Earlier this year, Dell Vice Chairman and COO Jeff Clarke was addressing a pre-CES 2026 virtual press briefing when he took everyone by surprise with just one statement- “I owe you an apology today. We didn’t listen to you. You were right on branding. You guys heard that right.” Now it isn’t everyday that you see the Vice Chairman of a tech giant admitting their fault. And it isn’t everyday that you see them making a U-turn on a decision that was passed just a year back. But Dell did exactly that with the XPS brand.
For years, the XPS lineup was the premium Windows laptop. At one point, it was even called a MacBook alternative for those looking for a Windows device that is at par with Apple’s laptops. So when I got the opportunity to review the all-new XPS 14, I was quite intrigued.
I have been using the laptop as my daily driver for more than a week. With a refined look and some mind-blowing performance, there are a lot of exciting things happening here. But, it also comes at a premium price tag. Rs 2,57,890 to be exact. So should you buy the all new XPS 14? Let’s try and find out in this review.
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The funny thing about the XPS 14 is that when you first look at it, it almost feels… boring. It’s this clean, minimal machine with a matte black finish and a subtle XPS logo sitting in the centre. The laptop demands to be carried straight to a business meeting. But, when you lift the lid, a familiar surprise awaits.
There is the familiar zero-lattice backlit keyboard, which we have seen earlier on the XPS lineup. It comes with an edge-to-edge design with large, flat keys placed tightly together. Typing on this thing feels firm and snappy. However, it might take a little time to get used to it if you are coming from a more traditional keyboard layout.
The touchpad blends seamlessly, almost hides, into the chassis and uses haptic feedback for clicks. It feels smooth, quick, and very responsive. In fact, I stopped carrying a mouse while using this laptop and that is probably the biggest compliment I can give to any Windows laptop touchpad. The chassis also feels incredibly smooth, especially around the palm rest area.
As for the build quality, it feels rock solid. There is minimal flex on the lid and when you hold the laptop in one hand, there’s a sturdiness that’s reassuring. That said, the laptop is slightly heavier than what I’d like it to be but that’s not a dealbreaker.
Also, the weight distribution here is excellent and I could open the laptop easily with one hand. There is also a subtle magnetic snap when you close the lid, which is just super satisfying. I don’t know why, but I kept opening and closing it for no reason.
However, ports here are very limited. You get three USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt support, a headphone jack, and that is pretty much it. I really missed having an HDMI port or even a USB-A port here. At this price point, you don’t really want to be living the dongle life.
The display on the XPS 14 is honestly gorgeous. You get a 14-inch 2.8K OLED panel with 100 percent DCI-P3 and sRGB coverage. Now during our internal testing, we found this claim to be accurate.
In real world usage, the colours here look rich and vibrant. Blacks are super deep, contrast looks fantastic, and watching content is simply a treat.
At 500 nits peak brightness, this is also a bright enough display. I used the laptop outdoors quite a bit and visibility was never an issue. Now yes, because this is OLED, reflections are definitely noticeable and that can get annoying sometimes, especially under harsh lighting. PS: This is a touchscreen. Which is nice to have, but full disclosure time- I did not use it at all.
Let’s now talk about the star of the show here- performance. The Intel Core Ultra X7 chip is an absolute beast and the laptop just blazed through our benchmarks.
In the 3D Mark Time Spy benchmark test, the laptop showed a phenomenal score of 6045 points. This puts it way ahead of other laptops in the same price range.
And in the other 3D mark tests, a similar trend continued. Nightraid saw a score of 37494 while the Fire strike test saw a score of 11317. In wildlife and Wildlife extreme tests, the scores were 40961 and 12934.
I also ran the PC Mark 10 benchmark test. And the laptop had an overall score of 7181 with some impressive numbers in other tests. For instance, it got 10823 points in essentials, 26012 in rendering and 13632 points in Digital content creation tests. So looking at the scores, the XPS 14 can easily handle your demanding creative tasks, and even a bit of gaming.
In the PC Mark 10 Full SSD test, the laptop scored 2155 points which is once again way ahead of competition.
Coming to Geekbench, the XPS 14 scored 2850 in single core test and 16148 in multi-core test. And in Cinebench r23 benchmark, the laptop scored 13894 in multi core test and 2051 in single core test.
In real world usage, the laptop performed admirably. App launches were fast and smooth, there were no slowdowns and I could get through all my tasks easily.
Another thing that took me by surprise was the speaker setup. Because in many Windows laptops the speakers are usually just… there. But that’s not the case here. The speakers of the XPS 14 are actually good.
They get loud, there is proper bass, and the sound feels full. I played the official video of Michael Jackson’s Beat It in the office and the moment the music started playing, I immediately started getting side-eyes from my colleagues and had to turn the volume down. I could also clearly hear not just the music, but also the thuds and other tiny details.
The webcam is another win here. Video calls looked sharp and clear, and most importantly, I actually looked decent during meetings. So, both the speakers and webcam are far better than what I have seen on several other laptops in this price range. Kudos to Dell for that.
Now nobody likes laptops that make you hunt for a charger on a busy work day. And the XPS is NOT one of those devices. In our battery test, the laptop lasted around 17 hours at 70 percent screen brightness, which is quite impressive. This also means that you won’t need to charge your laptop every day.
As far as real-world usage is concerned, I used the laptop comfortably through a work day full of video meetings, web browsing, and an occasional YouTube video streaming, And when it was time for me to clock out, the laptop still had 40% of battery left which is super. For added context, I was using the laptop in balanced power consumption mode at 80% brightness.
Coming to the thermals, they are also very well managed. Even while running benchmarks, the laptop’s keyboard area got slightly warm but never uncomfortable to use. The touchpad and chassis remained cool overall. During our internal testing, I noticed the surface temps staying below 30 degrees in all major areas. So, the laptop can handle cooling well.
The Dell XPS 14 feels like a laptop that focuses on refining every little experience. It looks premium, comes with a solid build, and delivers incredible performance. The speakers and the webcam here are nice little bonuses to have. With that being said, I do wish Dell had included more ports and the touchscreen isn’t of much use.
As mentioned already, this model costs Rs 2,57,890. And this is just out of reach for a lot of people. So, the Dell XPS is certainly not for everyone out there. But if you do have the budget for it, this is one of those laptops you can buy without overthinking too much.
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