Dell makes some of the best laptops you can buy across all categories. You can configure laptops to order on the Dell website, a convenience if you know you want more memory or storage, for example. Dell gains fans for its sturdy construction and features at competitive prices—a reputation that helps make it one of the best laptop brands you can consider when buying a new laptop.
The Dell XPS 13 Plus is a premium 13-inch laptop that ticks every box.
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If you want the best of the best, the Dell XPS 13 reigns supreme. With its excellent build quality, beautiful display and impressive performance, there’s nothing quite like it among Windows laptops. Its larger sibling the Dell XPS 15, which takes everything about the XPS 13 and builds it out for a bigger, more capable design. The only thing the XPS laptops can’t do that well is play games. For that, Dell’s best options are in its Alienware lineup, like the ultra-powerful Dell Alienware x17 R2.
If none of those models tickle your fancy, Dell has plenty of other laptops worth considering. Here are our picks for the best Dell laptops you can buy today.
Long considered as one of the best laptops of any shape and size, the Dell XPS 13 upholds that reputation with a mid-range Intel 12th generation mobile processor, 16GB of fast DDR5 memory and the excellent build quality we expect from Dell’s XPS line. Its display is “only” 1,920 x 1,200, but that’s plenty of pixels at this size and with 500 nits brightness, the display looks great in all types of lighting, so everything from work documents to HDR movies look awesome. The display comes in touch and non-touch (priced here) variants, although the former costs more.
The XPS 13 is super light and portable too, with excellent build quality and a robust hinge which is a joy to use. Its battery lasts up to 12 hours in mixed usage, more than enough for a full workday and then some. While it lacks the advanced display options found on the more expensive XPS 13 Plus OLED model and the performance oomph of higher-power Intel CPUs, for a day-to-day machine for work, play or a little of both, the XPS 13 is the Dell laptop to beat.
Best for: Playing games at the highest detail settings and frame rates.
Although Dell has a few gamer laptops under its own branding, its Alienware laptops are far more impressive and capable. Take the Alienware x17 R2, Dell’s flagship 17-inch gaming machine. Its relatively trim chassis holds an Intel Core i7-12700H 14-core processor, 32GB of fast DDR5 RAM and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics—top-tier specs for achieving terrific gaming performance. This configuration comes with a 1080p display running at an extremely fast 360Hz refresh rate, for super responsive competitive gaming. If you’re more of a AAA, single-player gamer, you can opt for a 4K 120Hz screen—or even better for most gamers, a 2K display with a 165Hz refresh rate.
Expect to get only around five hours of mixed usage out of this laptop’s battery, and even less for gaming. However, you can extend the battery life a little using Dell’s Advanced Optimus feature to shift over to the integrated Intel GPU when you don’t need the powerful, but power hungry, discrete graphics. It comes with a terabyte of SSD storage, plenty of storage space for games and media. This is a heavy laptop, so don’t expect to tote this one around casually, but for static laptop gaming, this is the top of the pile.
Best for: Working and relaxing without hurting your wallet.
For a budget laptop, the Dell Inspiron 16 packs a fair punch. It has an Intel Core i5-1235 processor, which is faster than the default chip in the excellent Dell XPS 13. This configuration has 8GB of RAM and 500GB of storage, but you can always increase either at an extra cost. It has only a single option with the display, though: a 1,920 x 1,080 screen with just 250 nits of brightness. While an entry-level screen that helps keep costs low, it is perfectly usable (just less so in bright light). The battery lasts up to 12 hours, a comfortable cushion for being away from a power outlet.
As a larger, 16-inch model, this laptop is great for movie and TV watching, and that extra physical space also means the Inspiron 16 comes with a great selection of ports. There are two fast USB 3.2 Type-A ports, a USB Type-C port with USB Power Delivery, an HDMI 1.4 output for external monitors, a full-size SD Card slot and a headphone jack. There’s a 1,080p webcam built-in, too, useful for high-quality video calls and a feature that’s still uncommon on pricier laptops.
The Dell XPS 15 is the bigger sibling of the XPS 13, with a similar design and build. It is everything that amazing laptop is, turned up a notch to make it a sound choice for creators. This model has more powerful internal components, a bigger and brighter display—with OLED and 4K options—and plenty of storage options. The XPS 15 configuration shown here starts with a 500GB SSD, but you can expand that to up to 8TB of SSD storage (with two 4TB drives), for a massive, high-speed storage array inside your laptop. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 isn’t a super-powerful graphics card, but it’s more than enough for entry-level gaming when you aren’t editing, or it can help render 3D transitions and other effects when you are.’
The processor is the same as found in our top gaming machine, and its 14 cores (6 performance, 8 efficiency) deliver excellent multi-threaded performance—useful in video editing at higher resolutions. The performance cores will help drive photo editing applications, like Adobe Photoshop, helping to reduce your downtime so you can work faster.
Best for: Displaying brilliant images on an outstanding 4K OLED screen.
The Dell XPS 13 Plus is a unique laptop. It takes the relatively affordable XPS 13 base and cranks up its premium features to a whole new level. Along with faster processor options, along with more memory and storage capacity, you also get the option of a truly stunning 13.4-inch, 4K OLED display which has to be seen to be believed. It has amazing color accuracy and at close to 400 nits, it gets plenty bright, producing eye-popping colors with deep contrast. This screen makes HDR movies look their best, and it makes even general content look impressive. The XPS 13 Plus redesigns the touchpad and keyboard, with a distinctive, outline-free haptic touchpad that works really well and an edge-to-edge keyboard which looks modern and unique.
The narrow bezels around the screen help give the display a seamless appearance, but still leave room for a 720p webcam at the top, where it should be. It has just a pair of USB Type-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports with Power Delivery, but the laptop comes with a USB Type-C to USB Type-A adapter and a USB Type-C to 3.5mm headphone adapter if you want to use other peripherals. The battery life can last up to 13 hours.