Dell XPS 13 (2024)

Verdict

The Dell XPS 13 (2024) is an excellent Windows ultrabooks with a sleek, slender frame, beefy performance and a solid display. Its port selection is a bit meagre, and its battery life isn’t as strong as other Arm-based ultrabooks, though.

Introduction

The new Dell XPS 13 (2024) is the latest Windows ultrabook to tag along with the AI trend, packing in all the fun of a Copilot+ PC and the Snapdragon X Elite SoC into a smaller form factor.

Much like the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 and the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge before it, this new XPS 13 (2024) packs in Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite SoC inside, although into a smaller laptop for an excellent blend of power and portability.

With this in mind, the specific variant of the XPS 13 (2024) I have here – the XPS 13 9345 base model with 16GB of DDR5 RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 13.4-inch 1920×1200 FHD+ 120Hz display – will run you £1099/$1299.99, which is in and around the price tag we’ve come to expect from these Arm-based Windows ultrabooks.

Whether this is one to go for though as one of the best ultrabooks we’ve tested is a different matter entirely – I’ve been testing it for the last couple of weeks to find out.

Design and Keyboard

• Wonderfully slender and lightweight frame
• A meagre selection of ports
• Seamless keyboard and trackpad

Coming with the redesigned shell of more recent XPS laptops means the new XPS 13 (2024) is simply gorgeous. Even against both Microsoft and Samsung’s choices, Dell’s entry offers a slender and svelte construction that’s virtually seamless. With a smooth CNC’d aluminum finish too, it’s also not short of a premium feel, while a 1.19kg weight makes it supremely light, and in this Platinum colourway, it looks sublime.

Alongside the new Asus Zenbook S 16 (2024), this XPS 13 (2024) is easily one of the best-looking laptops I’ve had in my hands. It hardly takes up any space on a desk or in a bag, especially being just 14.8mm thick.

That slender frame may look gorgeous, but in the hunt for those ultra-modern looks, it has led to an unfortunate sacrifice.

Whereas the likes of the Surface Laptop 7 and Zenbook S 16 (2024) prove that modern Windows ultrabooks have for the most part learnt their lesson when it comes to connectivity, the XPS 13 (2024)’s pair of USB 4-capable Type C ports are woeful. They’re fast ports, sure, but you only get two USB-Cs. In 2024, that feels hilariously dated, and more akin to a 2016 MacBook.

The keyboard here is an interesting one which goes against the grain of laptops offering a chiclet-style design. Instead, the XPS 13 (2024) offers minimal gaps between keys for a seamless design.

This choice takes some getting used to, but after a few minutes, I was up to speed. It’s one of the best keyboards I’ve used on a laptop recently with a short, but highly positive travel that’s a joy to use. It is also backlit, although that white backlighting isn’t the most even underneath the keys. Much like other XPS laptops in recent years, this new XPS 13 (2024) has opted for a separate capacitive function row that’s permanently illuminated.

As for the trackpad, there’s no defined boundary for it below the keyboard tray, which can be a bit jarring at first as it seems like the entire area could be the trackpad. However, its buttons are responsive, and its Gorilla Glass area is silky smooth, unlike being skittish on some other laptops I’ve tested.

Display and Sound

• Responsive, bright display
• Colour accuracy isn’t as strong as the competition
• Speakers are quite tinny

The XPS 13 (2024), in its various configurations, is available with everything from a 13.4-inch FHD+ 120Hz IPS screen like I’ve got in the base model here right up to a 3K OLED variant with the same screen size.

With this in mind, the display here feels a little off the mark against the higher resolution panels from both Microsoft and Samsung in their respective choices.

There’s nothing wrong with the panel on this base model at all. It’s a bright, responsive panel that makes productivity tasks a breeze, and looks fantastic.

Taking out my colorimeter also backed this up with a peak brightness of 463.5 nits which means this is sufficient to be used both indoors and out, and to harness the power of Dolby Vision HDR support. It is a little way behind the 527.4 nits of the Surface Laptop 7, though.

So too is the colour accuracy, as the XPS 13 (2024) mustered near-perfect sRGB coverage with 99%, although both Adobe RGB (75%) and DCI-P3 (77%) numbers are below the requisite 80% level where we’d say it’s possible to use a laptop display for more colour sensitive workloads.

A black level of 0.17 means they’re quite deep for a non-OLED screen, while a 7000K white point is nearing images having a slight blue tinge. The 1680:1 contrast ratio is better than the Surface Laptop 7’s though, leading to better dynamic range.

The speakers are a low point for this new XPS 13 (2024) against the other ultrabooks, though, and especially against modern MacBooks. They sound as you’d expect cheaper laptop speakers too with a tinny top end and a generally thin sound. You’re better off sticking with a headset if you can.

Performance

• Snapdragon X Elite SoC provides solid performance
• Lacking in graphical oomph
• Reasonably brisk SSD

As with both the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 and Samsung Galaxy Book Edge 4, the XPS 13 (2024) opts to move away from the Intel/AMD power stations we’ve seen in laptops and have become used to for years in favour of the new 12 core Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite SoC both for AI-based features and efficiency.

With this in mind, its CPU benchmark scores in the likes of Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R23 are in and around where we’d expect them to be with its results being strong, and sitting between the Microsoft and Samsung choices. Multi-core performance with the Snapdragon X Elite is particularly impressive for a first generation, while single core performance lags a bit behind.

The XPS 13 (2024) felt responsive for day-to-day workloads while also remaining reasonably quiet under load. There was still some fan noise during those benchmark tests, and it also got reasonably warm.

The issue with the Snapdragon X Elite here, as it is in the other ultrabooks we’ve tested with the chip inside, is its graphical horsepower. A sub-2000 score in the 3D Mark Time Spy test is behind this laptop’s bigger brother with a discrete RTX 4050 inside, as well as older choices with an RTX 2050 inside, such as the Acer Nitro V15.

16GB of DDR5 RAM provides decent headroom for intensive tasks, while the 512GB SSD suffices in terms of offering solid room for installing a range of apps. It’s also reasonably brisk too with measured read and write speeds of 5027.42MB/s and 4375.45MB/s respectively.

Software

• Full-fat Arm-based Windows 11 is here
• Some useful generative AI features baked into Windows
• Solid compatibility for the most part

The XPS 13 (2024) runs full-fat Windows 11, marking a difference from Arm-based Windows laptops of old which shipped with the locked down-S variant. It comes with some software pre-installed, such as McAfee and Dell-specific apps including MyDell where you can toggle basic settings for the display and battery power management.

In employing the Snapdragon X Elite, the XPS 13 (2024) benefits (or not, depending on your perspective) from being a Copilot+ PC, meaning there’s a range of AI features baked into Windows across different apps. This ranges from the addition of the Copilot key on the bottom row to more advanced generative AI features in apps such as Photos and Paint.

The addition of the Copilot key marks the first ‘new’ key on a keyboard for over thirty years, and it acts as a wake button for Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant which you can ask for information, write some text, or all manner of other things. While this may not be the main draw of the Copilot+ PC, it’s the cornerstone for its existence.

Generative AI functionality is present in the Photos app, where you can add filters to photos you take or add an intriguing background, while in Paint, you can prompt it to create artwork based on your prompts in a range of styles from pixel art to a watercolour painting. Photos also has an image creator which generates an image with the usual AI quirkiness. It may not be perfect, but it’s there if you want it.

The most useful element of the whole Copilot+ PC thing though is the Windows Studio effects that are now present with the laptop’s webcam.

These can do everything from auto framing to ensure you maintain eye contact even if you aren’t looking at the screen. That’s particularly eerie at first, but works in a similar way to Nvidia’s AI tools that I’ve experienced before in webcams including the Elgato Facecam MK.2.

Microsoft’s Recall feature is still missing, however. This would have taken screenshots every few seconds of use so you could look back and remember things you’ve looked at, even if you didn’t manually bookmark them in a browser or take a manual screenshot using the Snipping Tool. It will be available, although only for Windows Insiders at the moment due to security concerns.

Of course, being Arm-based, the XPS 13 (2024) has some minor compatibility issues against x86-based ultrabooks as apps have had to be translated to Arm through Microsoft’s Prism translation layer. For the most part, I had little issues with compatibility in running a range of benchmark software, as well as Photoshop and similar apps. The PCMark benchmark app didn’t run fully on Arm-based Windows in my testing, though, and there have been reports that games such as Dirt 5 and some VPN apps also refuse to load from elsewhere, too.

Battery Life

• Lasted for 12 hours 25 minutes in the battery test
• Capable of lasting between 1 and 2 working days

In theory, one of the major benefits of Arm-based laptops such as the XPS 13 (2024) is that they yield longer battery life because Arm requires less power to run.

With both Microsoft and Samsung’s laptops, this led to some class-leading endurance figures, although with the XPS 13 (2024), they weren’t quite as strong.

To be clear, the 12 hours and 25 minutes it garnered in a video loop test at 150 nits brightness is still excellent and means it’ll comfortably last for a working day with juice to spare. It is behind the Surface Laptop 7 by 10 hours, which puts into perspective how good Microsoft’s candidate is in terms of battery life.

The XPS 13 (2024) also recharges reasonably quickly too with its 60W power brick taking 32 minutes to get the 55Whr cell from zero to 50% charge, while a full charge took 78 minutes.

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