The best Dell laptops aren’t limited to what exists within the fantastic XPS family of devices. While the runaway success that is the Dell XPS 13 currently takes center stage in our best laptops list, by no means is the American manufacturer a one-trick pony. In fact, Dell’s diversity is one of its key strengths. While there’s an impressive assortment of business, productivity, and gaming-focused laptops available through their Latitude, Precision and G-Series product lines, Dell hasn’t let quantity impact quality. Never coming across as spread too thin, Dell has made real strides in innovation around design, battery life and implementation. We’ve pulled together some of our best-reviewed Dell devices to highlight our top picks for a range of computing needs and budgetary allowances. So, whether you’re in the market for a premium laptop, 2-in-1, or workstation, the chances are high that there’s a fantastic Dell product out there that deserves to be on your shortlist. What are the best Dell laptops?The Dell XPS 13 is a marvel of both form and function. That makes it our pick for not just the best Dell laptop, but for the best overall laptop available, period. The XPS 13 is a real jack of all trades thanks to its powerful 11th Gen Intel Core i7 Tiger Lake processor and Intel Iris Xe graphics and has a variety of configurations available to suit education, creation, work, and play. Mobile professionals may find what they’re looking for in the Dell Latitude 9410. This 2-in-1 notebook is one of the best business laptops available, combining style, durability, and power with an incredible battery life of over 16 hours. The Latitude 9410 is a true all-day device that’s perfect for long stretches away from a desk or even keeping up with your workload while racking up some air miles. For an even more portable option, there’s also the Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable, a hybrid tablet-cum-laptop that features a more powerful 11th Gen Tiger Lake processor and Iris Xe graphics. While it doesn’t have the same level of battery life as the Latitude 9410, it still boasts a reasonable nine-hour lifetime between charges. CES 2022 is under way and Dell has announced some compelling new systems. Check out our hands on with the new Dell XPS 13 Plus and stay tuned for more news from the show floor.  Dell’s XPS 13 has been a fantastic choice for a number of years, balancing style with performance while retaining portability. Powered by Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake processor and featuring Iris Xe graphics, the XPS 13 packs a decent punch for its size and is capable of taking on a host of computing tasks. The XPS’s stunning and lightweight design features a bright, vivid and almost bezel-less display. Newer revisions of the XPS 13 offer OLED and 4K configurations to make the most of the InfinityEdge screen, making the XPS as much of a treat to use as it is to look at. While these options do cause the battery life to take a hit, the XPS 13 remains as Dell’s best offering on the market. See our full Dell XPS 13 (Late 2020) review. The Dell Latitude 9410 is a fantastic business laptop that delivers a true all-day lifespan on a single charge. Dell’s notebook lasted an impressive 16 hours and 54 minutes in our battery life tests, placing it second only to the Dell Latitude 9510’s record-setting 18+ hour lifetime. This is great for those who work on the go and means you’ll be able to make the most of the Latitude 9410’s 10th Gen Intel CPU for longer stretches — without having to reach for the charging cable. However, there’s more to the Latitude 9410 than its impressive battery life and strong performance. A built-in IR camera and fingerprint sensor offer a decent level of protection when paired with Dell’s suite of onboard security options, and a MIL-STD-810G certification means the device itself is protected from shock damage from falls of up to four feet, and exposure to dust and harsh environments. See our full Dell Latitude 9410 2-in-1 review. If you can accept nothing less than peak performance (and then some), then the Dell Precision 7550’s pairing of an Intel Xeon W-10885M CPU with an Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 GPU may be the ultimate solution to your workstation needs. If you’re prepared to pay the massive costs for behemoth performance, that is. This 4K workhorse is capable of lightning-fast processing and performed amazingly well against strong competition in our CPU performance. During the Laptop Mag battery life test, the Precision 7550 flew by the 6 hours and 30 minutes average for workstations with an impressive time of 8:45. If you’re looking to do some serious computing you’ll need a serious machine, and with an impressive amount of configuration options available, the Dell Precision 7550 could become your tailor-made powerhouse. See our full Dell Precision 7550 review. The XPS 13 2-in-1 is very much how it sounds. Take as much of the style, quality and power of the XPS 13 and put it into convertible form. What you end up with is a high-performance, ultrathin 2-in-1 with the power of Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake CPUs and Iris Xe graphics at its fingertips. However, such a move isn’t without its compromises. The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 inherits the XPS 13’s lack of legacy ports by offering only two Thunderbolt 4 connections, and its Maglev keyboard doesn’t quite manage to make the same impact as the one found on Dell’s XPS notebook. In almost all other ways the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is faithful to the XPS name. The latest revision includes an IR camera and an improved battery life that fell just short of 11 hours in our testing (lasting roughly an hour longer than the premium laptop average of 9 hours and 52 minutes). The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 might not be the best convertible on the market, facing stiff competition from the likes of HP and Lenovo, but it is the best convertible available under the Dell brand, taking an already impressive machine and further bolstering its versatility. See our full Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 (2020) review. Breaking from Dell’s Intel traditions, the G5 15 SE features both the AMD Ryzen R7 4800H CPU and the AMD Radeon RX 5600M GPU. This gives the Dell G5 15 SE an incredible CPU performance boost and helps to fashion it into one of the best gaming laptops available for its price. While the graphics performance isn’t the best, the G5 15 SE has an impressive price to performance ratio and was able to stay in the runnings with the likes of the Omen 15, Legion Y545 and Zephyrus G14 during our gaming benchmark tests. On one occasion, even coming out on top with a 46fps average for the Metro: Exodus benchmark running on Ultra at 1080p. The Dell G5 15 SE is a great value budget buy that could be ideal for those looking for an entry-level purchase. See our full Dell G5 15 SE (2020) review. The Dell XPS 17 is able to tackle all of your productivity, creativity and multimedia needs and is the ideal workstation for professionals looking to create, edit or publish. We hailed it as a true competitor to the 16-inch MacBook Pro, thanks in part to a 10th Gen Intel i7 processor along with an Nvidia RTX 2060 GPU which allows for some impressive results in both performance and graphics. The impressively vivid 17-inch, UHD+ display panel has a brightness averaging 505 nits and hits 172% of the sRGB color gamut. If that doesn’t sell you enough on the potential of this device, it all fits into a chassis that is nearly half the size than most 15-inch laptops on the market. Meaning it retains the sleek and slim style that the XPS line is known for. See our full Dell XPS 17 review. From the Latitude 7320 Detachable’s bright, vivid 13-inch display to its comfortable and springy back-lit detachable keyboard, Dell has once again proven their competence when it comes to delivering a solid entry into a market that has the potential to be built upon for years to come. The Latitude 7320 isn’t reinventing the wheel, but it is ticking a lot of the boxes it needs to in order to compete with hybrid contemporaries from Microsoft and Lenovo. While a 9 hour and 18 minutes battery life won’t blow away the competition anytime soon, the Latitude 7329 Detachable’s 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1180G7 (with vPro) CPU and Iris Xe graphics afford some impressive performance across a range of tasks. The Latitude 7320’s 5-megapixel webcam also impressed us with its clarity and detail, which easily set it apart from the competition. See our full Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable review. There's nothing wrong with what the XPS 13 or 17 have made available, but there is a noticeable gap between their offerings. One that would make for an interesting middle-ground between lightweight performance and a full 4K creation suite. And so, sitting pretty between those two is the well-rounded XPS 15. Partnering an Intel Core i7-10750H CPU with the discrete graphics of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1650 Ti makes the XPS 15 one of the more versatile devices in the XPS line-up. Productivity? Check. Creation? Check. Multimedia? Check. Gaming? Another check. The 2020 revision brought with it a 5.5% reduction in the main chassis, all while improving upon the size of the keys and touchpad and the position of the webcam. These are minor tweaks that most manufacturers would overlook, but Dell seems almost compulsive in their desire to push and prod at every little aspect of the XPS family in their quest to create the perfect notebook. Is it all worth it? There are many that would say the XPS 15 is the best 15-inch laptop currently available. And we are included. See our full Dell XPS 15 (2020) review. When shopping for a gaming laptop, there's a lot to consider. To help you choose a system, here are five key points to keep in mind when choosing a system. Budget: What you get for the money. You can find good inexpensive gaming laptops for under $1,000. However, more powerful mainstream gaming laptops are often priced between $1,500-$2,000. Premium systems typically cost more than $2,000 and come stacked with a host of high-powered goodies such as high-powered specs and tricked-out software. Screen Size: 15 inches is the go-to It's very rare that you'll find a 13 or 14-inch gaming laptops nowadays as smaller bezels and lighter frames have paved the way for seriously thin-and-light gaming laptops. That means the days of chunky 15.6-inch laptops putting a strain on your back are over (almost). From there, you have the 17.3-inch desktop replacements that like their smaller counterparts are becoming super svelte. But there are still the big behemoths that don't skimp on the specs. However, weighing upwards of 8 pounds, those big boys are made for your home gaming station. Screen Resolution: 1080p for high refresh rates, 4K for detail When it comes to gaming laptops displays, you want to strike a balance between frame rates and aesthetics. And in case you're planning to get a truly mobile system battery life is also deserves consideration. We recommend checking out a system with a 1080p resolution. Panel makers are now serving up screens with high refresh rate, topping out at 360Hz with a 3 millisecond response rate. But don't count out 4K screens yet as we're starting to see laptops with 4K displays with 120Hz. Keep in mind that laptops with lower resolutions tend to have longer battery life overall. Refresh rate: 120Hz is the sweet spot Depending what kind of games you're playing, particularly first person shooters and MOBA, you'll take anything that will enhance accuracy. Surprisingly, the higher a display's refresh rate is, the more accurate your shot become. It's a phenomenon that we've experienced first hand during many demos. And while 60Hz is passable, right now we recommend investing in a panel with at least a 120Hz refresh rate. Intel or AMD? A couple of years ago, the answer to this question would have been undoubtedly Intel. But AMD has made a furious comeback with its new Ryzen CPUs, which are delivering great overall performance. Thanks to the architecture in the new Ryzen chips, they're super power efficient without sacrificing productivity. The Ryzen 5000 series CPUs have consistently impressed with its performance versus battery life. Not to be outdone, Intel's 11th Gen chips are nothing to sneeze at. Laptop manufacturers have started rolling out systems with the Intel's 11th Gen H-series Tiger Lake chips. The 10-nanometer chips are extremely powerful, but still at the low-end of the spectrum with the overclockable HK-series CPU, due to launch soon. Why do you want to invest in an overclockable processor, because with the touch of a button, you can squeeze even more power out of the system. It comes in handy when you're multitasking or playing a really demanding game. Battery Life: At least 4.5 hours Unless it's plugged in, gaming laptop battery life tends to be very short, especially when gaming. However, gaming laptop battery life has gotten increasing longer over the years. So much so, that anything under 4.5 hours is considered below average. But we've just reviewed our first gaming laptop that's lasted into the double digits. With results like that, we expect gaming laptops will match their non-gaming counterparts sooner than later. Our most power efficient gaming laptop ran over 11 hours and sits on our longest-lasting laptops page. Specs: 1080p / Core i5 / 16GB Are Best Bets You can spend a lot of time delving into specs, but here are the key components to think about. If you just want really good mainstream performance, go for a Core i5 CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 1080p screen. |
