Dell XPS 13 Review: Lighter, Less Colorful MacBook Neo With Windows Also a Budget Laptop Winner

 Dell XPS 13 

 8.3  $700 at Dell 

 Pros & Cons 

•  Thin, light and compact all-metal design 

•  Roomy, high-res 13.4-inch display 

•  Quad speakers produce full sound 

•  Two, 10Gbps USB-C ports, Wi-Fi 7 networking 

•  8GB of RAM begs you to spend the extra $200 

•  Touchpad has a budget feel to it 

•  No headphone jack 

•  Color choices are uninspired 

The XPS 13 is Dell's answer to Apple's MacBook Neo , which reset expectations for what a budget laptop could be. The XPS 13 is a strong reply and gives students and other cash-strapped shoppers a compact, well-built and fast-enough-for-basic-things laptop for the same $700 as the Neo. Dell also offers the same $100 student discount as Apple (at least for the moment), bringing the XPS 13 down to just $600.

Despite their similar price and designs, the XPS 13 and MacBook Neo differ in several important ways. Obviously, one runs Windows and the other MacOS, which will make the choice between the two easy if you have a strong operating system preference. For the OS agnostic, there are strengths and weaknesses to each that I'll outline below that'll point you toward one or the other. 

What the two laptops have in common is a sleek, all-metal design and a sharp, high-resolution display that belie their budget price. Another similarity? Each gives you a good reason to upgrade to the step-up model. The XPS 13 is every bit the budget winner that the Neo is, even if you might need to spend more than $700 for the baseline configuration to get the best value. (Spoiler: 8GB of RAM may be enough for a pleasant MacOS experience, but it's more of a hurdle for Windows.)

Dell XPS 13 specifications

Dell sells two versions of the XPS 13 — one with a meager 8GB of RAM and the other with 16GB — and I tested both. The 8GB model costs $700, and the 16GB config costs $900. Each is $100 less with Dell's education discount, which is available for students 16 years of age and older. On the Apple side of the ledger, the baseline MacBook Neo also costs $700, but its step-up model that doubles the storage to 512GB and adds Touch ID is only $100 more — half the up-charge you pay for the higher XPS 13 model.

The XPS 13 is based on a CPU from Intel's Wildcat Lake series. The Core 5 320 is a six-core processor made up of two performance cores and four efficient cores. It's a low-power, 15-watt processor with a turbo power limit of 35 watts. This Core Series 3 Wildcat Lake chip is the little brother to processors from Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 Panther Lake series, such as the Core Ultra 7 355, which is an eight-core chip (four performance and four efficiency cores) that operates at 25 watts with a max turbo power of 55 watts. 

Both XPS 13 models include integrated Intel Graphics, a 512GB SSD and a 13.4-inch, 2.5K (2,560×1,600 pixels) touch IPS display. The integrated GPU is not surprising, given the low price. Getting 512GB of storage is also not unexpected, although it is double the disappointing 256GB of storage that Apple offers for the baseline MacBook Neo. And like the Neo, the display's resolution is higher than the 1,920×1,200-pixel panel found on most budget laptops.

The Dell XPS 13 starts at £899 in the UK and AU$1,399 in Australia .

The 8GB elephant in the room

While the XPS 13's component lineup is standard for a budget laptop, there is one item that raises an eyebrow: the 8GB of memory in the baseline unit. Nearly every single laptop I've reviewed in recent memory has had a minimum of 16GB of RAM. Even before Microsoft launched its AI-centric Copilot Plus PC platform that requires a minimum of 16GB of RAM, the software giant recommended a minimum of 16GB of memory to power its operating system. Windows laptop makers for years have, by and large, outfitted even their budget models with 16GB of memory to appease the demands of Windows 11.

With its hardware partners feeling the strain of the global RAM shortage and beginning to offer laptops with 8GB of RAM, Microsoft this spring committed to making Windows 11 less memory intensive . (And Microsoft itself has started selling an 8GB version of its Surface Laptop.) If you roll the dice on a Windows machine with only 8GB of RAM, you'll need to have faith that Microsoft will make good on this commitment sooner rather than later. That's because it doesn't take too many open apps and Chrome tabs before you're maxing out 16GB of RAM. With only 8GB, you're going to hit that memory usage limit even sooner.

When you max out the RAM, you will feel it. Without being able to store data in the RAM, your system needs to access data from the slower SSD, which can cause lags, stutters, freezes and other painful behaviors.

I ran each XPS 13 config that Dell sent me through our standard benchmarks and also conducted anecdotal tests to find the limits of the RAM in each. For starters, the 16GB model booted much more quickly. It took 21 seconds to boot to Windows, while the 8GB model took nearly twice as long at 38 seconds. Not a hardship, but still an early taste of what to expect.

After booting up but before launching any applications, I opened Task Manager to check the memory usage of each to get a baseline. The 8GB model was already at 60% usage, and the 16GB model was at 42%. I like to listen to music while I work, so I launched the Spotify app and watched as the memory usage jumped to 75-76% on the 8GB model and 49-50% on the 16GB model with just Spotify running and a playlist streaming (and streaming isn't a memory-intensive activity).

Next, I opened two dozen Chrome tabs and edited a photo in Affinity. Memory usage spiked to 97-98% on the 8GB model and 80-81% on the 16GB model. During various multitasking workloads, the 8GB model was constantly in the upper-80% to mid-90% range, while the 16GB model generally was in the mid-70% to upper-80% range. 

With its low-power Intel Wildcat Lake processor and integrated Intel graphics, neither XPS 13 model is built for serious creative work or gaming. But the 16GB model provides more overhead to perform general, everyday tasks before you begin swapping data from the system's speedy RAM to slower SSD. 

For general tasks and less demanding workloads, I found the 8GB to be serviceable. It's just that transitions were a little choppier. When switching apps or tabs in Chrome on the 8GB model, I was greeted with a blank window and had to wait a beat before the content loaded in nearly every instance.

With the 16GB model, I experienced such hiccups much less frequently. Apps opened and closed more quickly on the 16GB XPS 13. Again, both are serviceable for basic use, but that type of stuttering, laggy behavior is typically a sign that my laptop is aging and I should start searching for a replacement — not how I'd expect a laptop to act fresh out of the box.

Dell XPS 13 benchmark performance

In benchmark testing, the 16GB version of the XPS 13 outpaced the 8GB, but both models finished behind the MacBook Neo on nearly every test. The 8GB XPS 13 didn't have enough RAM to run Cinebench 2024 or 3DMark Steel Nomad. On the tests it was able to run, its multi- and single-core scores brought up the rear behind the 16GB XPS 13, Neo and other budget and midrange laptops. That includes the Acer Aspire 14 AI, which supplies 16GB of RAM and is currently selling for less than $600 at Amazon. 

The only benchmark that went in the XPS 13's favor against the Neo was the multicore Cinebench 2024 CPU test, where its six-core Core 5 320 chip bested the Neo's six-core A18 Pro part. Both laptops will let you engage in some light photo editing, but creative pros and most gamers will need to look elsewhere for a more capable CPU, more graphics muscle and at least 16GB of RAM (but ideally at least 32GB).

Battery life testing was a draw between the XPS 13 and MacBook Neo at roughly 13.5 hours. The 8GB XPS 13 lasted a few more minutes than the Neo, and the 16GB XPS 13 ran for about half an hour less than the Neo. 

Design and display are better than those of the average budget laptop

The XPS 13 gives ground to the MacBook Neo in performance, but it makes up for it with its design. And that's no small feat since the Neo impressed me with its premium MacBook look and feel. The XPS 13 has a number of advantages over the Neo. It's thinner and lighter and overall smaller while still making room for a slightly larger display that includes touch support and a faster refresh rate. 

The XPS 13 also has the edge in five other areas: storage, ports, speakers, biometrics, wireless networking and keyboard backlighting. In the plus column for the Neo are its fanless design and silent operation, superior touchpad and keyboard, inclusion of a headphone jack and better color options.

Let's go through each, starting with the areas where the XPS 13 has the advantage.

Size and weight:The XPS 13 weighs just 2.3 pounds, which is nearly a half a pound lighter than the 2.7-pound MacBook Neo. And the all-metal XPS 13 is every bit as rigid as the Neo, with a similarly premium look and feel that blows away every other laptop that costs less than $1,000. The two are 0.5 inches thick (the XPS 13 is a hair thinner) and share roughly the same dimensions, but the XPS 13 has much thinner display bezels, which brings us to the next section.

Display:With the aforementioned thinner bezels, the XPS 13 has a slightly larger 13.4-inch display than the Neo's 13-inch panel. Both offer similarly high resolutions (2,560×1,600 for the XPS 13 and 2,480×1,506 for the Neo) that present much sharper images than you'd get from a 1,920×1,200-pixel panel that's more typical at this price, but the XPS 13 is faster and offers touch support. 

We're still waiting for the first touchscreen MacBook, and you need to spend big bucks for a MacBook Pro if you want a ProMotion with an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate that delivers smooth scrolling and other movement. With the XPS 13, you get a dynamic, smooth-scrolling 120Hz refresh rate. And the touch display helps offset one of its weaknesses, which I'll get to shortly.

The XPS 13's display also has better color performance. It covered 100% of the sRGB gamut and 99% of P3, as well as 88% of the larger AdobeRGB color space. The Neo covered 98% of sRGB, 74% of P3 and 73% of AdobeRGB. 

Both displays are bright, 500-nit IPS panels, which is fantastic for a budget laptop where 300-400 nits is the norm. The 8GB XPS 13 proved to be a bit brighter than the 16GB model, achieving a peak brightness of 514 nits to the 16GB's max of 485 nits. The Neo hit a peak of 518 nits. I was still able to see what was on the screen using both laptops outdoors on a sunny day. And each display has a glossy screen coating that's not overly reflective, which also helps with outdoor use and even under, say, the bright fluorescent lights of a classroom.

Speakers:You can give the XPS 13 a clean sweep in the AV department. In addition to having the better video output, it also has the better audio output. One area where Apple cheaped out on the Neo was giving it only two speakers instead of the quad array you get with a MacBook Air. Dell didn't follow suit with the XPS 13 and outfitted it with four speakers that produce fuller sound than the Neo's pair of stereo speakers. 

Keyboard backlight:Simply put, the XPS 13 has it, and the Neo doesn't.

Storage:The XPS 13 supplies a 512GB SSD in its baseline $700 model, and the Neo starts you off with an undersized 256GB SSD that you're likely to fill up faster than you'd like. Apple charges $100 to double the storage.

Biometrics:Apple's $100 upcharge not only gets you more storage, but it also includes Touch ID. With the XPS 13, you get a biometric feature without needing to upgrade. The XPS 13 doesn't have a fingerprint reader, but it has a Windows Hello webcam so you can use facial recognition for easy, secure logins. Apple doesn't offer Face ID on any of its MacBooks yet.

Networking:The XPS 13 comes with Wi-Fi 7, and the MacBook Neo is stuck in the (recent) past with Wi-Fi 6E. If you've upgraded to a Wi-Fi 7 router , then you can only take advantage of the faster speeds with Wi-Fi 7 devices.

And now, here's where the XPS 13 loses out to the MacBook Neo.

Cooling/acoustics:The XPS 13 uses an efficient Intel Core 5 processor, but still needs a pair of cooling fans to keep thermals in check. With its iPhone CPU, the Neo is fanless and operates in silence. That said, the XPS 13 is very quiet during operation; I rarely heard the whir of its fans, and when I did, they were whisper-quiet.

Touchpad:Both the XPS 13 and Neo have mechanical touchpads and not the superior haptic touchpads found on Dell's higher-end XPS 14 and Apple's MacBook Air and Pro . But the Neo's touchpad is much better. For one, it offers a consistent click response across its entire surface. With the XPS 13, the touchpad suffers from the diving board effect, where clicks feel stiffer the closer you get to the top of the touchpad. 

Further, the XPS 13 showed some inconsistency in quality. The 8GB model's touchpad had less of a diving board effect than the 16GB model, but the touchpad felt too loose, with clicks requiring too much travel. This looseness gave it a cheap, clacky feel, and each physical click seemed to require pressing through a slight false click first.

Thankfully, you can use the touchscreen in many instances instead of the touchpad, because neither of the XPS 13s that I tested had a touchpad that could measure up to the Neo's.

Keyboard:The XPS 13's keyboard may have backlighting for late-night term papers, but during the daylight hours, I prefer the Neo's keyboard. Both are excellent examples of a budget laptop keyboard simply because the rigid, all-metal designs provide a literal solid base for typing. And given the thin designs, it's not surprising that both keyboards offer shallow travel. I enjoyed typing on the snappy, steady keys of both laptops, but the Neo's keys had just a bit more travel for a slightly plusher feel.

Ports:Both the XPS 13 and Neo offer a pair of slower USB-C ports. However, the Dell has two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-C with DisplayPort and power delivery support, while the Neo has just one, and the other is only USB 2.0. Plus, the XPS 13's are split, with one on the left and right for easier charging. But that's all you get with the XPS 13. Only with the Neo do you get a headphone jack. You'll need to use wireless headphones with the XPS 13 or get yourself an adapter to use with your wired set.

Color options:It's true that Dell offers two color choices for the XPS 13, but they are both silvery shades of blue and nearly indistinguishable from one another. The Neo offers three bright, fun colors along with traditional silver.

Should I buy the Dell XPS 13?

If you're a student with a laptop budget of less than $1,000, then I would recommend either the XPS 13 or MacBook Neo. As I outlined, both have their strengths and weaknesses, but both are exceptional examples of what a budget laptop can be. The thin, all-metal design and high-resolution display make each a great buy.

While I like the lighter weight of the XPS 13 and its slightly larger display, I lean toward the Neo because it's a step faster than the XPS 13 (even the higher-end XPS 13 with more RAM) and has the superior touchpad, an often overlooked detail that you use hundreds if not thousands of times each day on a laptop. 

The biggest differentiator is the OS, which makes the decision between these two budget laptops easy. If you prefer MacOS, get the MacBook Neo. If you favor Windows, the XPS 13 is the choice. 

In either case, I would recommend getting the higher-end model if your budget allows. Doubling the storage to 512GB and getting the security and convenience of Touch ID is worth the extra $100 with the Neo. And spending an extra $200 to double the RAM to 16GB is the smart play for the XPS 13. You'll get a more responsive and pleasant Windows experience out of the box, and you'll greatly increase the odds of extending the useful lifespan of the XPS 13 to get more mileage out of your still very reasonable $900 investment.

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The review process for laptops, desktops, tablets and other computer-like devices consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our expert reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aesthetics, ergonomics and features. A final review verdict is a combination of both objective and subjective judgments. The list of benchmarking software we use changes over time as the devices we test evolve. The most important core tests we're currently running on every compatible computer include  Primate Labs Geekbench 6 , Cinebench R23 , PCMark 10 and 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra . A more detailed description of each benchmark and how we use it can be found on our How We Test Computers page. 

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