Its sleek exterior chassis lines and ultra-flat interior screams future.
Unlike the more traditional physical keys, everything was flatter, with no discernable trackpad or utility touch buttons.
Despite the naysayers, Dell doubled down on its design.
The Dell XPS 14 certainly looks unique, but its performance is about on par with other laptops of this type.Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
The company expanded itsnewfangled XPS into 14-inch and 16-inch versionsto sit alongside the XPS 13.
Will you make use of the key right now?
No, probably not.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
But will you in the future?
Maybe, but youre probably not buying a PC now because of what it might be in the future.
You want something that works well now.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
The base version is perfectly serviceable, but its not exactly headline-grabbing.
Want that better display?
It will cost an extra $300.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
Im tired of slate gray or off-white laptops.
I grow tired of boxy designs.
Then you try it out and understand older XPS fans hesitancy and maybe a bit of their hostility.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
And you know what?
That being said, you cant hold onto them one-handed for too long without strong forearms.
The 14-inch XPS weighs 3.8 pounds if you have the OLED screen (and 3.7 pounds without it).
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
You also get a fair number of ports, considering its sleek design.
I would have liked to see the little dongle sport a full SD card slot.
If you were wondering whether an invisible trackpad would confuse your fingers, dont be.
Youll be swiping and scrolling on the XPS without any hassle.
I didnt see any fingerprints pop up on the touch bar, which is a nice touch.
And finally, we come to the keyboard.
There are also automatic sensors to turn off the backlighting under a strong enough ambient glow.
The top touch function row is exactly what it looks like.
And then theres the Copilot key.
Maybe in the future, but now its a solution that is looking for a problem.
This is why I wasnt too surprised to see the latest XPS on an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H.
Its a fine chip that will keep thinner laptops chugging up to speed in the 2024 landscape.
Its good enough that Dells also stuck it in their latest Alienware m16 R2 gaming laptop.
However, on Cinebench, we saw Dells gaming brand laptop perform slightly better in multi-core controls.
That remains true across all the various graphical tasks.
TheXPS 14can pack a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, which is significant considering the size youre getting.
However, it wont be a graphics powerhouse no matter what.
We saw fair scores across our 3D Mark and Blender tests but nothing that would knock your socks off.
It wasnt terrible, but it wasnt amazing either.
you could indeed get a few games running on it with stable framerates.
However, you would need to push the machine to the limits of its heat tolerance.
Remember, this isnt a dedicated gaming machine, so dont expect that performance.
But I also have to talk about AI, or at least what the promise of AI is.
Press the Copilot key, and up pops a menu for your usual chatbot prompt.
At the very least, I didnt see much smudging on the display.
The real boon of OLED is the color contrast, especially the dark, inky blacks.
The webcam is also nice for the laptops size.
Its a 1080p webcam, far better than previous XPS models.
The same system locks your system when you step away from it.
All that being said, it certainly doesnt have the sound to match the beauty of the screen.
It is certainly a loud laptop, at the very least.
The general impression from the audio is that its good but not amazing.
Its also sad to see because we said the same thing about the last XPS 13 Plus.
I registered the equipment hitting about 85 degrees Fahrenheit under normal, optimized parameters.
Using it is slightly worse, not uncomfortable, though not pristine.
The keyboard is perfectly serviceable, but not perfect, especially with the touch-sensitive keys.
The invisible glass trackpad is fun, but it certainly doesnt change how you use the laptop.
Unfortunately, Im not exactly who Dell is looking for.
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