Dell is one of the most reliable laptop manufacturers, offering a wide variety of devices from portable gaming machines to business notebooks and everything in between. The company has a few iconic ranges that you may be familiar with including the XPS, Inspiron, Latitude, Vostro and Alienware. Since we have so much experience with Dell and its wide range of devices, we’ve decided to step in and help, curating this guide to some of the best Dell laptops the company has to offer. Every laptop on this list has been tested for at least two weeks and thoroughly benchmarked by a member of our expert team, so you know you’re getting real-world advice as well as comparable stats as to what you should expect. And if this list isn’t sparking any joy at the moment, make sure to bookmark this page and come back soon, as we endeavour to update this list every time we review another particularly outstanding Dell laptop. Alternatively, if you want to broaden your horizons, don’t hesitate to check out some of our other curated lists, as we have round-ups for the Best Laptop, Best Ultrabook, Best Student Laptop and Best Budget Laptop too.
Best Dell laptops at a glance:
Best overall Dell laptop: Dell XPS 13 OLED – check priceBest looking Dell laptop: Dell XPS 13 Plus – check priceBest 15-inch Dell laptop: Dell XPS 15 (2022) – check priceBest gaming Dell laptop: Alienware x15 – check priceBest business Dell laptop: Dell Latitude 7320 – check priceBest 17-inch Dell laptop: Dell XPS 17 – check priceBest 16-inch Dell laptop: Dell Inspiron 16 Plus – check price
The addition of an OLED panel offers a big upgrade on the more conventional LCD screen, while we found the immense 3.5K resolution to offer a significant improvement over a standard 1080p laptop with an extra layer of detail present in images. In addition, we measured the colour accuracy, with results showing it to feature outstanding coverage for specialist gamuts including 97.4% DCI-P3 and 94.7% Adobe RGB. This means the Dell XPS 13 OLED could be used for more specialist and colour-sensitive work as well as more generic office workloads. Our review sample packed an Intel Core i7-1185G7 which we found to offer a terrific productivity performance. In our benchmark tests, the XPS 13 OLED churned out some standout results that are not a million miles away from the M1-powered MacBooks. The XPS 13 OLED’s design is notably sleek and stylish with wafer-thin bezels. Moreover, its aluminium and carbon-fibre casing is both sturdy and light, as also indicated by the 1.27kg total weight. You can find lighter laptops, but few that are as premium and powerful as this offering from Dell. The only major downsides to the XPS 13 OLED is its subpar battery life and the lack of port options, forcing you to use a dongle if you want to plug in an old USB drive or peripheral. But those are minor flaws when you consider the outstanding all-round quality of the Dell XPS 13. Reviewer: Ryan JonesFull review: Dell XPS 13 OLED Review It features a touch bar panel for streamlined shortcuts, an edge-to-edge keyboard with no spaces between each key and a haptic feedback trackpad that can be customised to your own liking with gesture commands to boot. It also retains the same InfinityEdge screen as previous models, making the bezel virtually invisible. The XPS 13 Plus is powered by an Intel Core 12th Gen processor, and has the option of an OLED screen to improve contrast and vibrancy if you like to watch videos on your portable. Battery life is fairly poor, lasting less than 8 hours in our tests. But that won’t be an issue if you plan on spending most of your time deskbound. We were also impressed by how thin this laptop is at just 15.28mm, but that has the unfortunate consequence of not leaving enough room for ports beyond two USB-C connections. We think the Dell XPS 13 Plus is a superb laptop, especially if you want a portable with an eye-catching design. But if you’re not desperate to make use of all the futuristic features, you’ll find better value with the likes of the Dell XPS 13 OLED. Reviewer: Ryan JonesFull Review: Dell XPS 13 Plus Review It weighs in at 1.94kg, putting it slightly on the heavier side, although our reviewer claimed that it was still easy enough to take it to and from the office in a bag. It packs in two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, as well as one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C port and a 3.5mm audio jack, with Dell packaging the laptop with a USB-C to USB-A and HDMI adapter, so you won’t need to worry about dongles while at work. We loved the 15-inch 3.5K OLED panel as it was able to elevate just about anything; TV shows and movies popped without looking unnatural, and is bright enough for working in sunny environments. It also was able to cover 100% of the sRGB and DCI-P3 gamut, making it perfectly serviceable for creative professionals who require high colour accuracy. The model we reviewed came with a 12th-generation Intel Core i7-12700H which was incredibly speedy and performed well during productivity tasks, outpacing devices like the LG Gram 16 and Acer Swift Edge in our Geekbench 5 benchmark. And while this laptop does feature an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti GPU, it isn’t as powerful as you may expect since it uses the low-power 40W variation. However, we were able to play games like Horizon: Zero Dawn at 1080p resolutions at 53fps, meaning that this laptop can easily be used for gaming, just not at the 4K resolution some may desire. This is one of our favourite overall 15-inch laptops on the market right now and is a very versatile device thanks to its high colour accuracy and impressive specs. If you’re after a larger screened laptop that can tackle most tasks, then the Dell XPS 15 (2022) could be the one for you, so long as the high price doesn’t put you off. Reviewer: Stuart Andrews Full Review: Dell XPS 15 (2022) Review It packs an Intel Core i9-11900H processor and an Nvidia RTX 3070 discrete GPU that, during testing, combined to run the likes of Borderlands 3 at an impressive 85fps performance. As well as offering great overall power, the x15 R1 also performed well with modest fan noise. Exterior surfaces didn’t get all too hot when we ploughed through various games, although with the overclocked mode, fan noise increased dramatically. The display here is fantastic, with a 15.6-inch 1080p panel – that may not sound much on its own, but combine it with a 360Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time and you get some fantastic performance. With 376 nits of peak brightness, as measured with our colorimeter, this is also a punchy panel capable of vibrant and accurate colours. Compared to its predecessor, the x15 R1 is also slimmer and lighter. It is a hefty laptop at 2.34kg, but in the context of more powerful gaming machines, it isn’t so bad. This laptop is 16mm thin, which is incredible for a high-end gaming laptop. Its keyboard is also excellent for gaming, with a full-size layout and responsive keys. There are plenty of other gaming laptops worth considering, including the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and Razer Blade 14, but the Alienware x15 R1 is our top recommendation if you’re keen to remain faithful to the Dell brand. Reviewer: Mike JenningsFull review: Alienware x15 R1 Review The Latitude 7320 is a plain looking laptop, but that isn’t such a bad thing. It looks more like a business class laptop and succeeds in looking functional. At 1.21kg, this is also a lightweight device which we found to be especially portable without compromising on the build quality. The keyboard here is one the best small laptop keyboards around, with chunky keys and a deep travel, ensuring a comfortable typing experience. The 13.3-inch FHD screen comes complete with a matte finish that makes this laptop easy to use in bright environments. Colour space coverage here is decent enough for general productivity work, although this isn’t the best laptop for more colour-sensitive work if you need a laptop to edit photos and video. For such a compact laptop, the performance here is solid, achieving great results in our benchmark tests. The battery life is fantastic, with a total 63Wh capacity. This allowed it to last for 12 and a half hours during our testing, which means you can get through a day’s work without a hitch, and maybe even challenge the Latitude 7320 a little more before needing to reach for the charger. The Dell Latitude 7320 may lack the character and flashy looks of other laptops on this list, but the Latitude excels in terms of functionality. If you want a snappy laptop that doesn’t cost too much and fits in well in an office environment, then the Latitude 7320 is a top-notch buy. Reviewer: Andrew WilliamsFull review: Dell Latitude 7320 Review The 17.3-inch panel with a 16:10 aspect is perfect for modern apps and workloads, given the extra vertical space on offer. We measured brightness levels here to be around 500 nits which means this large screen offered a good level of vibrancy, and the total 3840 x 2400 resolution provided excellent detail. The XPS 17 can also hit 100% Adobe RGB coverage, as well as nearly 100% DCI-P3, which means this laptop’s display is ideal for colour-sensitive workloads such as editing video. You also need a fair bit of power for those more intense workloads, and the XPS 17’s Intel Core i7-11800H processor is up to the task, with peak clock speed of 4.6GHz. Combined with its discrete Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU, the XPS 17 should provide enough grunt for creative workloads. As with the other laptops in the XPS line, this 17-inch model looks fabulous with thin bezels around the screen helping it to look especially modern. Ports-wise, expect to find four Thunderbolt 4 ports and an SD Card reader, but if you’re after a full size HDMI though for instance, you may wish to head for the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro instead. The keyboard offers a deep, consistent keypress, and sits alongside a trackpad with responsive buttons and clever gesture controls. The 9hrs and 23 minutes of battery life that we managed to get out of the XPS 17 is perfectly reasonable and will provide enough juice for a day’s worth of work. Push it any further though and you’ll soon see that charge drop. Once again here, the new MacBook comes up trumps, but for a Windows laptop, this isn’t bad going. To sum up, this one of the better 17-inch laptops available, although you’ll find superior value with the smaller models if you’re not fussed about having a massive panel. Reviewer: Mike JenningsFull review: Dell XPS 17 (2021) For starters, that larger than average 16-inch display is ideal for working across multiple tabs and windows at the same time. You can have Slack open on one side of the screen whilst using the other half for some editing in Google Docs, and it won’t ever feel as though the space is limited. The screen also benefits from a crisp 3K resolution that makes it an absolute winner when it comes to editing photos and videos. Plus, if you fancy a bit of downtime after work then the colourful display can really come in handy during a late-night binge of the latest Netflix shows. There are also plenty of ports onboard the Inspiron 16 Plus including HDMI, a 3.5mm audio jack, two USB-A ports and a USB-C port with Thunderbolt 4 compatibility to boot. That’s more than enough for the freedom to connect an external monitor or any external storage devices you might have to hand. Where the Inspiron 16 really impresses is with its performance. There are two models, one with an i5 processor and the other with an i7, and it can even be paired with the powerful RTX 3050 and RTX 3060 GPUs for a serious performance boost when it comes to gaming. Whichever build you decide to go with, you won’t be disappointed with what the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus has to offer, particularly when it beats out of most of its competitors on price. Reviewer: Gemma RylesFull review: Dell Inspiron 16 Plus
