Dell’s new XPS 13 refresh is the line’s slimmest ever laptop

Dell has announced the latest iteration of its XPS 13 laptop, which it says has been redesigned to make it slimmer and more energy efficient than ever.

Designed with portability in mind, the 13.4-inch device features a motherboard that’s 1.8x smaller than its predecessor and the smallest ever made for a Dell laptop. As a result, the new XPS 13 measures just 14mm in thickness, with a weight of 2.6 pounds (1.2kg).

That reduction has enabled the manufacturer to make improvements elsewhere, with the laptop now only requiring a single cooling fan compared to the two used in last year’s range. Additionally, the extra space inside the unit has allowed Dell to spruce up the speaker system, which the firm says now offers louder sound and deeper bass, as well as offer a larger battery for up to 12 hours of use.

Despite these benefits, however, this size reduction has been offset with a compromise: machine components such as memory, storage, and battery are not user replaceable.

Like the XPS 13 Plus released earlier this year, this offering also ditches the headphone jack and, while Dell does provide a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter in the box, that will use up one of the XPS 13’s two available USB-C ports.

In terms of the display, the US model features a 13.4-inch, 1,920 x 1,200-pixel touchscreen, which offers 500-nit brightness and 100% sRGB color gamut.

Under the hood, the laptop sports 9-watt 12th-gen Intel processors (Core i5-1230U or Core i7-1250U), which Dell says can run at 12-watts in Performance Mode to match the performance of previous processors used in the range.

The new XPS 13 is available now for the line’s usual price of $999 in the US.

Dell XPS 13 2-in-1

Alongside the refreshed XPS 13, Dell has also unveiled its upcoming XPS 13 2-in-1 device, which takes fresh aim at the premium detachable market.

Available later in the summer, the Windows 11 machine is the manufacturer’s first XPS model with optional built-in 5G connectivity and runs on Intel’s 12-gen processor chips like its XPS 13 cousin.

The device features a 13-inch, 3:2 touchscreen display that offers 3K resolution (2,880 x 1,920), as well as 500-nit brightness and 100% sRGB color gamut. There’s also a front-facing 1080p camera twinned with a rear-facing 4K counterpart.

The XPS 13 2-in-1 weighs in at 1.6 pounds for the Wi-Fi model or 1.8 pounds for the aforementioned 5G variation – but the XPS Folio keyboard and Stylus pen accessories will be sold separately.