Out with the old in with the new just in time for 2024 and CES about to hit Dell has a brand
new lineup of XPS laptops here and I got to see them for myself firsthand this is going to
be interesting this is Luke with Digital Trends happy New Year everyone it's 2024 and it's
it's time to let that CES hype start to build and hopefully this one on all the new changes
coming to XPS is going to do the trick so you know the drill like this video if you would and
subscribe to get our huge wave of CES content coming your way we'll be covering TVs laptops
gaming monitors and a lot more so you don't want to miss it but for now let's talk about these XPS
laptops and why they are such a major change this year first things first Dell has
just three laptops in its XOX XPS lineup now the XPS 13 the XPS 14 and the XPS 16 there are four
models that are gone entirely from the lineup the XPS 13 plus the XPS 13 2 in1 the XPS 15 and XPS
17 all gone and that might sound like a lot less models now but it's not quite as drastic as it
might sound the new XPS 13 for example shares a lot in common with last year's XPS 13 plus
and while last year's base XPS 13 is out so that one's really just a name change with some other
small tweaks the XPS 14 and 16 seem like a direct replacement of the 15 and 17 from last year but
these ones aren't quite a onetoone swap see Dell is one of the last companies to change to 14in and
16in sizes now matching what Apple Lenovo Asus and pretty much everybody else already has and
the benefit here is obvious smaller laptops with just as much performance in theory but
there's more to this refresh than just a size change this time around the r radical design
and Tech changes in last year's XPS 13 plus have been rolled out across the entire [Music] lineup
so the XPS 14 and 16 both have that invisible haptic feedback trackpad that some people love
and some people have a hard time with either way it is beautiful here that means the grippy
carbon fiber Palm wrists have been traded out with a more standard aluminum still coming in
the two color options granite and platinum more controversially though these new laptops also
don't have a physical function row of keys instead replacing them with those glowing capacitive touch
Keys featured on last year's XPS 13 plus this time around you can change the brightness of
them at least so they don't completely blind you in the dark but they still function in the exact
same way now personally I don't mind the touch buttons but I do think they present a problem
on these bigger models which are definitely more oriented towards a pro audience who actually use
those function keys a lot more than the average person I can imagine a developer or programmer for
example being quite frustrated with this keyboard in the same way that they were with the touch bar
on the old MacBook Pros another person I can't imagine being happy about the changes here would
be a photographer or videographer Dell made the wise decision to keep around the audio jack on
the 14-in and 16-in models still not there on the XPS 13 but it's here so don't worry but on
the side next to those three Thunderbolt ports you'll see that the full-size SD card slot has
been replaced with a micro SD card slot so if your workflow involves loading lots of files directly
from a camera that's likely going to be a very frustrating change and you already don't have HDMI
or usba on board so one less dongle goes a long way it's a shame because it wasn't so long ago
that Dell just added the SD card slot to the XPS 15 and 17 which I applauded them for at the time
now don't get me wrong it's not all bad there's a lot to like in this redesign I especially like
the edgo edge keyboard here how it looks and how how the spacing of those extra- llarge key
caps feel under my fingers this is the keyboard directly from the XPS 13 plus and I still really
like it it's one of my favorite keyboards to type on the seamless haptic trackpad really does still
look futuristic even today and the XPS 14 and 16 are more compact in last year's models obviously
due to the smaller screens beyond that the cameras have been upgraded to 1080p across
the board while also keeping bezels small and importantly performance should still be solid
the XPS 14 offers the new Intel Core Ultra 7 chips alongside an RTX 4050 while the XPS 16
goes up to a Core Ultra 9 with an RTX 470 on the graphics those feel like solid comparisons
to something like the MacBook Pro in performance though putting something as powerful as the M3
Max in a 14in chassis is still something that Windows laptops don't have the efficiency to
accomplish one other big upgrade this this year for the XPS is the option for higher refresh
panels specifically the XPS 14 has a 3200x 2000 resolution OLED option which is a touch panel
and it has a 120 HZ refresh rate the XPS 16 has a full 4K OLED screen though the refresh rate here
is only at 90 HZ still though big upgrade over 60 HZ both panels seem like really good options and
I'm just happy that Dell is offering some higher refresh rates especially for those that might want
to game on the side with these devices I think I'd still like to have seen mini LED offered
as an option because of that HDR performance I think to compete with the MacBook Pro or some
of the other options out there I'd really like to see the brightness increased and that's something
that OLED laptops just can't produce right now in fact the cheaper IPS display options claim to be
brighter at 500 nits in SDR while the olid panels max out at 400 NS lastly Dell has always been good
about offering a wide variety of configurations and here you'll be able to scale the xps1 14 n6
all the way up to 64 GB of RAM and 8 terab of storage if you really want it but let's
get back to the xbs 13 for a moment because even though it might be the laptop that's changed the
least out of the three it might have the biggest impact on buying decisions in the long run so this
XPS 13 like I said looks identical to the XPS 13 plus of last year the only differences I can
see at this point is the change to Intel's new core Ultra processors of course and some slight
tweaks to the display options with the QHD IPS panel option now going up to 120 HZ again that's
great though the OLED panel is still stuck at 60 HZ my point though is that the new XPS 13
and XPS 13 plus from last year are basically the same laptop on the outside but in doing
this they have cut out the actual XPS 13 from the lineup which served as a much cheaper entry
point into this whole line it wasn't as flashy or powerful of a laptop when it came out last year
but I thought it was is actually a really solid MacBook Air competitor for less money there were
even some really Innovative engineering changes internally to get the thickness down and to make
it comparatively small and compact but from the looks of it this cheaper and more compact XPS 13
has been cut out of the lineup entirely meaning buying an XPS in 2024 it now starts at $1,300
which gets you 8 GB of RAM a 512 GB SSD and a core Ultra 5 processor maybe Dell has planed to release
something cheaper later in the year as some kind of iteration on last year's XPS 13 design but the
company seems pretty confident in this new design with these three new laptops all embracing it I'm
definitely impressed by the boldness don't get me wrong but what do you think I mean did they
go too far with this how are these going to stack up to competitors like the MacBook Pro in 2024
I won't make up my mind until I get them in for testing of course and we'll know more when these
launch sometime in the first quarter of 2024 so here's where you chime in now that you've seen
these new laptops drop me a comment below and let me know what you think of all the changes
and don't forget to subscribe to our channel for a ton of CES coverage coming in the next week