Dell is making good on its tease from CES and eventually asserting a brand new XPS 13. The XPS 13 returns as a budget-friendly choice, launching in July at a promotional scholar worth of $599 — although that introductory deal solely runs till September for back-to-school purchasing; it’ll begin at $699 for everybody else. The $599 promo precisely matches up with the MacBook Neo’s beginning worth, however college students can really get Apple’s price range laptop computer for $100 much less. Which means Dell has its work reduce out proving that the XPS 13 is price the additional cash.
This will probably be Dell’s thinnest and lightest XPS up to now, measuring 0.5 inches / 12.7mm thick and weighing simply 2.2 kilos / 1kg. It’ll have simply two USB-C ports and no 3.5mm audio jack, identical to the last XPS 13 that value way more. It sadly received’t actually have a devoted audio jack on greater finish configurations set to reach later with Intel Panther Lake chips and Thunderbolt 4 — which can go as much as 32GB of RAM.
The entry-level configuration will get you a six-core Intel Core 5 320 “Wildcat Lake” chip, 512GB of storage, and a lowly 8GB of RAM. (I’m noticing a trend.) However the excellent news is that each config of the brand new XPS 13 can have a 13.4-inch anti-glare touchscreen with 2560 x 1600 decision, 30-120Hz variable refresh charge, 500 nits of brightness, and one hundred pc protection of the DCI-P3 colour area.
The XPS 13 may even have a backlit keyboard and a claimed “streaming” battery lifetime of as much as 17 hours. Dell reps say it ought to be environment friendly sufficient to final a scholar’s full day of lessons. There was no mincing of phrases about what Dell is focusing on with the XPS 13, as COO Jeff Clarke referred to as out the MacBook Neo by title in an early media briefing. However whereas the XPS 13 is lighter than the Neo and has some extras the MacBook lacks like a backlit keyboard and higher-end configurations, utilizing 8GB of RAM on Home windows 11 stays the gorilla within the room.
Dell additionally teased another factor it’ll present at Computex this week: The return of an XPS with discrete graphics. It ought to sport some degree of Nvidia RTX GPU, an extra-bright tandem OLED display, a devoted HDMI port, and an SD card slot. There aren’t any additional particulars to this point, however that seems like an even bigger and beefier XPS to compete with some MacBook Execs whereas the brand new XPS 13 weapons for the Neo.
The XPS 14 and XPS 16 fashions Dell reintroduced at CES corrected among the firm’s previous errors when it killed the XPS brand in 2025. However competing at $599 / $699 with the MacBook Neo will probably be a harder take a look at for the revitalized model.
