing, database management, or significant video editing call for it, the XPS 14 won’t let you down either. Just not the fastest device on the market right now.
Excellent screens and speakers
With the panels and audio on its computers, Dell consistently surpassing expectations. It has good contrast, color accuracy, and motion clarity even though it falls short of the 500 nits promised (we measured a maximum brightness of 384 nits in SDR against the 400 nits the panel is rated for and 413 nits with HDR enabled). The 3200 x 2000 resolution lets you hide individual pixels even if your face is pressed up to the screen using 260 pixels per inch of pixel density.
The OLED panel produces amazing images even though its brightness claim is not exactly met.
Because of almost instantaneous pixel reaction times—how fast a pixel changes from one color to another—TV shows and movies appear excellent, and games seem quick and responsive. This is all to be expected because other competitors make use of the same Samsung Display screen. Although Dell has a touch digitizer built into their OLED display, it’s not very useful if you don’t use touch input very often. On the other hand, the digitizer layer is clearly seen from roughly 8 inches afar and gives a somewhat annoying moire look over everything. Still, most people most likely never will see this.
Supporting Dolby Atmos and 3D stereo sound, the XPS 14 features four speakers totaling 8 watts. Though Apple still has better laptop audio quality than Dell, to be very honest these are most likely the finest speakers I have ever heard on a Windows laptop.
Side by side testing the M2 MacBook Pro 14 with the XPS 14 helps me. The XPS 14 has a wonderful, broad soundstage, generates shockingly superb sound for its size, and can achieve maximum volume without distorting. Still, the differences show up even at moderate volume levels. Janelle Monáe’s voice on The Age of Pleasure sounds a little thin and tinny on the XPS 14, and the lack of bass causes the Afrobeats to be anemic and often impossible to hear.
The resonant twang of the guitar in songs like “Working for the Knife” blends in with the background noise while the vocals in Mitski’s Laurel Hell sound squashed. Although the MacBook lacks some of these defects, that does not mean the XPS delivers bad audio. Just outclassed, but most people will find it more than sufficient for gaming or movie watching.
Our dislikes include what, many of the optional improvements do not justify the price hikes.
Upgrading isn’t worth the money.
Even with the most basic setup ($1,699), the XPS 14 laptop is expensive; so, the many upgrades do not always make the high costs justified.
Though it doesn’t perform as good as the 2024 XPS 16, our test machine is essentially the best Dell has to produce. The worst aspect is the $450 decision to install a dedicated graphics card—the mobile Nvidia RTX 4050. This initially looks to be a great bonus. An expensive laptop should, after all, be able to do anything, including run games whenever you so wish. Spending more than $2,000 on a laptop would make me reluctant to have to buy another machine solely for gaming.
Although the XPS 14 isn’t marketed as a gaming computer, the results we obtained still aren’t great. Although the RTX 4050 only runs 30 watts of power and is already a weak GPU. With an Intel Arc A530m graphics card, its game performance was essentially that of the entry-level 2024 Lenovo LOQ. Although the additional expense is not justified, we have seen it on sale for as little as $100 more, so it could be.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was simply plain unplayable, even though it wasn’t in our test suite for gaming computers. Even with the power profile set to performance mode, medium settings, and DLSS upscaling enabled on and set to performance, the game would alternately run between 25 and 60 frames per second ( fps). Sometimes the sound would lag and blur while the frame rate plummeted to single digits. This did not improve either when the shaders were cached or when the size was adjusted to 1920 x 1200.
Though you can’t play this, the settings on the high-resolution OLED screen were dark, dramatic, and colorful enough. The game’s test site was in the Underdark of Act 1, close to the Myconid colony. Later acts simply get more difficult.
The outstanding jack-of- all-trades XPS 14 will keep most people’s budget under control.
Better still, Cyberpunk 2077 attained 58 frames per second at the native 3200 x 2000 resolution with DLSS enabled in performance mode and 36 fps per second at 1080p with ultra settings enabled. Though it doesn’t make use of the 120Hz panel on the XPS 14, the game looks very good and is playable. Horizon Zero Dawn also told a similar story, averaging 32 frames per second at ultra settings on 1080p and 57 frames per second at ultra settings when DLSS was turned on at the laptop’s native resolution.
Want to play games at their best? Get a gaming laptop. Every game we tried shows the 2024 Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 outperforms the XPS with its $1,600 Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU and similar 120Hz OLED panel. If you need a dedicated GPU in your productivity laptop or are an architect or designer and want an all-in-one that can game periodically, the XPS 14 is a pricey choice.
Worse, Dell underplays faster RAM options under the RTX 4050 pick. Options for 7467MHz 16GB and 32GB RAM are available when the dedicated GPU is selected; without it, your options are 64GB of 7467MHz RAM for $1,000 more or 16 or 32GB of 6400MHz DDR5 RAM. Dell sells the RAM onto the motherboard in an attempt to enhance speed and restricts upgrades after purchase, hence even in actual use this would only result in a slight performance gain.
Even destructive, the touch bar is cheesy
Though I fervently support the MacBook Pro touch bar (RIP), I find the Dell touch bar featured on the XPS 14 and 16 unacceptable. Instead of using that region for a row of auxiliary actions that change depending on the situation, Dell has pushed the function keys, Esc, home, end, insert, and delete up to a digital touch bar under the screen. Pressing the escape key by touch and then missing feels terrible; you cannot remap or reorganize the key placements of the touchbar.
If you regularly write and edit on a laptop, eliminating a separate delete key will most likely make your workflow worse. Using the fn key appears odd when you would ordinarily use the function row—that is, to refresh a webpage or use the shortcuts for rapid saving and loading in games like the Fallout series or Baldur’s Gate 3.
Several laptops include the Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 4 and the 2024 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 keep a physical row of secondary and media control keys at the top of the keyboard without reducing key size. seems cheesy, the touch bar.
The flawless trackpad needs to have shape
Although the XPS 14 has almost perfect palm rejection, feels great to slide across, and has a quick touchpad, I wish Dell had highlighted its edges.
The trackpad, about six inches across, is wider than you would guess and fits the chassis so perfectly that it feels exactly the same. That makes crossing over without meaning to simple and scrolling at the margins difficult. Though it compromised the neat finish, some kind of marker—even a basic graphic—would have been appreciated.
Fair battery life
Dell promises over 21 hours of battery life on the product page with the proviso that they tested the XPS 14 at 150 nits using a 1080p IPS panel. In our own battery test, which spins between many Google Chrome tabs with the display set to 200 nits of brightness, the XPS 14 lasted eight hours and forty-one minutes. Though not particularly amazing, that is rather reasonable.
If the laptop had been slimmer and lighter than competitors, “just okay” battery life could have been easier to tolerate. It is approximately half pound heavier and almost a tenth of an inch thinner than a MacBook Pro or an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, which both last noticeably longer on a charge.
Should you get the Dell XPS 14 (2024)?
Although the Dell XPS 14 marks a welcome reinventions of the product line, rivals surpassed it at MSRP. Snag it while it’s on sale.
Indeed, but hold off until a bargain is offered.
Right now, better laptops exist than the 2024 XPS 14. It is not the fastest, smallest, or lightest gadget available; it lacks class-leading battery life. Usually for a price, this great jack-of- all-trades can do anything you need it to.
But if you want upgrades like an OLED panel, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage, that particular price is usually quite close to over $2,000. Even at its lowest configuration of $1,799, the M3 MacBook Pro—which is lighter, smaller, and almost double the battery life of the XPS 14—really beats it. Power-wise, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 will feature the same OLED panel, more battery life, and a real graphics card you can game on, and cost you $1,600, or roughly $1,400 on sale.
Though Framework does not yet have an OLED panel option, even specing out a Framework Laptop 13 or Laptop 16 with all of the greatest upgrade options—both of which are fundamentally more expensive due of their modular systems and smaller manufacturing size—will cost you less than a maxed out XPS 14.
That puts the XPS 14 in a precarious state. Although it’s not a MacBook killer, Dell has produced a really decent all-around laptop for most people, hence it’s bad that MSRP is not a great value. Right now, the configuration we tested varies in price and is currently accessible for $2,199 ($500 reduction) or, should you simply need 16GB of RAM, $1, 999. If Dell continues to slash expenses, take into account the XPS 14 to obtain a reasonably priced configuration you want.
