One of our best reviewed laptops, the Dell XPS 13, is poised to get even better. Along with its 2-in-1 sibling, the XPS 13 is getting refreshed with Intel’s new 11th generation “Tiger Lake” Core processors.
Dell will start selling the 13.4-inch laptop models on Sept. 30 in North America and certain European countries. The Dell XPS 13 (9310) will start at $999 while the 2-in-1 model, which can flip into a tablet, will cost $1,249 and up.
The new Tiger Lake silicon will help make the laptops even faster, especially when it comes to graphics-related processing. PCMag tested out the new Intel chips, and found they can outperform AMD’s rival processors in certain tasks, such as video editing and PC gaming.
The Dell XPS 13 models will also get Thunderbolt 4 ports, which connect via USB-C. The Thunderbolt 4 inclusion means the laptops have enough bandwidth to support two 4K displays, or a single 8K monitor.
In addition, Dell is speeding up the LPDDR4x RAM inside from 3733MHz to 4267MHz. The company is also adding an infrared sensor to the web camera on the 2-in-1 model to enable Windows Hello for facial-recognition logins.
Outside of that, the company is keeping everything else the same. The XPS 13 won high marks from us for its near borderless display, sleek aluminum casing, and long battery life at 17 hours in our video rundown test.
Dell says the refreshed XPS 13 laptop model can now get up to 19 hours in battery life. But the company refrained from adding a USB-A port on the products, which was one of our complaints in the last-generation model. The web camera has also been kept at 720p.
Interested buyers will be able to configure the products with Intel’s 11th generation Core i3 chip up to an i7. The XPS 13 laptop model can also be bought loaded with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS instead of the Windows 10 operating system.
