Dell has been at the top of its game when it comes to gaming monitors for years, and the Alienware brand has delivered pivotal technological advances, ranking among the first to embrace 500 Hz refresh-rate panels and QD-OLED technology. Dell is now claiming another “first” with its 39-inch Alienware AW3926QW, along with a fresh 34-inch QD-OLED SKU and two QHD/WQHD VA entries. All four new monitors use the same Alienware 30 design language, with AlienFX lighting, 360-degree ventilation, and streamlined cable management.

Alienware’s two new OLED gaming monitors

The Alienware AW3926QW is the largest monitor announced today and is billed as the world’s first 39-inch monitor to use an RGB Stripe Tandem OLED arrangement with 5K resolution. Dell is using an LG-sourced panel with a 4-stack light source consisting of two blue elements along with red and green elements. The stacked emissive layers reside behind an RGB-stripe subpixel layout.

Because of this particular architecture, we’re expected to see further improvements in color volume and brightness, as well as in text clarity, over legacy WOLED panels.

Using LG’s tech as the foundation, the AW3926QW features a 5120 x 2160 resolution with a native refresh rate of 165 Hz. However, since the AW3926QW is a dual-resolution monitor, dropping the resolution to 2560 x 1080 boosts the maximum refresh rate to 330 Hz. Dell boasts a 1.75 million:1 contrast ratio, aided by a polarizer layer that blocks ambient light and reduces reflections. As you might expect, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and Nvidia G-Sync are supported, and you’ll get a 0.03 ms GtG response time with 99 percent coverage of DCI-P3.

The monitor also supports various eSports display modes, allowing you to use just a portion of the display in predefined screen sizes. For example, you can simulate a 24.5-inch monitor with a 1520 x 855 resolution with a 330 Hz refresh rate or a 27-inch monitor with a 1680 x 945 resolution and a 330 Hz refresh rate. You can also configure the AW3926QW to work as a 31.5-inch monitor with a 4K resolution at 165 Hz. In each of these eSports configurations, the unused portion of the screen will remain black.

Additional features include an enhanced “personalized algorithm” that uses machine learning to predict your usage patterns and intelligently optimize panel brightness to extend panel longevity.

On the connectivity front, the AW3926QW includes two HDMI 2.1 ports, a DisplayPort 2.1 port, and a USB-C port (DisplayPort 2.1 Alt Mode with 90W PD) for video. There’s also a USB hub with two downstream USB-A 5 Gbps ports and one USB-C 5 Gbps port.

The next new monitor on the docket is the AW3426DW, which uses a QD-OLED panel with 5-stack “Penta Tandem” technology (the blue-emitting stack has increased from 4 to 5 layers). The Samsung-based tech is said to have a 1.3x uplift in luminous efficiency and a 2x improvement in panel longevity. A V-Stripe RGB subpixel arrangement is employed to deliver clearer, sharper text without the fringing that is common on traditional QD-OLED panels.

The end result is a 34-inch panel with a 3440 x 1400 resolution, a 1800R curve, and a maximum brightness of 1,300 nits (300 nits typical). You get a native refresh rate of 280 Hz, which is available over HDMI and DisplayPort connections. VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 and Dolby Vision are supported, along with FreeSync Premium Pro and G-Sync.

The AW3426DW features two HDMI 2.1 ports and one DisplayPort 1.4 port for video. You’ll also find a USB hub with USB-A 5 Gbps and USB-C 5 Gbps ports (the latter of which supports 15W charging).

Alienware hasn’t forgotten about mainstream gamers with its new Alienware 32 and 34

There are also two monitors aimed at the mainstream gaming market: the AW3226DM and AW3426DWM. Both feature 1500R curved VA panels with a 240 Hz refresh rate, VESA DisplayHDR 400 support, 3,000:1 contrast ratio, and 1ms GtG response times.

The two monitors primarily differ in their screen size and resolution. The AW3226DM features a 32-inch panel with a 2560 x 1440 (16:9) resolution, while the AW3426DWM has a 34-inch panel with a 3440 x 1440 (21:9) resolution.

Both monitors have two HDMI 2.1 ports, one DisplayPort 1.4 port, along with downstream USB-A 5 Gbps and USB-C 5 Gbps ports.

At this time, Dell has not announced pricing for the AW3926QW or the AW3426DW, but the former will launch this fall, while the latter will be available in July. The AW3226DM and AW3426DWM debut in July, priced at $299.99 and $399.99, respectively.

Dell has finally brought back the XPS 13, its famed system that introduced the InfinityEdge display and was once widely considered the best Windows laptop on the market. This time, though, the device is facing a very different market, and Dell is using it to target Apple's MacBook Neo and the newfound battle for the entry-level PC market.

The XPS 13 will start at $699, with a $599 deal for students 16 years and older, "for the back to school season." That's competitive for the specs, but $100 more than Apple's pricing on the Neo (and Apple's student pricing is year-round).

For that, you get Dell's thinnest and lightest XPS laptop to date, starting at 2.2 pounds and 0.5 inches thin, lighter than the Neo (2.7 pounds). The system has a CNC aluminum shell. Unlike the Neo, Dell is offering a backlit keyboard, albeit with a shallow 0.8 mm of travel (Dell is moving back to chiclet keys on this machine, which I appreciate). The company is also using a standard mechanical trackpad, like Apple has opted for. There will be just two color options, "sky" and "storm," with the latter coming sometime after launch.

But Dell is offering far more performance options here. The base models will use Intel's new "Wildcat Lake" processors, specifically the Core 5 320, but it will also offer the Panther Lake-based Core Ultra 7 355 sometime after launch.

While the XPS 13 will start with 8GB of RAM like the Neo, Dell will offer options up to 32GB. The Wildcat Lake options will be single-channel and go up to 16GB, while the Core Ultra configurations will have 16 and 32GB options in a dual-channel configuration. Meanwhile, storage will range from 256GB up to 1TB. As of this writing, we don't have pricing for the additional configuration options, but they'll likely push pricing far higher than Apple.

The XPS 13 boasts a 13.4-inch, 2560 x 1600 touchscreen display, making it larger than the Neo's 13 inches with the addition of touch, which Apple isn't currently offering. Dell's screen also offers a variable refresh rate panel between 30 Hz and 120 Hz.

The new XPS 13 is limited on port selection. While a pair of USB-C 3.2 Gen-2 ports will be fine for most people, a headphone jack would be a nice addition. Dell boosted these ports to Thunderbolt 4 on the Core Ultra versions.

The initial $699 starting configuration will include a Core 5 320, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD storage, the 2560 x 1600 touch screen. Dell tells us future configurations, in some regions, will have a 256GB SSD, which suggests the price could eventually go a little lower.

Dell is inviting the MacBook Neo comparisons. In a blog post, the company calls it out by name, calling it a "capable machine." But the company also says its XPS is a superior device: "Where Dell differs is what we think premium means at this price point and what we were willing to build to deliver it," the post reads.

The company points out that the XPS 13 is lighter than the Neo, has faster USB ports, a touch screen, and more configuration options that make it more powerful (albeit likely at a much higher price). We'll have to see if that will make students and young professionals choose Windows, or if Apple's ecosystem still proves a draw.

It's great to see Dell get into the mid-range segment with a premium device, rather than relying on its Inspirons. We're looking forward to testing one when it releases in June.

Alienware has typically positioned itself as a premium brand of laptops and desktops for PC gamers. With the new Alienware 15 laptop, however, the Dell subsidiary is boiling down to the essentials in the hopes to reach a wider user base and offer a cheaper laptop.

For the lowest-end configurations, Alienware is digging in the parts bin for some older components, including AMD Ryzen 200 ("Hawk Point Refresh") and Intel Core Series 2 ("Raptor Lake") CPU options and GPUs starting with the RTX 4050 Laptop GPU in the United States, though some regions will start with the older RTX 3050 Laptop GPU.

In the U.S., the starting configuration with an AMD Ryzen 5 220, 16GB of RAM (1x16GB DDR5-5600), 512GB of storage, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU will start at $1,299, while the cheapest Intel variant, subbing out the Ryzen chip for an Intel Core 5 210H will run $1,349. A Dell spokesperson suggested that there may be promotions that lower the prices at some point.

Those starting GPUs have just 6GB of VRAM, where as an update to the RTX 50-series options will get you a roomier 8GB.

I had access to a pre-production unit for early hands-on time, but I wasn't able to benchmark it (stay tuned for a full review for that). My initial opinions of it were that it didn't feel like an Alienware laptop. I'm used to Alienware laptops including some aluminum or premium plastics. While this system looks the part, with the Alienware head logo and rounded edges of the company's AW30 design language, the black polycarbonate lid and bottom cover feel a bit cheap. The bezels, in shiny plastic, feel like a relic of the old Dell G-Series, and the whole thing feels halfway between a standard Dell laptop and an Alienware machine.

I'm not surprised to see plain, white keyboard backlighting, similar to the Alienware Aurora line. RGB lighting is about the easiest thing to cut.

Our hands-on unit, with an RTX 4050, had a simple rear foot. If you get an RTX 50-series GPU, the company adds the cryo-chamber found on the Alienware Aurora for some extra cooling.

The keyboard has 1.3mm of key travel, and only comes with white backlight, similar to the Alienware Aurora line. On the bright side, in a short hands-on time with it, I didn't notice much flex in normal typing. You also get a 180-degree hinge.I'm not looking forward to fully testing that display. Dell claims the 15.3-inch, 1920 x 1200 screen covers 62.5% of the sRGB gamut and offers 300 nits of brightness. That sounds about right — games and movie trailers looked dim and often washed out.

On the bright side, Alienware hasn't skimped on ports here, with two USB Type-A ports, an Ethernet jack, HDMI 2.1, and a USB-C port with charging support and DisplayPort on the left side, while the right side has a 3.5 mm headphone jack and another Type-C port. These are slower, 5Gbps ports (USB 3.2 Gen 1 on all but the USB-C port on the left, which is USB 3.2 Gen 2) but if you're only using them for accessories, that shouldn't be a big deal.

Resident Evil Requiem seemed to run fine on the device at native resolution, even during a busy mid-game boss fight with tons of fire effects, but that game is extremely well-optimized. There's no unannounced silicon in this device, so we know what to expect, for the most part. But it didn't look amazing on the screen, which was dim and bland.

There will be more expensive versions, going up to an RTX 5060, 1TB of RAM, and either a Ryzen 7 or Intel Core 7 processor. Here's a table of configurations that Alienware provided:

It is understandable why Alienware is going for a cheaper laptop. Notebooks are very expensive right now, and the budget category has all but evaporated. For real deals, you often have to go several generations back on at least the CPU. This should widen the number of people considering Alienware in this market, and people who buy the entry-level system this time around may consider an Aurora or an Area-51 in a few years, alongside any of the mice, headsets, or keyboards that Alienware also makes.

The price is questionable. It's unclear what promotions may come and drop the price down the line — perhaps holiday or back to school sales. If a less premium brand dropped a laptop like this at this price, it might actually seem downright reasonable, given the current state of components. In fact, if some of Alienware's rivals, or even Dell itself under the G-series brand, had dropped this exact laptop two years ago and this was now the going price, I think some people would think it was more agreeable. But Alienware launching a less premium notebook with old parts now might make it seem expensive for what you get, or at least feel off-brand. And some of those higher tiers are still pricey, with an Intel system with an RTX 5060 passing $2,000.

It does risk making Alienware look a bit less premium. I'm very curious to see the mainstream reception to this notebook. Dell ended its G-Series gaming laptops, which were cheaper and technically not affiliated with Alienware, when the company rebranded its laptops in 2025. But hey, at least something is coming out aimed at the masses.

A recent update to Dell's pre-installed SupportAssist Remediation software is causing persistent blue screen of death errors and reboot loops on multiple Dell laptop models, according to user reports on Dell's community forum (spotted by Neowin).

The update, version 5.5.16.0 of Dell SupportAssist Remediation and the accompanying OS Recovery Plugin, was released on April 30th. Affected users report their PCs crash and reboot roughly every 30 minutes, with the cycle continuing indefinitely until the software is removed.

SupportAssist Remediation is a background service that Dell bundles on its Windows PCs to automate system recovery and repair tasks. Dell hasn’t acknowledged the issue or released a fix, but the problem has been confirmed across at least two Dell product lines so far: the XPS 15 9530 and the Dell Pro Plus 14.

Multiple users have independently analyzed their Windows crash dump files using WinDbg, Microsoft's debugging tool, and arrived at the same conclusion: The crash dumps show a bugcheck code of 0xEF (CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED), with the faulting process identified as DellSupportAssistRemedationService.exe, part of the SupportAssist Remediation package installed at C:\Program Files\Dell\SARemediation\agent\.

Forum user Sygent, who owns an XPS 15 9530 running Windows 11 with BIOS version 1.29.0, posted a detailed dump analysis on Sunday, showing the failure pointing directly to the Dell process. A second user, MartinHBS2026, reported the same findings on a Dell Precision 3571 and confirmed the crashes stopped after removing all SupportAssist components. A third user, Waddo, confirmed identical crash dump results on a Dell Pro Plus 14 the following day.

Users in the Dell forum thread have identified two workarounds. The first and less disruptive option is to disable only the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service by running sc.exe config "Dell SupportAssist Remediation" start= disabled from an elevated command prompt, then restarting the PC, thereby preserving the rest of Dell's update and diagnostic tools.

The second option is to uninstall SupportAssist Remediation and the Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery Plugin for Dell Update entirely. Both approaches have stopped the crashes for users who have tried them.

This isn’t the first time that SupportAssist Remediation has caused similar crashes. A Dell forum thread from January last year described the same BSOD pattern on both Windows 10 and Windows 11 machines after a SupportAssist Remediation update, with WinDbg analysis again identifying the Dell software as the cause. That earlier thread went unresolved by Dell support.

Aside from causing blue screen crashouts, Dell’s SupportAssist suite has previously been found to contain significant vulnerabilities, allowing remote attackers to gain administrative privileges on Dell PCs.

Dell’s sweeping rebrand went a step too far when it dissolved the XPS line into its generic Premium series. But consumers spoke up, and Dell listened – XPS is back. We’ve already reviewed the XPS 14, and now the flagship XPS 16 steps into the spotlight — and the competition to be one of the best laptops. Starting at $1,749 and tested at $2,349, it’s nowhere near budget territory, but it never pretends to be. From its refined metal chassis to its dazzling tandem OLED display, this machine broadcasts its premium underpinnings at every turn.

Design of the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

At 13.88 x 9.35 x 0.58 inches, the redesigned XPS is noticeably sleeker than the outgoing 16 Premium (14.1 x 9.4 x 0.75 inches) and, at 3.65 pounds, a full pound lighter. One reason Dell was able to manage this was by eliminating a discrete GPU option – the new XPS 16 comes only with integrated Intel fare.

Its footprint is marginally smaller albeit slightly heavier than Acer’s Aspire 16 AI (13.99 x 9.66 x 0.59 inches, 3.42 pounds), though it remains understandably larger than Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air (11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches, 2.7 pounds). (See our review of the 13-inch MacBook Air.)

Build quality is where Dell makes its statement. The aluminum chassis and Gorilla glass palm rest feel premium, and the OLED-equipped model has a glass screen as well. The display hinge doesn’t fold flat, stopping about 45 degrees past vertical, but it feels sturdy and supports one-handed opening. Overall, the XPS’ spotless build quality, precise edges, and nearly borderless display all impart that this is a premium-tier laptop.

The design focus unfortunately takes away from the XPS’ practicality by limiting port selection to just three Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports and a headphone jack, following Apple's lead on the Mac. Acer’s Swift 16 AI and Asus’ Zenbook A16 deliver a more practical mix, including USB-A. If you rely on wired peripherals and haven’t fully transitioned to USB-C, this design choice will force you to use some dongles. Internally, the laptop offers the expected Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity.

Dell XPS 16 (2026) Specifications

Productivity Performance on the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

Our XPS 16 review unit is built around a Core Ultra X7 358H processor, 32GB of LPDDR5X-9600 memory, Arc B390 integrated graphics, and a 1TB SSD.

For benchmark comparison, we included the Acer Swift 16 AI (Core Ultra X7 358H, $1,799), Apple’s MacBook Air (13-inch, 10-core M5; $1,299), and Asus’ Zenbook A16 (Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, $1,699). We also included a pair of Dell XPS 14 laptops, one featuring a Core Ultra 7 355 ($1,699) and the other a Core Ultra X7 358H ($2,199). Acer is the main competitor, featuring identical components, while Apple and Asus rely on ARM-based processors. The XPS 14 duo is here to show how the Ultra 7 355 (also available in the XPS 16) performs and if there’s any performance advantage to the larger XPS 16 with the Core Ultra X7.

In Geekbench 6, the XPS 16 scored 2,839 points in single-core, matching the rest of the x86 field – that is, all but the Apple (4,168) and Asus (3,807), which dominated. The XPS 16 proved more competitive in multi-core, scoring 16,975 to practically tie its XPS 14 sibling with the same CPU (16,927) and outperforming the Acer (15,926), though it was slightly behind Apple (17,067) and couldn’t touch Asus (22,733). Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 7-equipped XPS 14 trailed far behind (7,964).

In our 25GB file transfer test, the XPS 16 averaged 1,782 MBps, marginally ahead of the Acer, Asus, and Core Ultra 7-equipped XPS 14, though ahead of the Core Ultra X7-equipped XPS 14 (1,420 MBps). Apple took the leading spot, with 1,925 MBps.

Finally, the XPS 16 finished our 4K-to-1080p Handbrake video transcoding test in 4 minutes and 1 second, the leading time after the overachieving Asus (2:08). The Acer was just behind (4:25) while the Core Ultra 7-equipped XPS 14 trailed (6:45).

Overall, the XPS 16’s Core Ultra X7 358H is a strong choice for demanding productivity and creative workflows. Despite being housed in a larger chassis, it showed nearly identical performance relative to the smaller XPS 14 equipped with the same CPU. It did, however, outperform the Aspire 16 AI also equipped with the same CPU, suggesting Dell’s thermal management is superior. Against the ARM-based Apple and Asus, however, the XPS 16 didn’t fare quite as well, especially against the Asus’ Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme.

Those that don’t need as much CPU performance can get the XPS 16 equipped with the Core Ultra 7 355, but as shown in the XPS 14 equipped with that chip, it’s a steep step down. That CPU also loses out on the stronger Arc B390 integrated GPU.

To stress test productivity laptops, we run 10 loops of Cinebench 2024. The XPS 16 started at 895 points before dipping to 800 points for the second loop, then stabilizing between 933 and 961 points for the remaining loops, suggesting relatively stable thermal performance. During the test, the Core Ultra X7 358H’s P-cores averaged 3.09 GHz, the E-cores 2.64 GHz, and the LPE-cores 2.4 GHz.

Display on the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

Dell equipped our review model with the top-tier OLED touch display, which uses tandem light-emitting layers for superior brightness. Its 3200 x 2000 resolution falls short of 4K, but it still looks razor-sharp in practice. Individual pixels are invisible to the eye, and there’s ample working space for spreadsheeting and content creation, such as Photoshop.

The OLED panel makes Star Wars: The Mandalorian look spectacular. Starfields look crisp against inky black backgrounds, with no haloing or light bleed, and the outstanding color coverage adds depth and richness to any scene. The 120 Hz refresh rate also benefits fast action and scrolling, which looks much smoother than on a typical 60 Hz display.

This OLED panel is a $150 upgrade from the standard 1920 x 1200 IPS panel, which boasts a variable 1-120 Hz refresh rate to maximize battery life. That 1 Hz panel doesn’t support touch or feature a glass surface.

The XPS 16 offers full sRGB and DCI-P3 color coverage, matching the Acer Swift 16 AI and besting the MacBook Air, which achieved only 83% DCI-P3. For context, the XPS 14’s IPS panel only covered 71% DCI-P3, so expect a similar loss of color if the XPS 16 is optioned with IPS.

On brightness, the XPS 16’s 364-nit peak isn’t impressive, but OLED panels don’t require as many nits to appear as luminant as an IPS panel (which adorn the MacBook Air, Zenbook A16, and the Core Ultra 7 355-equipped XPS 14).

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

Dell has pushed the design envelopes with its premium-tier keyboards, and sometimes with disastrous results. Last year’s Dell 16 Premium left out a physical function row in favor of a touch strip, which proved counterintuitive since you couldn’t tell what you were pressing without looking down.

Dell reversed course with the new XPS, restoring the physical Function row to its rightful place. Tactile feel has also improved, with switches that produce a more direct, less plastic-like feel and a pleasant tactile sound. The zero-lattice layout with no spacing between the keys remains an aesthetic choice and has a slight learning curve. I was occasionally hitting two keys at once, but my fingers quickly learned to respect the subtle boundaries between keys. After about an hour of using the keyboard, I was hitting my usual typing speed in MonkeyType, about 112 words per minute with 99% accuracy.

The XPS 16 also gets practicality points for its dark keyboard and white backlighting, which contrast nicely, something that wasn’t true of the white keyboard on the 16 Premium. (There is currently no light color on the XPS 16.)

That said, the layout hasn’t quite been perfected. While dedicated Home, End, and Delete keys now exist along the top row, the mismatched sizes of the arrow keys make them difficult to use by feel.

This XPS redesign also restored the border around the massive touchpad. The line is subtle but tactile and provides confidence that you’re clicking in the right spot. The Gorilla Glass touchpad feels rock solid and provides responsive haptic feedback, which can be adjusted in Windows’ Settings app.

Audio on the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

The XPS 16’s speakers make a respectable entertainment platform. Loud and clear despite being recessed in the chassis, they deliver full-bodied sound that projects well if the laptop is sitting on a solid surface. Bass is also above average for a laptop – watching Star Wars: The Mandalorian, I could feel the footsteps of an imperial walker and the impact of grenades and blaster bolts.

Oddly, Dell doesn’t preinstall the Dolby Access app, which provides access to Atmos equalizers to further tighten the bass and improve clarity and projection. I found the app in the Windows Store and installed it without a problem.

Upgradeability of the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

Upgrading the XPS 16 is quite different from other laptops. You start by removing the four Torx screws on the underside. The bottom panel doesn’t just come off – instead, you’ll need a thin plastic tool to press upward through the rear screw holes, which pops off the top of the chassis. Lacking specialized tools for that, I used a plastic toothpick and moderate force, which worked fine – I was able to then work my way along the edges of the chassis to pop the remaining clips.

With the top half of the chassis removed, you’ll have access to the 70 Wh battery and single M.2 drive slot. Nothing else can be upgraded, with soldered memory and wireless cards across all XPS 16 configurations.

Battery Life on the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

Our battery test consists of web browsing, running OpenGL tests, and streaming videos with the screen at 150 nits while connected to Wi-Fi.

For a 16-inch OLED-screened laptop, the XPS 16 lasted an impressive 13 hours and 3 minutes in our battery rundown. That’s almost an hour longer than the Acer (12:12) and comfortably ahead of the Asus (10:26). The MacBook Air lasted considerably longer (15:28), though it’s important to note that we tested the 13-inch model. If the runtime of the IPS-screened XPS 14 is any indication (20:41), buyers prioritizing battery life might consider the IPS panel on the XPS 16 with a refresh late as low as 1 Hz – what it lacks in color, it should make up for in endurance, though you'd also have a lower resolution stretched across a larger screen.

Heat on the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

We measure peak surface temperatures while running 10 loops of Cinebench 2024 multi-core. During the test, temperatures on the XPS 16 reached 93 degrees F between the keyboard’s G and H keys, 76 F on the touchpad, and 105 F on the underside towards the rear edge. Internally, the Core Ultra X7 358H averaged 77 degrees Celsius across all cores.

Webcam on the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

Dell’s 1440p webcam sets it apart, boasting a sharp, well-exposed picture with ample color and minimal noise. It’s a clear step up from the 1080p fare found in most laptops. It misses a dedicated privacy shutter, but it does include an IR sensor for facial recognition.

Software and Warranty on the Dell XPS 16 (2026)

Dell includes two major apps on the XPS 16, the first of which is Dell Optimizer. It provides power profiles – Optimized (the default), Cool, Quiet, and Ultra Performance – and a battery charge mode that decides how quickly to charge the battery based on your usage. (How it determines this isn’t explained.) It also has a battery extender feature which, among other things, lowers the screen brightness on the fly to improve efficiency. (Users who want consistency may want to disable this feature, as we did for our battery testing.) The app also includes Dolby Vision display modes – bright, dark, or vivid.

The other included app, SupportAssist, provides core services including support access, diagnostics, and system updates. It also features a tutorial to help you set up your new PC and migrate your settings from another PC.

Dell covers the XPS 16 with a one-year Dell Care Plus warranty, with 1-2 business day onsite repairs after remote diagnosis.

Dell XPS 16 (2026) Configurations

Our XPS 16 review unit is a flagship model, featuring a 3200 x 2000 OLED touch display, Core Ultra X7 358H processor, 32GB of memory, 1TB SSD, and Windows 11 Home. It retails for $2,349.99 from Dell.

Baseline configurations start at $1,749.99 with a 1920 x 1200 IPS non-touch display, Core Ultra 5 325 or Core Ultra 7 355 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. Stepping up to the X-series CPUs automatically upgrades to 32GB of RAM (with 64GB as an option) and the more powerful Arc B390 integrated graphics. The top CPU is the Core Ultra X9 388H. Storage, which scales to 4TB, and the display can be chosen independently of the CPU.

Dell’s pricing places the XPS in the luxury market. Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,299, though with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, it reaches $1,899. Acer’s Swift 16 AI is $1,799.99 and Asus’ Zenbook A16 $1,699, though they aren’t quite as premium as the XPS’ build quality. On the other hand, the XPS 16 is less expensive than the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra, which is $2,799 with only 512GB of storage. Unlike the XPS, the Samsung can be configured with a dedicated Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU, but it commands an eye-watering $3,699 in that guise.

Bottom Line

Dell was wise to bring back the XPS line, and the XPS 16 shows why. Its beautifully engineered chassis, superb OLED display, and strong performance are reminders of why this brand has earned its reputation over the years. Strong battery life, a crisp webcam, and good speakers round out the premium experience.

The compromises are few but meaningful. Relying solely on USB-C may streamline the design, but it limits practicality when many competitors offer a more versatile mix. And with OLED configurations surpassing $2,000, you won’t save any money buying this laptop.

Still, if you can live with the limited ports and premium price, the XPS 16 rewards with one of the most refined Windows laptop experiences you can buy.

Update, June 10, 2026: The display chart in this review has been updated to reflect more accurate numbers. The text remains the same.

Last year, Dell's gaming arm substantially updated the Alienware 16 Area-51 with a new design. This year, the laptop has a much more moderate adjustment: the addition of an OLED display, which fans of the pricey brand have been clamoring for for a few years, and that several of the best gaming laptops already have.

Without any major GPU launches, Alienware's other internal update is an upgrade to Intel's latest CPUs, which are a light refresh that didn't provide any massive upgrades to our performance in testing.

You still get plenty of ports, and the $50 mechanical keyboard is worth it – at least to my fingers. And while I can't imagine most people buy new gaming rigs on an annual basis; there's not a ton of change year-over-year.

Design of the Alienware 16 Area-51

The 2026 edition of the Alienware 16 Area-51 looks identical to last year's model, which was a total overhaul, with rounded corners and curved edges, along with a striking "liquid teal" color that stands out from other gaming laptops and looks like different colors under different light.

The lid features Alienware's alien head logo in a mirror finish, but you can't see that once it glows with RGB lighting when you turn the rig on. The lighting can also be found in a diffused ring around the ports on the back "shelf" where the ports live, as well as beneath the keyboard and around the intake fans.

The majority of the ports are at the back of the laptop, including three USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a pair of Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI 2.1, and the connector for the 360-watt power adapter. The left boasts an SD card slot and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

I get why Alienware puts the ports in the back; it lets you plug in major accessories and forget about them, and allows for a clean desk. But if you want to plug in external drives or peripherals that don't always have a home on your desk, you'll have to reach around the back of this big notebook. I would have loved at least one USB port on the side, but Alienware has spent most of the real estate on the side of the laptop for exhaust in its four-fan system.

On the bottom of the laptop, there's a glass window exposing part of the motherboard and the cooler, and you can also catch some RGB lighting here. It's cool on first glance, I guess, but I'd rather have something less breakable than glass on the outside of my laptop. It would probably save some weight to switch the glass, too.

The 16-inch Area-51 measures 14.37 x 11.41 x 1.12 inches and weighs 7.49 pounds (before the 2.2-pound power adapter). I could just barely close my backpack around it, largely because of the thermal shelf at the back. And there are smaller flagship 16-inch gaming notebooks out there. The MSI Raider 16 Max HX is 14.29 x 10.62 x 1.14 inches and 5.73 pounds.

Alienware 16 Area-51 Specifications

Gaming and Graphics on the Alienware 16 Area-51

The Alienware 16 Area-51, with its Intel Core Ultra 290HX Plus and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU (16GB GDDR7, 175 W TGP, 1,500 MHz boost clock), proved to be a powerful performer across our benchmarks and in playtesting.

For instance, Resident Evil Requiem ran between 87 and 113 frames per second, as I explored the care center and engaged in a shootout to take down a blisterhead. That was at the system's native 1440p, with ray tracing on, hair strands improvements on, high graphics quality (with some at max), and without any upscaling or frame generation. It fell to 74 FPS in a darker area where I ultimately snuck behind and killed the villain known as the Chef.

We compared the Area-51 to last year's model, with a Core Ultra 9 275HX and an identical RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, to see how much the year-over-year CPU upgrade matters. We also compared it to a slightly more expensive system, the MSI Raider 16 Max HX, with an RTX 5090 and the same Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus as our review unit.

This year's Area-51 and last year's system were consistently in range. At 1920 x 1200, the newer model typically won out, with the exception of Far Cry 6. In a few games, like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redmption 2, last year's model did better at 2560 x 1600, even if it lost at lower resolutions. In general, though, the two systems were largely in spitting distance of each other.

Unsurprisingly, the MSI's RTX 5090 won out in most games.

But if you just bought a top-of-the-line gaming laptop last year, slight CPU upgrades aren't going to make or break your experience. You likely won't even be able to tell the difference.

During our Metro Exodus stress test, in which we run the game at RTX settings for 15 runs, approximating half an hour or game play, the performance cores on the CPU averaged 4.11 GHz, while the efficient cores hit 2.75 GHz. The GPU ran at an average of 1,950.46 MHz.

Productivity Performance on the Alienware 16 Area-51

The Alienware 16 Area-51 we tested is using an Intel Core i9-290HX Plus. This new chip is based on a refreshed version of Arrow Lake, and we didn't see any massive changes in our testing. Last year's Area-51 that we tested ran on an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, while the MSI Raider 16 Max HX we're comparing here is using the same 290HX Plus processor.

On Geekbench 6, the Area-51 with 290HX Plus earned a single-core score of 3,216 and a multi-core score of 20,754. Last year's Alienware with Core Ultra 9 delivered scores of 3,126 and 20,498, so nothing eye-bulging here. The Raider achieved similar scores as the current model, at 3,231/20,656.

The SK Hynix drive in this year's system proved speedy, copying 25GB of files at a speed of 2,738.90 MBps, easily beating the MSI Raider (1,357.93 MBps) and last year's Alienware.

On Handbrake, the Alienware 16 transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 2 minutes, which is 2 seconds behind last year's model, and enough for me to say it could go either way. The Raider was faster, at 1:51.

Display on the Alienware 16 Area-51

The major difference between the 2026 version of the Area-51 and last year's is the display. It's still a 2560 x 1600, 240 Hz screen, but this year there is an option for an anti-glare OLED panel.

In the trailer for The Odyssey, the screen appeared bright, especially in early scenes with Odysseus and his men underneath clear blue skies. There were some very deep blacks, like when Odysseus enters the cyclops' cave, where green foliage and orange flames all popped. It's not the most vivid OLED screen I've ever seen, but it's still nice.

The OLED worked to strong effect in Resident Evil 9, with dark blacks making for increasingly haunting shadows. But it was just as good with buckets of crimson zombie blood.

I like the anti-glare. I assume this took some of the shimmer out of the screen, but considering I work next to a window at home, I was still able to see most of the screen without reflections, even if the colors weren't as good at an angle.

The OLED screen covers 93.7% of DCI-P3 color volume, compared to 132.2% sRGB, surpassing last year's non-OLED model and the screen on the MSI Raider. Those screens, however, were brighter than the Area-51's OLED screen, which measured 368.6 nits on our light meter. Last year's model came in at 515.8 nits.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Alienware 16 Area-51

Our review unit came with a low-profile Cherry MX mechanical keyboard. We've seen these on a few gaming laptops (mostly from Dell and MSI), and they always seem worth the upgrade. In this case, it's $50. Frankly, I think that on these high-end notebooks, Alienware should just make these mechanical keyboards the default.

It feels great to type on, and I hit 121 words per minute at 98% accuracy on monkeytype.com. That being said, the keys are clicky, loud, and even have a bit of ping to them. But if you wear headphones while you type, your fingers may be happy enough that your ears don't care.

The layout is a bit weird, with a row at the end of the keyboard for the volume and mute keys. It feels out of place, as I'm used to having those on the function keys. Instead, four macro keys take up those spaces. Additionally, there's a massive Copilot key on the right side. It's about a key and a half wide.

The touchpad measures 4.4 inches wide by 2.5 inches tall, bucking the trend of large touchpads finally making their way to gaming laptops. This one feels a bit cramped, but not difficult to use, especially as people playing games typically use a mouse.

Audio on the Alienware 16 Area-51

There are four speakers on the Area-51: two 2W tweeters and a pair of 2W woofers. They're fine, but nothing special.

Listening to Jade Bird's "I Get No Joy," the computer filled my apartment with sound. Bird's vocals were clear, as were the guitars and some synths. When drums played alone, like in the song's intro, they were clear, but they got lost in the mix with the rest of the instruments. Despite the bulky chassis, there's not much bass here, either.

The system came tuned with Dolby Atmos, but in the settings software, changing the equalizers didn't seem to do very much.

In Resident Evil 9, Grace's nervous breathing was loud (and constant — tamp down, Capcom), and infected zombie growls were clear. The sound was acceptable, if not earth-shattering.

Upgradeability of the Alienware 16 Area-51

To open up the Alienware 16 Area-51, you need to loosen the four screws on the bottom of the system closest to the palm rest. These are captive. Another four screws hold the rest of the cover on, and those come out completely.

The bottom cover has glass on it, which provides a window into the system. Dell's maintenance guides stress that you shouldn't scratch it with a sharp tool, like, say, a screwdriver.

Dell's guides suggest that you can use your fingertip to loosen the base cover, but just like last year, I needed a plastic spudging tool to get through the plastic clips holding it on.

Once you're inside, you have access to the battery, as well as the memory slots and three SSD slots. There's a code written in an alien language on the bottom of the case, but it's identical to last year.

Battery Life on the Alienware 16 Area-51

The 96 WHr battery in the Alienware 16 Area-51 can't power the laptop for too long. On our battery test, which includes browsing websites, streaming video, and running light OpenGL tests with the screen set to just 150 nits of brightness, the system ran for 3 hours and 33 minutes.

Last year's non-OLED model lasted for 4:10. The MSI Raider 16 Max HX ran for much longer, at 8:33. Both appear to have Nvidia's Advanced Optimus, so it's unclear why the Alienwares aren't running as long.

Heat on the Alienware 16 Area-51

We measured heat on the Area-51 while running our Metro Exodus gauntlet, running the benchmark for about half an hour.

The chassis gopt a bit toasty. The center of the keyboard climbed to 105.5 degrees Fahrenheit, which you can definitely feel, while the hottest spot on the bottom was 114.5 F. The touchpad stayed cool at 83.5 F. Be sure to use this on a desk.

Inside, the CPU measured an average of 82.8 degrees Celsius, while the GPU reached 62.11 C.

Webcam on the Alienware 16 Area-51

There's a 1080p webcam embedded in the Area-51's top bezel. It's OK, though perhaps not befitting of a laptop that costs over $4,000.

While it caught stitching my shirt and individual hairs in my beard, images taken from the cameras had some pixelation, which also occurred in video calls. On the bright side, the camera was color accurate.

Last year, I tested a version of this system with a 4K webcam that I enjoyed more, but Alienware isn't offering it this time around. A representative for the gaming brand said in an email that this would "help pricing without compromising in other areas that are more essential for premium gaming."

Software and Warranty on the Alienware 16 Area-51

Alienware has preinstalled some software. I've seen worse, but there's more than I like here. Alienware Command Center is the primary application on the machine, with control of AlienFX RGB Lighting, system performance adjustments, and a built-in game library.

Otherwise, the Alienware apps include one dedicated to downloading anything you bought at purchase, as well as Dell Support Assist for customer service.

There is bloat on here, including McAfee with a month-long trial.

Alienware sells the 16-inch Area-51 with a 1-year warranty. You can cover accidental damage and spill for a year for an extra $79, while Elite Care adds extended battery support and "top-tier gaming support experts" for $99.

Alienware 16 Area-51 Configurations

We tested the Alienware 16 Area-51 in a $4,309.99 configuration including a Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor, GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, 32GB of RAM, a 2TB M.2 PCIe Gen 5 SSD, and the new 16-inch OLED screen. It also features a CherryMX low-profile keyboard and Windows 11 Pro.

The base model is $1,949.99 with a Core Ultra 7 255HX, an RTX 5060 Laptop GPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, a non-OLED screen, a membrane keyboard, and Windows 11.

Alienware's configurator has many options in between, including a Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, laptop GPUs up to an RTX 5090, RAM up to 64GB, and storage up to 12TB in RAID 0 (3 x 4TB). The most expensive configuration we could make came out to $8,009.99.

Bottom Line

The Alienware 16 Area-51 is a large, bulky gaming laptop designed to deliver a ton of gaming power on the go.

It's a heavy system, one that barefly fit in my backpack. Ideally, Alienware could find some way to slim this down, or at least drop a few pounds. But a slim, lighter laptop with the same components almost certainly wouldn’t be able to deliver the same level of performance.

On the bright side, Alienware finally brought OLED screen options, which should have always been available given the prices it's asking for its top-tier laptops. But this year's chip upgrades really don't povide better gaming performance year-over-year (not that most people are buying gaming laptops every single year.) It was unfortunate to see that the webcam was downgraded from 4K to 1080p; while that's arguably one of the parts people might care about least on a gaming rig, this system is over $4,000. It should have the best of the best.

If what you're looking for is a desktop replacement that's plenty powerful and portable enough, Alienware's 16-inch system delivers. But you may need a bigger backpack.

To start this off as clearly and plainly as possible, this review is of a $350, 27-inch OLED gaming monitor with Quantum Dot color, 240 Hz, Adaptive-Sync, HDR10 and QHD 2560x1440 resolution. If you’ve been paying attention to the gaming monitor market, you might want to stop reading right here and go buy one on those specs and pricing alone. The Alienware AW2726DM is far more than an incremental price drop for the category; the $500 barrier hasn’t been smashed, it’s been erased.

But please read on, because below you’ll find my full battery of test results, with comparisons to more expensive monitors with higher refresh rates. Let’s take a look.

Alienware AW2726DM Specs

For this price, you’d expect the AW2726DM to be stripped down to bare essentials. But while it isn’t festooned with features, this display isn’t a barebones proposition, either. You get a 27-inch QHD OLED panel with Quantum Dot color that fills over 111% of the DCI-P3 gamut, which is a tick higher than average. Accuracy is decent out of the box, with even better image fidelity after a quick calibration. The only thing missing on the color front is an sRGB mode, which isn’t a big deal for gaming.

There are plenty of other picture modes though, 11 for SDR and another three for HDR10 content. Brightness is one thing that is sacrificed on the altar of value. While I measured 400-nit peaks in HDR mode, SDR topped out at around 200 nits. You still get OLED’s perfect blacks, though. Like all its more expensive competitors, contrast is so good that it can’t be measured.

There are no sacrifices when it comes to gaming performance here. You get a 240 Hz refresh rate with Adaptive-Sync. That’s more than enough to eliminate motion blur, and coupled with the QHD resolution, speedy frame rates are easy enough to achieve. There’s no black frame insertion, AKA ELMB/ULMB, but it’s not needed unless you pair the AW2726DM with a slower gaming rig.

Less important omissions include internal speakers, USB ports, and LED lighting. And the stand is simply designed, though it has full ergonomics. Build quality is up to par with any Alienware display I’ve worked with, and long-term reliability is backed by a three-year warranty that includes burn-in. And that can be staved off with the pixel refresh you’ll find in the OSD.

Small misses aside, the AW2726DM is going to be hard to fault given its $350 price tag. The last few 27-inch QHD OLEDs I reviewed all had prices north of $500. Let’s see what the instruments reveal.

Assembly and Accessories

The AW2726DM’s carton is unassuming, and aside from a small line of text announcing the model number, 240 Hz and QD-OLED; you’ll have to open it up to experience the incredible bang-for-the-buck that it offers. The base and upright mate with a captive bolt and you’ll need to find the four screws and included tool to attach the panel. There is no snap on fitting here. The mount is 100mm VESA compatible, so aftermarket arms are easy to employ. The power supply is internal, so there’s an IEC cord plus cables for HDMI and DisplayPort.

Product 360

Styling is minimalistic thanks to the all-screen look Alienware is going for. The front bezel is flush and narrow, with a strip at the bottom just wide enough for an Alienware logo. Moving around the side, you can see the two-part design that many OLEDs feature. The panel is among the thinnest I’ve seen at just three millimeters deep. The component housing takes the total thickness to just 1.65 inches. And if you don’t use the included stand, the back is completely smooth. The AW2726DM is one of the slimmest displays you’ll find in any size.

The back features just a small Alienware head and the OSD joystick. A Kensington lock is provided too. There’s plenty of ventilation on top of the bulge, and the screen is further shielded from heat by a graphite layer. There are no internal fans.

The stand is reasonably solid, with full ergonomics that include 5.2 inches of height range, a 90-degree portrait mode, and 5/21 degrees tilt. Swivel is a full 360 degrees, thanks to a bearing ring in the base that allows the entire package to turn smoothly.

The input panel is up and under and is made up of a DisplayPort 1.4 with Display Stream Compression (DSC) and two HDMI 2.1 ports. They support consoles with VRR up to 120 Hz. For the full 240 Hz, you’ll need to use DisplayPort. You also get a 3.5mm headphone jack.

OSD Features

The AW2726DM includes a tiny joystick around the back right as its only control. Pressing it brings up a quick menu, and an up-click opens the full OSD.

The quick menu has five icons that can be programmed for easy access to commonly used features like picture modes or game enhancements. At the top of the screen is a signal status bar that shows the input resolution, refresh rate, picture preset, HDR status, panel health, and the dark stabilizer setting. When panel health turns red, you can run the pixel refresh routine found in the Others sub-menu.

The Game menu has 11 picture modes for different game types, a color temp (warm or cool) preference, or Custom Color where you’ll find a two-point white balance control plus color management. There are no gamma presets, but the AW2726DM sticks close to the 2.2 reference for SDR and ST.2084 for HDR. Game Enhance refers to the available timers and frame counter. You also get alignment marks, but there are no aiming points or sniper modes.

HDR10 signals get three of their own modes. Display is the default and best choice there. I observed very obvious edge enhancement in the Movie and Game presets, but Display was free of artifacts.

There are many ways to customize the operation of the AW2726DM. Shortcut Key refers to the five icons in the quick menu. You can scroll left or right through the available settings and make them convenient things like input selection or picture mode. The four joystick directions can be programmed as well, for a total of nine options.

The AW2726DM’s only panel maintenance feature is a pixel refresher. I have never seen burn-in on any OLED display, and that includes the monitor I’m currently writing this review on and my nearly six-year-old LG television. Both have gotten by on pixel refresh alone with no need for orbiters or logo protection. And Alienware includes a three-year burn-in warranty if you’re still concerned.

Acer Predator X27 X1 Calibration Settings

My AW2726DM review unit wasn’t quite perfect out of the box in the Standard picture mode. It looked slightly green in tone when viewing grayscale test patterns, so I went for the Custom Color mode and its two-point RGB controls. That got me to reference level. There are no gamma options, but the monitor sticks close to the 2.2 power spec for SDR. Color is very saturated thanks to the Quantum Dot layer. It covers over 111% of DCI-P3. There is no sRGB option, so you’ll be seeing that extra color for all SDR and HDR content. I doubt anyone will consider that a bad thing. When I ran the initial measurements, brightness peaked at around 204 nits, but after calibration, it dropped to 185 nits. There is no variable brightness for SDR. To dial in your AW2726DM, try the settings shown below.

HDR signals get three of their own modes, with no options for adjustment. I found color and luminance to be nearly spot-on, which is a good thing. You can read more about that on page five.

Gaming and Hands-on

The AW2726DM is a 27-inch OLED for $350, so it’s really hard to fault. But in practice, it gives nothing away to more expensive displays. The picture looks gorgeous, even though it doesn’t quite have the measured brightness of others. But it is bright enough once set up. I learned during testing that it peaks around 185 nits after calibration, which was plenty of output for my moderately bright office with one sunny window opposite the test bench. The screen’s anti-glare layer was effective in this situation.

The picture is as stunning as any premium OLED, with deep blacks and lush color. The Quantum Dot tech is used to full effect here, with the AW2726DM covering over 111% of DCI-P3 in my tests. I had to calibrate for the best picture, but it wasn’t difficult to get to reference level.

The gaming experience was no different from other OLEDs either. The 240 Hz rating is a reliable and honest one, with no hiccups or artifacts to spoil the fun. Input lag is extremely low, as you’ll see on the next page. The AW2726DM punches well above its weight class, not only on price but also on speed. It’s just as quick or quicker than monitors with higher refresh rates. While a 500 Hz screen is great, you won’t see much need for it next to this one. I had no trouble mowing through alien monsters with precision and proliferation. My aim was true, and my defensive moves were exactly as planned. There was no motion blur and no breakup of finely detailed textures as I whipped about the virtual environment.

For everyday tasks, I was completely satisfied with the monitor as well, except for the missing sRGB mode. Most tasks are fine with extra colo,r but when working on graphics, it’s nice to at least do a reality check using the correct SDR gamut. Most users won’t have an issue, as the AW2726DM is very colorful in a good way. But it’s always nice to have options. The picture was super sharp and smooth though. 27-inch QHD has an ideal 109ppi pixel density, which is enough to hide the dot structure beyond a two-foot viewing distance.

The only things this screen gives to the competition are a few bells and whistles. It’s not difficult to live without USB ports, internal speakers, or LED lights. And getting a monitor with those extras and the AW2726DM’s performance will cost a lot more money.

Takeaway: The AW2726DM performs on par with premium OLED displays in every area that affects gameplay. It’s quick and smooth with very low input lag, so functionally, it is no different. You won’t have a significantly better experience with a 360 or 500 Hz monitor. It also has equal or better image quality than any Quantum Dot monitor. The only thing it gives up is peak brightness, which is a bit lower than pricier competition. For my needs and desires, though, I would be happy to use this screen every day.

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Many of the latest 27-inch QHD OLED displays run at 240 Hz or more. In fact, the AW2726DM is on the low side of the numbers game when compared to others at 360 or 500 Hz. But that doesn't mean it’s less smooth or has more lag. To compare, I’ve included Gigabyte’s MO27Q28G, Asus’ XG27ACDNG and XG27AQWMG, Samsung’s OLED G6 and AOC’s Q27G4ZD.

Pixel Response and Input Lag

Click here to read up on our pixel response and input lag testing procedures.

I’m still adding new results from Nvidia’s LDAT to my test database, so the first chart includes the OLEDs I’ve reviewed since I started using it. Clearly, refresh rate is not a guarantee of fast response. The Acer sits atop the group at 0.12ms while the AW2726DM matches the 360 Hz Asus at 0.24ms. In practice, this difference cannot be seen by the naked eye. Moving test patterns at 240fps have perfect resolution.

In the lag test, the AW2726DM takes the win with a super quick 13.6ms of total input lag. This is an average of 25 mouse clicks at 240 Hz. Given the test results and my visual observations, I cannot say that a 360 Hz OLED like the XG27ACDNG is any better for gaming. While this is not a universal truth, one should check out tests like these to see a monitor’s actual performance in comparison to its competitors.

Test Takeaway: The AW2726DM offers phenomenal performance for a $350 monitor. That it is an OLED is a bonus. It offers perfect motion resolution at 240fps and has less input lag than almost every monitor I’ve ever reviewed. That includes OLEDs running at 360 Hz and higher.

Viewing Angles

Many QD-OLEDs show a slight color shift when viewed from the side,s but not the AW2726DM. It has identical color and grayscale from all horizontal angles up to 45 degrees. It is very shareable by two users. There’s no change in brightness or gamma either. From the top, you can see a slight red tint and a reduction in gamma, which washes out the image. Brightness remains steady, though.

Screen Uniformity

To learn how we measure screen uniformity, click here.

Screen uniformity remains a sample-specific result, but my AW2726DM certainly excelled in this test. It’s one of the smoothest screens I’ve ever measured. Amazingly though, it isn’t the record holder. That honor belongs to the AOC Q27G4ZD. As a category, OLED offers uniformity that is superior to most LCDs.

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To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please check out Display Testing Explained: How We Test PC Monitors. We cover brightness and contrast testing on page two.

Uncalibrated – Maximum Backlight Level

The AW2726DM has many impressive attributes, but high brightness is not among them. It offers just enough light to do well in a typical indoor setting like an office or media room. It should be kept away from sunny windows, though. Black levels are no different from other OLEDs. They cannot be measured, and neither can contrast. You get the rich and deep OLED picture but not a ton of light output. I noted that variable brightness was not an option for SDR signals. That’s unfortunate because the AW2726DM can top 400 nits (25% window pattern) in HDR mode. The headroom is there, but it isn’t made available for SDR content.

After Calibration to 200 nits

I kept the brightness slider maxed, but calibration cost me a few nits. I wound up at 185, which is still enough for workday tasks and gaming. Stay away from bright light sources, and you’ll be fine. Black levels are still unmeasurable as is static and ANSI (intra-image) contrast. This is typical OLED performance.

Test Takeaway: Aside from a little less brightness than others, the AW2726DM performs like any OLED, regardless of price. It has the black levels and contrast of its competition, just not the peak output. But it has enough light for a satisfying experience and a gorgeous picture. The only thing I’d like to see is a variable brightness option for SDR.

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The AW2726DM includes 11 picture modes with Standard being the default option. You can calibrate grayscale with two-point precision in Custom Color, which is where I ran my tests.

Grayscale and Gamma Tracking

Our grayscale and gamma tests use Calman calibration software from Portrait Displays. We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.

My AW2726DM sample looked a little green out of the box with visible errors at 50% brightness and higher. You can just see the tint in test patterns or in neutral content like hockey games or black and white video. Gamma tracks almost perfectly to the 2.2 reference. That’s a good thing because there are no additional gamma presets.

I only needed to adjust the RGB gains to achieve perfect grayscale tracking. All errors are below 1dE, which is reference level. Gamma got a tad darker because I could only reduce the RGB sliders; they start at their maximums. Picture quality is visibly improved after these adjustments.

Comparisons

OLEDs are generally good out of the box so the AW2726DM’s 4.15dE score is a bit below average. In practice the error isn’t too obvious, but it is visible, so I recommend calibration. Adjusting just the RGB gain sliders made a significant improvement both measurably and visually. It’s impressive that 0.56dE is only good enough for fifth place here. That speaks highly to OLED’s quality and precision as a display technology.

In the gamma test, the AW2726DM maintained a tight 0.17 range of values from highest to lowest. The actual average of 2.25 equates to a 2.27% deviation from 2.2. This is excellent performance.

Color Gamut Accuracy

Our color gamut and volume testing use Portrait Displays’ Calman software. For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.

The AW2726DM has solid out-of-box color accuracy with a 2.5dE result. You can see the bonus color in red and green, which are oversaturated when referenced to DCI-P3. The points are linear in progression, which keeps all hues looking natural and finely detailed. No picture information is clipped.

Calibration makes a slight difference in the chart with secondary colors closer to their hue targets and a bit more saturation in general. This is a good thing. The picture, like all good OLEDs, looks stunning. I noted that the AW2726DM does not include an sRGB mode. You’ll be enjoying its large color gamut for all content, SDR and HDR alike.

Comparisons

Like the grayscale test, OLED displays excel in the accuracy department, and the AW2726DM is no different. Its final score of 1.74dE means there are no visible errors. It is oversaturated but in a good way. No one will say that it is too colorful. In the volume test, it scores slightly above average for Quantum Dot screens with 111.51% coverage of DCI-P3. Anything over 100% is good, which makes the AW2726DM really good. There is no sRGB mode, so that coverage is a whopping 165.33%. You can’t use it for critical work unless P3 is the reference.

Test Takeaway: The AW2726DM is a tremendously colorful monitor with reasonable out-of-box accuracy and excellent results after calibration. I recommend an adjustment for the best picture. It has higher-than-average color volume but no sRGB mode. It’s fine for critical applications, as long as P3 is the goal.

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Our HDR benchmarking uses Portrait Displays’ Calman software. To learn about our HDR testing, see our breakdown of how we test PC monitors.

The AW2726DM supports HDR10 content with an automatic switch and three dedicated picture modes. After seeing obvious ringing (edge enhancement) in Game and Movie, I settled on Display as the best choice. It also happens to be the default. There are no adjustments available in HDR mode.

HDR Brightness and Contrast

The AW2726DM has variable brightness for HDR content, as you can see by its peak value of 404.1313 nits. This is from a 25% window pattern. A full field is around 200 nits. This clearly differentiates HDR content from SDR with bright highlights and more vivid color. The AW2726DM is on par with most of its more expensive competitors, but a few go even higher, like the Asus and Gigabyte screens.

Grayscale, EOTF and Color

There are no adjustments available in HDR mode, but given the above results, none are needed. Grayscale tracking is visually free of errors, with all values below 3dE. The EOTF tracks close to the reference, with slightly dark values below 30% brightness. This error cannot be seen in the content, as all detail is fully rendered. The transition to tone mapping is softer than the reference, but this does not affect the actual material. The transition point is at around 58%, which is correct for the measured black and white levels.

The AW2726DM is more color accurate in HDR mode than most of the displays I test. It is just slightly (rather than extremely) oversaturated. This gives the picture a smoother and more natural look. It is never cartoony or overblown. The monitor uses all its gamut volume in the P3 test and covers a good portion of BT.2020 as well. There, it runs out of color at 90% red, 80% green, and 95% blue.

Test Takeaway: The AW2726DM renders punchy and colorful HDR content. It isn’t quite as bright as some other screens, but it is on par with most of the competition. It is a bit more color-accurate than most, with only slight oversaturation that adds enough verve to distinguish HDR from SDR.

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For years, OLED gaming monitors solely resided in a premium price category. The cost has come down a little, but progress has been slow and incremental. And if you want great game performance, 240 Hz is a minimum. Image enhancers like Quantum Dot color have been cost increasers, too. Until now, you’d need $500-600 in your budget for a 27-inch QHD resolution QD-OLED with 240 Hz and Adaptive-Sync. Alienware decided that you should only have to spend $350 when it unveiled the AW2726DM.

To be fair, this isn’t a fully loaded display. There aren’t extras like sRGB modes, USB ports, LED lighting, or internal speakers. But you do get a fully adjustable stand and solid build quality. The AW2726DM has a three-year burn-in warranty that you are unlikely to ever need. And most importantly, it has the performance to compete with the best gaming OLEDs I’ve reviewed, at any price.

During both tests and gameplay, I noted very low input lag, and panel response quick enough to eliminate motion blur above 200 FPS. Since the AW2726DM is QHD, it isn’t difficult to drive to its 240 Hz maximum. When playing games, I experienced the same feel as I do with displays costing twice as much. At best, you’re looking at around $500 for a comparable screen from another brand. The only thing I truly missed was an sRGB mode. And that is only a workday issue. If you don’t edit graphics for publishing like I do, you won’t care about that. You’ll only notice how colorful it is.

If you have $350 to spend and you’ve been wishing for an OLED monitor, the Alienware AW2726DM is your ship that has just come in. Don’t look for USB ports, internal speakers, or RGB lighting, but do look for premium game performance, because it’s here and you definitely want to check it out.

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Invoice records from China’s State Taxation Administration reveal that Sharetronic Data Technology Co., a Chinese firm that sells and rents AI servers, procured almost 300 servers containing banned Nvidia AI chips, which it sold to a Shenzhen subsidiary to the tune of $92 million. According to Bloomberg, while it isn't clear which specific chips were contained within the servers or where they were sourced from, all options would have been subject to U.S. export controls to China at the time.

Sharetronic sold 276 Super Micro SYS-821GE-TNHR and 32 Dell PowerEdge XE9680 servers to a Shenzhen subsidiary in May and June 2025, the former containing banned Nvidia H100 or H200 chips. The product page for the Super Micro server says that it has “support for Nvidia HGX H100/H200 8-GPU,” while Dell’s tech specs list the Nvidia HGX H100, Nvidia HGX H200, Nvidia HGX H20, AMD Instinct MI300X, and Intel Gaudi 3 as compatible accelerators. As Bloomberg notes, all of these options were subject to U.S. export controls at the time of the date on these invoices.

The U.S. banned the export of these high-performance AI accelerators in 2022 — well before Super Micro and Dell first shipped these AI servers. This makes it unlikely that the invoiced items are old stock bought before the bans, which some companies stockpiled to have enough supply for up to 18 months. Still, Dell denies any wrongdoing, telling the publication that there is “no record of the alleged sales. If we determine that a customer has diverted our products or transferred them to an unauthorized location or customer, we take swift and appropriate action including termination.”

Sharetronic has been in operation for over 20 years, but pivoted towards AI data centers fairly recently. It founded Guangzhou Fcloud Technology Co. in 2024, a joint venture that focuses on building high-performance computing infrastructure in China. The company soon received an Nvidia Cloud Partner designation, which the AI chipmaker says is for “AI cloud providers delivering infrastructure purpose-built for modern AI workloads at production scale.” Sharetronic announced major hardware procurements after Fcloud received this potent title, while also applying for significant bank loans to fund this expansion. It offered AI servers as collateral for some of these applications, submitting redacted versions of these invoices to a credit agency. While most of these documents only described the servers in generic terms, Bloomberg saw two invoices, dated May and June 2025, which listed the specific Super Micro and Dell models.

“The servers the company and its affiliates have purchased are used to provide clients with computing services, and all related assets have come from legal and compliant channels,” Sharetronic also told Bloomberg, and that it has no “business cooperation or relationship” with Super Micro. However, it refused to answer questions about the source of its servers or who bought them, citing client confidentiality. Despite these denials, the company’s share price hit the 20% price drop limit after Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw, alongside two other alleged conspirators, was arrested on smuggling charges.

"FCloud will need the required licenses and approvals from both of the respective governments before it acquires any H200 servers," an Nvidia spokesperson told Tom's Hardware. "Customers are under express instructions not to provide any controlled servers, support, or service without approval from the U.S. government. Our strict diligence process led to prosecutions of would-be smugglers, and we continue to work with the government to enforce the rules. Building the world's accelerated computing infrastructure is a massive opportunity for U.S. industry, but we can only participate in markets where allowed. The respective governments will decide who supplies billions of dollars of servers to the world's businesses and consumers."

This is not definitive proof that Sharetronic broke U.S. export restrictions, but all these suggest that the company was somehow able to acquire banned equipment despite Washington's limitations. There have also been other instances of public documents revealing the illegal acquisition of sanctioned Nvidia AI chips, which raises several questions about AI chip smuggling. All this has led to a bipartisan group of U.S. senators calling for the halt of the issuance of Nvidia GPU export licenses, especially after the arrest of the Super Micro co-founder.

The Dell XPS 14, which features an LCD panel with a variable refresh rate (VRR) of 1Hz to 120Hz, is designed to increase laptop battery life endurance. According to tests conducted by Hardware Canucks, the Dell laptop achieved 43 hours and 3 minutes running completely on battery while doing just light Chrome Web Browsing. By comparison, the 15-inch M5 MacBook Air achieved 14 hours and 30 minutes on the same test — a massive difference of 28 hours and 33 minutes.

The XPS also outlasted the MacBook Air in 4K YouTube playback, with the Windows laptop achieving 20 hours and 21 minutes before running on empty, versus the MacBook’s 14 hours and 2 minutes. The only time Apple outshone Dell was in gaming, where the MacBook Air lasted for 4 hours and 10 minutes (versus the XPS’s 2 hours and 38 minutes).

To ensure that the settings between the two laptops were comparable, both devices were set at 150 nits brightness with HDR off. While it does help that the XPS has a slightly larger 70Wh battery compared to the MacBook Air’s 66.5Wh, that still does not explain the massive difference in endurance between the two laptops.

It’s apparent that the LG display found on the XPS 14 drives the power savings, which allowed the Dell laptop to shift down to a 1 Hz refresh rate when a higher rate is unneeded.

We’ve seen impressive results ourselves in our review of the Dell XPS 14 (2026). While we did not achieve the nearly two-day battery life, we were still able to hit 20 hours and 41 minutes in our test. This is the best result we’ve seen in an x86 laptop and beats the M5 MacBook Pro’s 18 hours and 14 minutes endurance. Our tests are a bit different, though, as we combined web browsing, video streaming, and OpenGL tests for our battery run with the screen set at 150 nits of brightness. This is quite a bit more intense than the light web browsing tests conducted by Hardware Canucks.

The only downside to the Dell XPS 14 (2026), which had the amazing battery life, was that it had an LCD panel. While it does give you excellent battery endurance and a higher maximum brightness, it compromises on resolution and color accuracy. The OLED XPS 14 offers 2880 x 1800 pixels and 89.7% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and 126.6% of the sRGB gamut. By comparison, the LCD model only had a 1920 x 1200 resolution, while its DCI-P3 coverage only sat at 71.4%. Still, that does not mean that you’ll have to pick between battery life and color accuracy in the future, as LG said that it plans to launch an OLED version of this VRR display by 2027.

Though the bulk of my reviews are of the best gaming monitors, I like to highlight innovation and advancement whenever possible. Gamers get ever-faster, smoother video processing with new tech like G-Sync Pulsar, but what motivates professionals to plunk down thousands of dollars on a new screen? A trend I’ve observed is the inclusion of a built-in calibrator with fully automated adjustment. I’ve seen these in Asus’ ProArt models, most recently the PA32KCX reviewed here.

That monitor costs over $8,000, but if you want the same level of convenience and are OK with 4K resolution instead of 8K, Dell offers its UltraSharp U3226Q. It’s a 32-inch QD-OLED panel with 4K resolution, 120 Hz, Adaptive-Sync, HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision, DisplayHDR True Black 500, industry-standard color modes, and a built-in calibrator. And it can be yours for around $2,600 at the time of this writing. Let’s take a look.

Dell UltraSharp U3226Q Specs

That’s a lot of money for a computer monitor, but in the pro realm, the U3226Q is a relative bargain. It gives nothing away to more expensive screens being every bit the equal of any premium mastering monitor I’ve tested. At the core, it’s a QD-OLED panel with 140ppi density, wide gamut color, and 120 Hz. It also includes support for every HDR standard, HDR10, Hybrid Log Gamma, and Dolby Vision. OK, there’s no HDR10+. It can emulate any of these with SDR content, which is important to video postproduction when mastering to multiple formats at once.

The color modes conform to industry standards and cover every TV and video spec currently in existence. You get sRGB, Adobe RGB, BT.709, BT.2020, P3 in Cinema and Display formats, and there are six user memories where you can create your own configurations.

The built-in color meter emerges from a little garage at the bottom of the screen when you engage in either auto calibration or validation. You can schedule the activity for after hours and set an interval where the U3226Q adjusts itself, hands off. If you prefer your own solution, the monitor interfaces with Calman’s Autocal function, where you can use any meter and pattern source you wish. You can also create picture modes with traditional OSD controls for gamut, color temp, and gamma.

Pro monitors are rarely good for gaming, but the U3226Q is an exception. It runs up to 120 Hz, which isn’t blindingly fast, but since it’s an OLED, blur is minimal. And you get Adaptive-Sync, which few mastering monitors offer. That makes it ideal for all types of content creation, from videos and TV shows to premium rendered games. And here’s a teaser: you’ll be surprised at its input lag and response results from my tests with Nvidia’s LDAT sensor.

The U3226Q is a super-flexible display, too. It ships with a quality rigid light hood that snaps on. It has plenty of inputs, including DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, and Thunderbolt. The latter includes an output for daisy chaining. And there are plenty of USB ports (Type A and C), along with KVM functionality. Video production tools include screen markers for composition, framing, and multiple aspect ratios.

Assembly and Accessories

Dell has gone fully over to recyclable packaging, and the U3226Q arrived snuggled securely in molded pulp. The stand is a quality piece that goes together with a captive bolt. The panel then snaps on. The light hood is a single piece and attaches magnetically. If you’d rather use an arm, there’s a 100mm VESA mount in the back with fasteners provided. Cables include HDMI, DisplayPort, two USBs ,and IEC for the internal power supply.

Product 360

The U3226Q is simply styled with a firm nod towards function. Surfaces are near matte with smooth tapers and slightly rounded corners. There isn’t a straight line in sight past the screen’s front, which isn’t shiny like most OLEDs. It has an aggressive light-rejection layer, keeping the picture at maximum contrast, even without the light hood. Snap it on and you have even better quality in rooms with some ambient light. It’s a one-piece folding design and attaches magnetically in about three seconds. It’s the least fiddly hood I’ve seen yet and should be a model for others to emulate, kudos.

Also in front is a cool pop-out port block with USB ports, two Cs and an A. This is super convenient and if you don’t need them, just push the block up and it disappears. Above it, on the bezel, are three touch-sensitive buttons that light up when your hand gets close. I enjoyed waving at the screen like Harry Potter to make them appear. They’re programmable with small function icons that show on the screen. Just keep tapping them to scroll through available options like color mode, HDR or input selection which are the defaults.

The stand is very solid and capable of supporting far more weight than the U3226Q’s 20 pounds. It has full ergonomics with 5/31 degrees tilt, 30 degrees swivel and a 5.9-inch height range. It also rotates 90 degrees for portrait mode with auto rotate for the OSD.

The inputs are many and include just about everything except a headphone jack. There are no internal speakers either. For video, you get one DisplayPort 1.4, two HDMI 2.1 and Thunderbolt in/out. The output is for daisy chaining, where you connect multiple monitors to a single video card output. The USB hub has three type As and a type C. And there’s an Ethernet port, RJ-45, for remote admin.

OSD Features

The U3226Q’s OSD is huge with more calibration options than I could have imagined. But don’t be fooled, adjusting this monitor is about as easy as it gets. Bear with me as I go through the 14 photos below, there’s a lot to see.

The OSD starts with seven fixed color modes that conform to industry standards for TV and video production. You get both kinds of P3, Cinema and Display, along with sRGB, Adobe RGB, BT.709 and BT.2020. Adobe includes D65 and D50 color temps as well. If you click one more time to the right, it shows the gamut, color temp, gamma and luminance for each preset. You can change the peak brightness if you wish, but it will reset to the default value every time you switch back to that mode.

For custom setups, there are six memories that can be any combination of settings you wish. You can go to the user modes and simply adjust the gamma, color temp and gamut to your preference. Or use the Cal modes with the built-in meter to calibrate automatically. You can even use a 3D LUT if you want. I’ll talk more about the calibration process later.

When working with content for both SDR and HDR, you can use HDR Preview and its seven options to simulate the PQ curve without switching the U3226Q to HDR mode. When working directly in HDR mode, there are three HDR10 modes plus the same six memories. Dolby Vision also has Dark and Bright modes. All of these can be calibrated. Each mode includes a succinct table of information, so you know exactly what its parameters are.

Input sources are many and you can control the behavior of the Thunderbolt ports. When auto select is on, it will prompt the user to switch when a new signal becomes active. In the Display menu, you’ll find all the masking and marking options one might want in a mastering display. There are content frames, aspect ratio markers, a zoom function and overscan. The markers can be any color to best contrast with the content you’re working on.

This menu has an option called OLED Brightness Compensation, which is variable brightness, but for HDR only. In SDR mode, the U3226Q is constant brightness only. There are also OLED care options like pixel refresh and dimming. Full PIP and PBP functions are available with multiple window sizes and positions for viewing two video sources at once. KVM gets its own menu called USB, where you can bind video and USB ports together for multiple system control by a single set of peripherals.

Calibration and Validation use the integrated color meter to both adjust and verify any picture mode either existing or created by the user. There are options for warm up time, and speed, express or comprehensive. Express takes just a few minutes to complete. It’s a simple matter to set a target and go. The U3226Q takes care of business completely hands-off. The Scheduler lets you set calibration times and intervals, as well as running the pixel refresh at a period of your choosing.

When you click any joystick direction, a quick menu appears with five icons. These are all programmable for easy access to things like modes, calibration, signal info and the like. You can also customize the three touch-sensitive buttons on the bezel’s left front.

I noticed there was no signal or mode info in the main OSD screens, but when you find the Info option, it displays a huge table of data. You can see exactly what’s going into the U3226Q and what’s coming out. It also has USB info with bandwidth. The calibrator gets its own section too and if you need the Dell Service Tag, it’s at the bottom.

Dell U3226Q Setup And Hands-on

The U3226Q doesn’t need much setup out of the box. All modes are verified at the factory to be 1dE or lower for color, and I confirmed this in testing. But the integrated calibrator is easily the coolest version of this feature I’ve seen yet. It flips up and out of a little garage at the center of the bezel while a ring appears in the screen’s center that scrolls down to meet the meter. This becomes the test patch zone while the rest of the screen goes black.

In the User modes, I could simply select a color temp, gamma, gamut and luminance level and save it. In the Cal modes, you specify the parameters, then activate the calibration. In Express mode, it takes about six minutes. Comprehensive takes around 30 minutes, and that’s where to go if you want to use a 3D LUT for greater precision across the entire color space. When finished, a multipage report appears showing the results, where the monitor was, and where it is now.

For me, I was happy with the Native mode, which uses the entire gamut, 108% of DCI-P3 with D65 color temp and 2.2 gamma, at 200 nits. I also set up a Display P3 mode and a BT.2020 HDR mode using the User and Cal memories. All of this took very little time. The U3226Q is extremely convenient and intuitive in practice. And it’s equally functional for seasoned pros and novices alike.

I said earlier that the U3226Q had more gaming potential than other pro monitors I’ve reviewed. With Adaptive-Sync and 120 Hz, it should be OK for casual fragging. My experience was definitely better than what I’ve seen from the average 60 Hz screen. There was some blur during fast-paced battles, but not enough to distract my aim. Input lag was extremely low though, which I was not expecting. Turn-and-shoot and circle strafe were as easy to accomplish as when I’m playing on a 240 Hz or faster display. The U3226Q delivers a solid gaming feel and unless you’re a skilled player, you won’t notice the motion blur. That said, a ULMB feature would be welcome.

I played both SDR and HDR games and enjoyed the extra impact and color available from the latter format. The U3226Q’s Quantum Dot layer delivers over 108% coverage of DCI-P3 so it’s among the most colorful monitors in any category. Its fine accuracy showed up as well with natural hues that look correct to the eye, even though the virtual worlds are totally alien. It adds to the suspension of disbelief.

Obviously, the U3226Q is total overkill for the average office cubicle where you’re running Microsoft Office and checking email. But its clarity, vivid color and deep contrast make editing documents a pleasure. I’ve never met an OLED I didn’t like for all tasks be they graphical or textual.

Takeaway: The U3226Q is designed for use in a professional setting where color must always be precise, and it’s priced accordingly. But it’s compelling as a workday and entertainment monitor too. It games better than any other pro monitor I’ve used, and it delivers a stunning OLED image. Users with big budgets might be drawn to it even if they don’t need the auto calibration function. And that is head and shoulders above any other solution I’ve tried. This is a supremely flexible and capable display.

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Normally, I would prepare you for the fact that pro monitors aren’t great for gaming, then talk about low refresh rates, lack of Adaptive-Sync and motion blur. The U3226Q is a happy exception to all these negatives. OK, it’s 120 Hz, so there’s a little blur. But it’s an OLED, so there isn’t that much. And you get Adaptive-Sync. Check it out.

Pixel Response and Input Lag

Click here to read up on our pixel response and input lag testing procedures.

· Response Time Full black to white transition – 0.12ms

· Absolute Input Lag Full black to white transition – 16.6ms

The response time is extremely impressive because I’ve measured faster-refresh OLEDs with slower response, and higher input lag. 0.12ms is quicker than the Asus PG34WCDM I just reviewed which took 0.24ms to draw that one-inch square. Don’t get me wrong, this is a minute difference that cannot be seen by the naked eye. But it is there, nonetheless.

The lag score is also impressive at 16.6ms averaged over 25 mouse clicks by the Nvidia LDAT sensor. This is on par with many 4K 240 Hz screens. Though the U3226Q shows a tad more motion blur due to its 120 Hz refresh rate, it is just as responsive to control inputs as many speedy OLEDs.

Test Takeaway: The U3226Q is about the only professional monitor I would recommend for gaming. Though it has a bit more blur than faster screens, it isn’t a huge distraction in practice. And its low input lag means plenty of addictive fun in 3D shooters and lushly illustrated adventures alike.

Viewing Angles

The U3226Q has decent off-axis viewing angles but its Quantum Dots coupled with an aggressive anti-glare layer add a slight green tint to the 45-degree horizontal photo. There is no change in gamma or brightness so that’s a good thing. The top view goes a bit red with lighter gamma and a slight brightness reduction.

Screen Uniformity

To learn how we measure screen uniformity, click here.

· Screen Uniformity Deviation From Center 0% Black Field – 4.34%

The U3226Q has excellent screen uniformity in the manner of nearly all the OLEDs I’ve reviewed. It’s about average for the category at 4.34% deviation from center. There is no uniformity compensation included like some pro monitors, but it is clearly not needed. I’ve observed that after a few runs of the pixel refresh routine, this number drops by about 20% on average across all OLED displays.

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To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please check out Display Testing Explained: How We Test PC Monitors. We cover brightness and contrast testing on page two.

Maximum Backlight Level

· Maximum White Luminance Native Mode – 290.1133 nits

· Maximum Black Luminance Native Mode – 0 nits

· Maximum Contrast Ratio Native Mode – Unmeasurable

· ANSI Contrast – Unmeasurable

The U3226Q has a brightness slider marked in nits. However, it is a bit off the mark. My sample wouldn’t quite reach 300 nits, and the control is about 10 nits off across its range. There is no variable brightness available in SDR mode, so window and field patterns measured the same. Not to worry, HDR includes a toggle for constant or variable brightness so you can get up to the advertised 500-nit peak. More on that on page five. No configuration allowed me to measure black levels as the OLED layer was shut off. That means static and ANSI contrast can’t be measured either.

Test Takeaway: The U3226Q isn’t super bright for SDR content but it doesn’t need to be given that it will be used primarily in a light-controlled environment. The brightness slider is precise though with one-nit clicks but it’s off from the actual value by around 10 nits. Like any OLED, its black levels and contrast are unmatched by any LCD panel variant.

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To test the U3226Q’s color, I measured each fixed color mode with its default parameters without calibrating first. The charts below represent out-of-the-box results. There are seven modes represented here that include every major spec currently in use.

Here are the default parameters for each mode.

Grayscale and Gamma Tracking

Our grayscale and gamma tests use Calman calibration software from Portrait Displays. We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.

The grayscale and gamma charts are so consistent across the modes that I only need one set of comments to sum them up. Grayscale averages around 1.30dE for all modes. Gamma is also identical in its tracking with adherence to the reference line, except for 90% brightness, which runs a tad light in tone.

Color Gamut Accuracy

Our color gamut and volume testing use Portrait Displays’ Calman software. For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.

The color results are even more impressive with all modes around 1dE average error. It doesn’t really get better than that. BT.2020 is a little higher because the U3226Q is a P3+ display. You won’t find a true 2020 monitor for less than $10,000 and this one is a quarter of that. My only comment is that the 2020 points are all undersaturated rather than just the 100% ones. This keeps the progression linear, which is ultimately better for overall image quality. But it would be nice to include an option for adherence to as many targets as possible. I also noted that Adobe RGB came up a little short in the green primary. True Adobe RGB monitors are also a rare and expensive proposition. However, the U3226Q gets very close to the mark.

Grayscale, Gamma, and Color Gamut Test Summary

Here is a table with all the results in one place. The U3226Q is one of the most accurate pro monitors I’ve tested at its default settings.

Test Takeaway: The U3226Q equals the best professional monitors I’ve reviewed in overall accuracy and bests many of them with its out-of-box results. Verification and adjustment of any mode is a quick and hands-off affair thanks to the built-in meter, so you can always be sure you’re on point. It also covers every possible industry standard and makes it easy to create your own setups with its six settings memories. It sets a new standard for flexibility and convenience.

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Our HDR benchmarking uses Portrait Displays’ Calman software. To learn about our HDR testing, see our breakdown of how we test PC monitors.

The U3226Q supports every current HDR standard in use except for HDR10+. HDR10 gets three fixed modes plus six additional user/cal memories. There’s a slot for Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) and Dolby Vision gets Dark and Bright options.

HDR Brightness and Contrast

· HDR White Luminance – 535.2847 nits

· HDR Black Level – 0 nit

· HDR Sequential Contrast – Unmeasurable

The U3226Q isn’t super bright, but it easily earns its DisplayHDR 500 certification with 535 nits measured from a 25% window pattern. Dell claims 1,000 nits for a 1.5% window, and there is no reason to doubt this. Black levels and contrast could not be measured.

Grayscale, EOTF and Color

Like the SDR tests, I simply measured the default HDR10 mode to verify its accuracy. Grayscale tracking keeps all its errors below 3dE so there is no visible issue anywhere in the brightness range. The EOTF is slightly dark below 40% and a tad light above that until the tone-map transition at 65%. This is the correct level for the measured black and white thresholds.

In the color tests, you can see slight oversaturation across the board with the points progressing in a linear fashion. This means all fine elements are clearly rendered in all areas of the image. This gives HDR a bit more impact. In the BT.2020 test, the U3226Q runs out of color at 90% red, 75% green and 95% blue. This is typical performance compared to other pro screens and to the entire HDR monitor category.

Test Takeaway: The U3226Q is a reference HDR monitor with the ability to master any content except HDR10+. It’s also just as easy to calibrate the HDR modes as the SDR ones, which is something I haven’t seen before. It isn’t super bright, but it is bright enough to master content to 1,000 nits and more than bright enough for use in light-controlled environments.

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Once upon a time, professional monitors were the most accurate displays you could buy and less expensive genres like gaming would require a good deal of tweaking to even get close. Today, most monitors I review are qualified for professional use, some in their default states. They deliver correct color, grayscale and gamma and some offer multiple color modes.

The newest pro screens trend towards innovation and convenience so they can stand out from the rank and file. When you spend $2,600 for a 32-inch 4K OLED, you expect the latest tech and maximum flexibility and capability. The Dell UltraSharp U3226Q delivers all those things.

4K resolution is a given. No content creator would want less. Quantum Dot color brings over 100% coverage of DCI-P3, almost 109% in the U3226Q’s case. Out-of-the-box accuracy is a must. Dell delivers that with seven factory-calibrated modes plus six more user memories. It is the most accurate out-of-the-box professional screen I’ve reviewed.

Where it truly stands out is its flexibility. The built-in calibrator isn’t the first of its kind I’ve seen, but it is the easiest to use. Just pick an existing mode, or create your own, and say “go.” I set up multiple picture modes and verified the existing ones in a very short time.

It also supports every color and HDR standard currently in use except for HDR10+. Dolby Vision is still a rarity, but it’s here in Bright and Dark modes. And you get Hybrid Log Gamma too, another one that’s rare on the PC desktop.

I can’t wrap up without lauding the U3226Q’s gaming prowess. Not only does it offer 120 Hz, but it also has flawless Adaptive-Sync and input lag on par with the best speedy screens. The 16.6ms I recorded is equal to a good 240 Hz QHD display.

While clearly aimed at creatives, the Dell UltraSharp U3226Q would make any user happy. It’s beautiful to look at, and there is little it cannot do. It is equally comfortable as a professional tool or as a luxury monitor for a high-end PC. If you have the means, definitely check it out.

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IDC on Thursday sharply slashed its expectations for the PC and tablet markets, citing memory shortages, rising prices for 3D NAND, DRAM, and other components, and intensifying supply chain disruptions amid the AI sector boom. While unit shipments are expected to decline significantly year-over-year, higher average selling prices (ASPs) are projected to push total market value slightly upward.

The firm now expects global PC shipments to drop 11.3% in 2026 compared to 2025, a steep revision from the -2.4% decline projected in November 2025 and -8.9% in January 2026. In absolute numbers, this means PC sales will decline by 32.17 million units, from 284.7 million in 2025 to 252.53 million in 2026. To put the 32.17 million PC number into context: Apple shipped 25.6 million computers last year compared to 41.1 million systems for Dell.

Tablet volumes are also set to contract, and IDC forecasts shipments to fall 7.6% this year. Last year, vendors shipped 151.9 million tablets (up 5% compared to the previous year), with Apple leading the pack by a significant margin. If the new IDC forecast holds, then this year the market will decline by 11.54 million to 140.36 million systems. To put the number in context, Apple sold 17.1 million iPads in Q4 2025, while Samsung sold just 6.4 million units.

Even though unit shipments of PCs and tablets will decline, IDC expects market revenue to increase due to rising device prices. The firm estimates that the PC market will expand by 1.6% in value to $274 billion in 2026, while the tablet segment will grow by 3.9% to $66.8 billion.

"The era of bargain-priced PCs and tablets is behind us for now, as rising ASPs and component costs shift the market’s balance of power," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "Memory shortages will persist well into 2027. While we anticipate some easing of prices beginning in 2028, the market is unlikely to return to the pricing levels seen in 2025. Instead, we expect a new normal defined by structurally higher ASPs and a corresponding softening in long-term demand."

IDC noted that, at the time it compiled its forecast, the conflict in the Middle East had not yet escalated to its current level, adding another source of risk for global technology supply chains and economic development. Therefore, the analysts may revise their forecast downwards.

"The overall tech industry, as well as many others, continues to face uncontrollable headwinds that, when compounded, result in massive disruption," said Ryan Reith, group vice president, Devices and Consumer. "The lists of industry and geopolitical events that continue to grow is making decision‑making — and even survival in some sectors — nearly impossible. What has turned all of this from a million‑dollar question into a trillion‑dollar question is the complete uncertainty around when these pressures will subside."

It seems that even an OEM as large as Dell isn't safe from the incendiary woes of the 16-pin connector, as it's taking extra measures to ensure safety. In a Japanese review of the company's "EBT2250" prebuilt by Chimorogu, the teardown reveals a rather interesting approach to supplying power to the GPU inside. The connector is permanently bolted on so it doesn't move even a bit.

As the picture above shows, Dell uses genuine Amphenol metal fittings to make sure the 12V-2x6 connector is completely fixed in place, unable to accidentally come loose. Amphenol is one of the world's biggest manufacturers of interconnect products. The cable actually plugging into this female connector isn't even a native 16-pin one; rather, it's an adapter that terminates in 2x standard 8-pin PCIe plugs.

For years at this point, we've seen how the 12VHPWR and now the 12V-2x6 connectors are prone to overheating. Countless stories of meltdowns and even the GPU catching on fire are on record, and that's just the documented cases. Different companies have tried different solutions, including active monitoring tools or even building protection right into the power supply. Everything is an effort to fix an issue that simply shouldn't exist.

It's clear that if even Dell has to make sure there's not an ounce of leeway in the 16-pin connection, it's perhaps too fragile or reactive or a connector to begin with. If any of the pins inside stop making proper contact, the other pins become overloaded and start overheating. In a prebuilt that's otherwise completely shut off and has no see-through panels, this is even more of a fire hazard.

The power supply fueling this card is a proprietary unit made by LITEON, a manufacturer in Taiwan. It's a 1000W 80+ Platinum unit with standard connectors, so there's plenty of room for future upgrades. It's likely not a native ATX 3.0/3.1 power supply since it's lacking the 16-pin connectors, forcing Dell to bolt on that adapter. Speaking of which, the GPU is also a Dell-branded version of the RTX 5070 Ti, but its performance is not hindered by its OEM nature.

You can check out the original review if you're interested in the system itself — it's actually a great deal — but the main takeaway was the metal fitting on the 12V-2x6 connector. The funny thing is that the 5070 Ti doesn't even have a large enough power appetite to really require that connector, but you can't really be too cautious. Hence, Dell has also set the GPU on a sag bracket to support its weight. The prebuilt is otherwise fitted with a Core Ultra 275K and 32 GB of DDR5-5600 RAM.

In a respite from the ever-increasing cost of PC hardware and accessories, Dell has released a brand new gaming monitor for less than $130. At this price point, outside of a sale, you can typically expect low refresh rates and aging hardware. This Dell SE2726HG monitor bucks the trend – it’s a 27-inch monitor with an ultra-fast 240Hz refresh rate, and all for an introductory sale price of just $129.99 right now.

• Check out Dell's new gaming monitor here

This is a 1080p monitor, so you’re capped at a resolution of just 1,920 x 1,080 using the SE2726HG. As we’ve consistently seen from the data collected by the Steam hardware survey, that resolution continues to be used by the majority of gamers today – there’s a market for cheaper 1080p displays, even in the era of big 4K OLEDs.

Which leads us to this Dell 27-inch SE2726HG monitor. The stand-out feature on this display is the 240Hz refresh rate, which is rarely seen at this price, and leaves plenty of room to keep up with your GPU’s output in any fast-paced games you might play. It ships with a 27-inch IPS panel, a good all-round choice on LCD monitors these days, as it typically offers the best viewing angles.

Other features on this display include two HDMI 2.1 ports, along with a single DisplayPort 1.4 connection. That leaves flexibility to connect this monitor up to your PC, laptop, and handheld at the same time. The display uses a tilt-capable mount, so you do have flexibility to adjust its position, but if you want a height-adjustable stand included, you can with the otherwise-identical Dell SE2726HGS, albeit at the higher price of $169.99.

The budget-friendly SE2726HG, meanwhile, has a max brightness of 300 nits. It also has a standard response time of 5 ms, but this can (reportedly) be reduced to just 0.5ms by switching to the display’s ‘extreme’ mode in the settings. AMD FreeSync Premium support is included, too, to eliminate screen tearing completely, which is a nice feature on a budget-focused monitor. Nvidia G-Sync support isn’t mentioned, but you’ll often find the two work interchangeably when one or the other is supported on a display, although we can’t confirm that here.

Priced at just $129.99, this 27-inch Dell SE2726HGS gaming monitor is a strong entry into the market, with a very affordable price that puts it in a strong position against its competitors. This monitor would be a good option for a budget gaming PC build, especially if you’re not looking to reach 1440p or 4K visuals, or as a second (or third) monitor to complement your main display.

The Dell XPS 14 is back, and it was badly in need of reinvention. Following a poorly executed name change and some design choices that were made in the name of looks over functionality, the new system is a vast improvement. Starting at $1,599.99, the new Dell XPS 14 (DA14260) is lighter, smaller, and more functional than it has been in years, with a physical function row and tactile bars marking where the touchpad is. You get strong performance from Intel's new Core Ultra Series 3 processors, incredible battery life on the 1920 x 1200p model — arguably enough already to consider it as one of the best ultrabooks — with a screen boasting a variable refresh rate that goes down as low as 1 Hz.

The shallow keyboard remains divisive, but updates to the speakers and an option for a tandem OLED help make the XPS feel fresh.

Design of the Dell XPS 14 (2026)

What a difference a few small changes can make. The Dell XPS 14 is a lovely little machine that, like the Dell XPS 13 Plus and Dell 14 Premium before it, is clearly made in the image of the MacBook Air.

But while it's taken a few years, Dell has finally listened to some of the most glaring criticisms of its previous designs and improved upon most of them. First and foremost, a year after ditching the XPS brand name, Dell has brought it back and slapped it right on the lid. There's no Dell logo on the otherwise spartan aluminum top — it's all XPS. I appreciate the commitment (Dell's logo can be found on the bottom of the system, for those who care to look).

Our system came in graphite gray. As of this writing, Dell doesn't have a lighter "platinum" version available, though Dell tells me a lighter option, "shimmer," is on the way, which should resemble a champagne shade. When you lift the lid, the XPS 14 is slightly less austere than previous models. While the display still has a minimal InfinityEdge bezel, it doesn't have the same wow factor as it did even a few years ago. Many of Dell's competitors have thinned down their bezels to match.

What is impressive is what Dell brought back and what it added: a function row and subtle barriers on either side of the touchpad. Maybe this looks less like a futuristic device, but it sure looks like a more usable one. The touchpad's barriers are subtle lines that indicate where the haptic touchpad stops. Those light lines are enough to give me more reassurance when using the device, and I never even had a real problem before.

Along the edges of the wrist rest, there is a noticeable edge. It's not sharp, but you'll notice it if you carry your laptop open by the wrist rest (which, yes, people do). However, this also seems to be a major part of how the keyboard is held in, because the deck comes out for upgrades and repairs (see upgradeability, below).

The sides of the laptop have minimal, but just enough, ports. The left features two Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C ports), while the right features a third Thunderbolt port and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Dell claims that each of the USB Type-C ports can also be used as Kensington lock slots, but I didn't have a lock to test with (I left those behind in the first Obama administration), and neither did our parent company's IT department.

The XPS 14 now starts at just 3 pounds and measures 12.19 x 8.26 x 0.58 inches. The MacBook Pro with M5 is 3.4 pounds and 212.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 inches. Another Core Ultra Series 3 laptop we tested, the Asus Zenbook Duo, is 12.21 x 8.21 x 0.92 inches and weighs 3.64 pounds with the keyboard (it’s heavier because it has two screens).

Dell XPS 14 (2026) Specifications

Productivity Performance on the Dell XPS 14

We tested the XPS 14 in two configurations, providing for two very different sets of benchmark numbers. The high-end model with an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H handily beat out the Intel Core Ultra 7 355. Despite both being "7" models, the X7 has twice as many cores. We also compared them to the Asus Zenbook Duo with the Core Ultra X9 388H and a MacBook Pro with Apple's M5 processor.

On Geekbench 6, the XPS 14 with Ultra X7 388H achieved a single-core score of 2,867 and a multi-core score of 16,927. That handily beat out the XPS 14 with an Ultra 7 355, at 2,685 and 7,964 (again, that chip has far fewer cores). The Zenbook Duo's Ultra X9 388H beat the XPS 14 laptops, but it was the MacBook Pro with M5 that came out on top (4,288 / 17,926).

The only area where the cheaper Dell came out ahead of the more expensive one was on our file transfer test. Keep in mind they're using different drives; the XPS 14 with Ultra X7 388H has a 1TB Samsung drive, while the XPS 14 with Ultra 7 355 has a 512GB SSD from Sandisk. The 1TB drive copied 25GB of files at a rate of 1,419.76 MBps, while the 512GB drive completed the same task at 1,730.36 MBps.

Video transcoding with Handbrake brought the Ultra X7 chip back to victory, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in 4 minutes and 30 seconds, while the Ultra 7 version took 6:45.

On our Cinebench 2026 stress test, it was unsurprising to see the 16-core Ultra X7 388H model deliver far higher scores than the 8-core Ultra 7. It seems to have taken a bit of time for the XPS 14's fans to catch up and deliver peak performance on the higher-level chip, however.

The Ultra X7 388H's P-cores ran at an average of 2.12 GHz, with the E-cores at 2.23 GHz, and the low-power E-cores at 1.93 GHz. For the Ultra 7 355, those speeds were 2.77 GHz for the P-cores and 2.81 GHz on the low-power E-cores.

Graphics on the Dell XPS 14 (2026)

With two different processors to test in the XPS 14, we're getting our first direct look at comparing Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 processors with 12 Xe cores (Intel Arc B390) to just 4 Xe cores (Intel Graphics). Take a guess which one won.

On 3DMark Steel Nomad, the X7 388H earned a score of 1,446, with the Ultra 7 355 reaching just 532 points. The X9 in the Zenbook Duo hit 1,483 points.

Some will be disappointed that Dell no longer offers an option with a discrete GPU from Nvidia. Personally, I'm fine with Dell keeping the XPS thin, with the powerful Arc B390 as an option.

Display on the Dell XPS 14 (2026)

We tested two different display options on the Dell XPS 14. The first was the company's new tandem OLED touchscreen with a 2880 x 1800 resolution; the other was a less colorful 1920 x 1200 non-touch option that can drop down to a 1 Hz refresh rate.

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the OLED screen is more impressive. It has more vivid colors and deeper, darker blacks. The 1200p screen is fine for spreadsheets, but as soon as I turned to watch some videos, I couldn't tear myself away from the OLED version. When I watched a trailer for The Odyssey, the sky behind Odysseus' ships didn't have the same red and orange hue on the LCD screen, and the water wasn't as dark in the foreground. Having seen them together, the LCD version just didn't look great, and that's without any regard to resolution.

While the LCD model measured brighter than the OLED model (466 nits compared to 365 nits), it mostly seemed washed out. The MacBook Pro's mini LED screen was the brightest of the bunch at 558 nits, while the Zenbook Duo's OLED screen was tested at 456 nits.

Dell's tandem OLED panel put up the best color gamut coverage numbers of the group, reaching 89.7% of the DCI-P3 space by volume and 126.6% of the sRGB gamut. The 1200p LCD screen was on the bottom, at 71.4% DCI-P3/100.8% sRGB, making it better for emails and spreadsheets than watching videos or editing photos.

Depending on how you use the device, the 1200p screen's 1 Hz refresh rate could be a boon to battery life, as it won't refresh as often when static text or images are on the screen.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Dell XPS 14

Huzzah! Dell has brought back the function row! The touch-based function keys on previous models might have looked cool, but they were functional nightmares. Once again, I can change the volume, adjust brightness, and use the home and end keys without looking — or at least know it will press the first time.

The company has still kept its lattice-free design, so there isn't any space between the keys. It's not my preferred design — I like a bit of room to help me differentiate between the keys. This also forces Dell to go with crowded arrow keys.

The lack of spacing has had an effect on my typing before, and it did with this keyboard, too. I pride myself on my touch typing, but the XPS 14 dampened it. At my fastest, I hit 105 words per minute on the monkeytype.com typing test, (I got as low as the low 90's), and my accuracy rate dropped to 95% from my usual 98-ish percent. I could feel myself missing keys.Dell is claiming just 0.8 mm of key travel, so there's not as much feedback as I’d like. It has a nice, bouncy feel, but there's not enough feedback.

The haptic touchpad, on the other hand, feels improved over prior models. It's responsive, and the addition of borders to the sides meant I never had to guess whether or not I was still in the trackpad zone. Those little raised lines in the glass deck don't take away from an otherwise clean look.

I did end up going into Windows 11's touchpad settings to increase the click intensity to match my preferences, but that's a pretty easy change.

Audio on the Dell XPS 14 (2026)

The new XPS 14 boasts a 10-watt quad speaker system, comprised of two 3W main speakers and two 2W tweeters. Dell calls this a "hidden" system because you can't see any speaker grilles. The tweeters fire out the top, and the main speakers fire out of the bottom.I was pleasantly surprised by how loud and clear these speakers were. They easily filled my apartment with Noah Kahan's "The Great Divide," with clear vocals and guitars and some crisp drum snaps in the background. There's very little low-end, though, which isn't shocking in a system of this size.

Upgradeability on the Dell XPS 14 (2026)

The good news is that despite the thin, light design, you can still open the Dell XPS 14 for select repairs and upgrades. The bad news is that it's kind of a pain, and Dell's new approach is likely partially responsible for the laptop's shallow key travel.Dell's new procedure is somewhat similar to the procedure on a Framework Laptop 13, just far trickier. On the bottom of the XPS, there are four Torx T5H screws, which are all the same size and can be removed easily enough.

Then, you have to flip the laptop, while open, onto its side, and use a spudger to poke through the two holes nearest to the hinge to dislodge the keyboard deck. In my case, my spudger was slightly too thick to get the job done. Dell's own maintenance manual suggests using a SIM removal tool or a paperclip to push it out.

From there, you'll need to use a flat spudger or prying tool to displace three clips on each side of the keyboard deck. Then, you can carefully remove the palm rest assembly, but keep it close, as it's connected by a cable to both the battery and the motherboard. This is much like the Framework, except that the design is much easier to disassemble.Once you disconnect those cables carefully (again, I recommend the maintenance manual), you can remove the SSD heatsink if you want to swap that out. The system we opened — the OLED model — was using an M.2 2230 SSD and a bracket to fill the rest of the space, but there's room for a 2280 drive.

The battery is also removable, though it's held in by another seven screws. The Wi-Fi module is soldered to the board, as is the RAM.

The USB Type-C connectors are held in with screws, so if those break, you should be able to replace them. That's a nice touch.

Battery Life on the Dell XPS 14 (2026)

The LCD version of the XPS 14 delivered excellent battery life. It's the longest-running laptop we've seen on an x86 chip, and the highest number we've seen since 2024. That version of the system ran for 20 hours and 41 minutes on our battery test, browsing the web, streaming video, and running OpenGL tests at 150 nits of brightness.

If you get the tandem OLED display, with a higher 2880 x 1800 resolution, expect less time away from the wall. That one ran for 12 hours and 23 minutes. There, the MacBook Pro with M5 beat it at 18:14.

One note on the testing: we tested battery life from 100% charge, as is standard. However, Dell ships the XPS 14 with a default "adaptive" charge mode that can potentially lead to the battery ceasing to charge at 80% if plugged in for more than 12 hours.

To make any changes to this feature, you have to go into the BIOS. In general, this is actually good for the longevity of your battery, and there are plenty of devices out there that do this, but Dell should probably make this an opt-in feature that is easier to change via software within Windows.

Yes, it's better for your battery, but most people who plug laptops in expect them to charge to 100%.

Heat on the Dell XPS 14 (2026)

While we ran our Cinebench 2026 stress test on the XPS 14 laptops, we measured both surface temperatures (with a laser thermometer) and processor temperatures (via internal censors) to get an idea how toasty the systems could get.

The system with the Intel Core Ultra X7 388H hit 91.5 degrees Fahrenheit on the keyboard, a cool 83.5 F on the touchpad, and 104.5 on the hottest point on the bottom. The processor measured 63.57 degrees Celsius.

The cheaper Core Ultra 7 355 system hit 91.5 F on the keyboard, 84.5 F on the touchpad, and 103.5 F on the bottom. This processor actually got hotter, at 72.14 C.

Webcam on the Dell XPS 14 (2026)

Dell's XPS 14 redesign includes a new, slimmer 8-megapixel webcam that still fits above the screen, but still maintains strong image quality. In my testing, I found that the new webcam produces, sharp, clear, color-accurate images.

The webcam didn't struggle at all with our office's fluorescent lighting, reproducing the exact shades of red and navy blue in my checkered shirt. I could make out the hairs on my head and even see the stitches in my office chair.

The laptop also features IR capabilities to log in with Windows Hello facial recognition.

Software and Warranty on the Dell XPS 14 (2026)

The software preloaded on our XPS 14 review unit consisted largely of Dell's own programs. The most important is Dell Optimizer, which provides quick access to device information, thermal management, and charging options.

Dell Trusted Device gives you a security score based on firmware verification and vulnerability indicators. Dell Command checks for BIOS, driver, and firmware updates, while Dell SupportAssist duplicates those update features, and also has options for hardware scans and technical support.

Dell sells the XPS 14 (DA14260) with a one-year Dell Care Plus warranty. An upgrade to Dell Care Premium is $89 for 24/7 support and proactive software monitoring of your system.

Dell XPS 14 (2026) Configurations

We tested two of Dell's XPS 14 configurations. The first one is a high-end model with an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H feature Intel's Arc B390 integrated graphics, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB PCIe SSD, and a 2880 x 1800 tandem OLED display. That system retails for $2,199.99.

The second system is a more entry-level unit, with an Intel Core Ultra 7 355, standard Intel graphics, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 1920 x 1200p display. That one is set to launch on February 19 for $1,699.99.

As of this writing, the cheapest XPS 14 is $1,599.99 with a Core Ultra 5 325, but is otherwise identical to our cheaper review unit. There's a clear impact from the RAM crisis on these systems, which are more expensive than they have been in similar past models.

Moving from 32GB to 64GB in our Ultra X7 review unit would cost $400 in Dell's configurator. The entry-level configuration only comes with 16GB of RAM, and trying to bump up to 32GB changes several other options as well.

Bottom Line

The Dell XPS 14 is a minimalist, lightweight workhorse that has reversed most of Dell's worst sins on the premium PC line from the last few years (including restoring the XPS name where it belongs). By adding a function row and putting a border around the touchpad, the XPS feels like a more practical machine. It really is about the little things, which also include a solid webcam and speakers.

If you're going for a battery life champ, the 1200p option may be for you, lasting over 20 hours on our test. Dell's VRR screen that goes down to 1 Hz is impressive, and while I'm sure we'll see more of it, it certainly must have helped here.

Dell still has some refining to do: The lattice-free keyboard can use some work, with its exceptionally shallow keys that take time to get used to. And thanks at least in part to the ongoing RAM crisis, its starting price at $1,599.99 is tough to swallow.

But Dell is making so many of the right steps here, and it's back to making the XPS a Windows PC I can recommend for someone who wants something portable and lightweight. The XPS line still faces stiff competition from Apple's MacBooks and other high-end Windows notebooks, but it's headed in the correct direction.

The ongoing memory chip shortage is forcing leading PC makers to consider sources outside of the traditional big three suppliers — Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix. According to Nikkei, sources say that Dell and HP have started qualifying DRAM from CXMT, while Acer and Asus are asking their Chinese partners to source Chinese-made memory chips — a departure from the usual, where manufacturers would source key components like processors, GPUs, screens, and memory, while the contract partners handled less critical parts and final assembly.

AI tech companies have been pouring money into AI infrastructure build-outs, with the major memory manufacturers allocating more of their production lines to the more lucrative HBM. This means that manufacturing capacity for the more price-sensitive consumer market has gone down, with not enough memory chips getting delivered to satisfy global demand. This is where Chinese memory chip maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and NAND chip manufacturer Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp. (YMTC) come in, with the two companies reportedly increasing their output to fill the gap in consumer demand.

Although HP and Dell are already qualifying CXMT’s chips, that does not mean that they’ll automatically order memory modules from them. Still, the two companies are reportedly doing that to give them alternative sources should the memory shortage continue well beyond the second half of this year. Although GPU vendor Sapphire predicts that DRAM prices will stabilize by then, it’s still wise for manufacturers to have a fallback position in case the situation does not improve.

CXMT isn’t banned in the U.S., although it’s facing scrutiny after the U.S. Department of Defense added it to its list of companies suspected of aiding the Chinese military. There have been allegations that ex-Samsung employees stole 10nm DRAM tech and leaked it to the Chinese company. Aside from that, businesses must consider the specter of tariffs, too; although the U.S. and China agreed on a one-year truce, there’s no telling what will happen once that agreement expires. Still, the memory chip supply instability means that companies might be willing to take these risks, as not having the memory chips they need to launch new products and keep prices in check might even be more damaging in the short term.

Asus, Dell, and HP did not comment on the Nikkei story, although sources cited say that HP will only put the CXMT chips in devices for non-U.S. markets. On the other hand, Acer said to the publication, “We do not disclose our suppliers, but we keep in close contact with multiple global manufacturers and suppliers to dynamically adjust operations to manage component price changes. We work with multiple manufacturers and suppliers to enhance our supply chain resilience.”

As CES continues to deliver tech news across the board, Dell is making big ripples in the monitor space with a gargantuan 52-inch 6K ultrawide curved monitor, the latest in its UltraSharp lineup, and the first such monitor of this size and resolution, according to the company. The new monitor is available now from Dell for $2,899

• Buy Dell's new 52-inch 6K monitor

We actually got a look at this beast ahead of CES and this week's big unveiling. As you can see, the monitor looms over an office space and is very much not for the faint-hearted. Note the scale of the monitor as displayed on the screen, which shows how this monitor dwarves even a dual QHD 5120 x 1440 monitor.

The IPS Black panel technology number has specs on paper to match its vast size. 6K resolution is delivered at 129 PPI, and it has a 120Hz refresh rate, not that anyone is gaming in 6K 120Hz in 2026, still, the headroom is nice to have. Dell says the IPS Black tech makes for "richer blacks and sharper visuals," while eye comfort features ensure it emits up to 60% less blue light compared to competitors.

This monitor is probably overkill for a single PC setup, which is why Dell is touting support for up to four PCs simultaneously. Dell says a new internal multi-stream transport feature works in conjunction with picture-by-picture, treating each partitioned screen like an individual monitor. Naturally, there's also a built-in KVM switch that lets you control all of your connected devices with a single keyboard and mouse.

Windows and macOS support is ensured through a single-cable Thunderbolt 4 connection, with 140W of power for charging a laptop. Other quick-access ports include two further 27W USB-C ports and a 10W USB-A port.

As noted, the price for the monitor is $2,899, or $2,799 if you can find a mount strong enough and don't need the stand. Available now, shipping is listed as early as January 9 on Dell's website.

Alienware is bringing OLED panels to a significant portion of its gaming laptops for the first time, following in the footsteps of brands like Asus and Lenovo that have introduced OLED displays to gaming laptops over the past 12 months. Alienware was actually a pioneer in this space, offering OLED panels on models here and there, going as far back as 2016. But now the Alienware 16 Area-51 and Alienware 16X Aurora are getting updated with 240Hz anti-glare OLED displays.

For now, Alienware is only updating its 16-inch laptops with an OLED panel. Dell claims the display has a 0.2ms response time, 620-nit peak HDR brightness, and 120% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space. It also comes with certifications from VESA, including DisplayHDR True Black 500 and ClearMR 9000. The displays come with an anti-glare coating, which Alienware claims reduces “gloss by 32%.” That number comes from internal testing from Samsung Display, so add a bit of salt.

The Alienware 18 Area-51 isn’t getting an OLED upgrade, instead sporting the same 18-inch IPS panel, with a 300Hz refresh over the previous generation.

All three laptops remain unchanged aesthetically, still sporting Alienware’s AW30 design language that it rolled out last year; you can read our thoughts on them in our Alienware 16 Area-51 review and Alienware 16 Aurora review. The 18-inch and 16-inch Area-51 models have a slight spec adjustment, however. Alienware says they’ll pack “new” Intel Core Ultra 200HX processors. These laptops already go up to a Core Ultra 9 275HX, which is one step below the highest-end mobile Arrow Lake offering Intel has. Dell wasn’t able to share model names or specs.

Outside of the CPU updates (and the OLED display on the 16-inch model), the two Area-51 designs remain unchanged. You can configure them with an RTX 5070 Ti up to an RTX 5090, as well as up to 64GB of DDR5-6400 memory and a total of 12TB of storage, split across three M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSDs in RAID 0.

The lower-end Alienware 16X Aurora remains unchanged, outside of its OLED update. You can configure it with up to a Core Ultra 9 275HX — it isn’t getting whatever new HX models Intel has, it seems — along with up to an RTX 5070 mobile running at a 115W TGP. You can also configure it with up to 64GB of DDR5-5600 memory, as well as 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage.

All three updates will be available in the first quarter of 2026, but Alienware hasn’t shared any pricing details yet. Given the current crisis in RAM availability, there’s a good chance prices will rise compared to last year’s models.

Alienware Ultra-Slim and Entry-Level concepts

Alienware is updating its range of Area-51 and Aurora laptops at the beginning of the year, but it teased two new models that will arrive later in 2026. Currently, they’re just called the Ultra-Slim and Entry-Level laptops. These laptops will round out Alienware’s laptop offerings, as it moved away from designs like the slim Alienware x14 R2 during Dell’s larger rebranding efforts.

First, Dell says the Ultra-Slim design is around 17mm thin, or around 0.66 inches. For context, the MacBook Air M4 is about 0.45 inches thick, while the 2024 and 2025 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is around 0.64 inches. For specs, Alienware says the laptop will come with a discrete Nvidia GPU and “new highly efficient CPUs.” It’ll be available in a 14-inch and 16-inch variant, and Alienware claims the 16-inch model is nearly 50% smaller in volume compared to the Alienware 16 Area-51.

Alienware hasn’t shared any details about the Entry-Level laptop yet, short of the render you can see above. Alienware says those interested should “stay stunned for more this spring,” suggesting the laptop is closer than the lack of details would let on.

Alienware Area-51 Desktop, now with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D

Starting in February, Alienware plans to offer its flagship Area-51 Desktop with AMD’s new Ryzen 7 9850X3D. The souped-up X3D chip comes with an average 7% improvement compared to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, says AMD, though even Team Red’s official benchmarks show minor improvements in most games, with some games posting identical results.

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is identical to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, short of the clock speed. The updated CPU can climb up to 5.6GHz, while the original model topped out at 5.2GHz. Nothing else is different. Both CPUs carry the same 120W TDP, and they both carry 104MB of combined L2 and L3 cache. The 96MB SRAM chunk is placed under the compute die on both models, giving them more thermal headroom for overclocking. AMD supports multiplier-based overclocking (along with PBO) on both chips.

Alienware originally launched the Area-51 Desktop exclusively with Intel’s Core Ultra 200S ‘Arrow Lake’ CPUs before bringing AMD’s Ryzen 7 9700X, Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and Ryzen 9 9950X3D to the desktop in November of 2025. Alienware hasn’t said if the Ryzen 7 9850X3D will replace the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, but AMD claims both CPUs will live in the Zen 5 X3D lineup moving forward.

Outside of the new CPU, the specs of the Area-51 remain unchanged. You can pack in up to an Nvidia RTX 5090, 64GB of DDR5-6400 memory, and 12TB of total SSD storage split across three 4TB PCIe Gen4 drives. Neither Alienware nor AMD has shared pricing details on the Ryzen 7 9850X3D yet, but the configuration will reportedly arrive in February.

Last year, Dell announced it was ditching many of its storied brand names, including its high-end XPS label. This year, the company has realized that mistake, and is bringing XPS back in a redesigned chassis with Intel's Panther Lake chips.

This is also the first major change in design to the XPS since the release of the Dell XPS 13 Plus in 2022 (that design evolved to fit the 14- and 16-inch models). The XPS logo is on the lid for the first time (it was on the bottom for several years), replacing the Dell logo. The new CNC aluminum and glass chassis are just 14.62 mm thin, assuming you get an OLED screen — they bump up to just over 15 mm. The XPS 14 weighs 3 pounds,while the XPS 16 weighs 3.5 pounds, marking notedly lighter designs than their predecessors.

Perhaps the best part of the redesign, however, is that the XPS 14 and 16 will get full, traditional function rows, replacing the capacitive touch row that Dell has been using since 2022.

Dell has hidden the speaker lines (I'm curious what that does to audio quality) for the 10W quad-speaker system. The 8-megapixel webcam is a new, thinner module that Dell claims to be the first to market with, reducing the space it takes up.

Each system has three Thunderbolt 4 ports over USB Type-C, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Thunderbolt 4 ports work with Kensington locks, so you can use USB-C to secure your laptop to a desk.

What remains from the previous formula is a lattice-free keyboard, without spaces between the keys. This has always been divisive, but has also been adopted by HP in its OmniBook X line. Additionally, Dell is keeping the haptic touchpad to keep the wrist area an unbroken sheet of glass. This time, though, there are some faint tactile etchings outlining the boundaries on the sides. The touchpad uses the same piezo motors as before, but with enhanced force detection for better accuracy and responsiveness.

While we only had a few minutes of hands-on time at Dell’s pre-CES event, the touchpad felt excellent, and the our fingers easily oriented to the useable cursor control space, thanks to those new boundary lines.

Enter Panther Lake

Intel's third-generation Core ultra processors are powering Dell's new XPS line. The starting configurations will use the 8-core Ultra 5 325 and Ultra 7 355, while the high-end versions will use the 16-core Core Ultra X7 358H and Core Ultra X9 388H. Dell is pairing the 8-core processors with 16GB of RAM, and the 16-core chips with 32 or 64 GB options. These chips will be thermally controlled by a newly designed cooling system.

While the previous XPS 14 and 16 (and the intermediate Dell 14 and 16 Premiums) had options with discrete graphics chips, that's not the case this time. Instead, the new XPS models rely entirely on integrated graphics. The systems will use Intel's Arc graphics, though there will be some with Intel graphics post-launch (it's unclear which CPUs will include those, as the Panther Lake processors all have some variant of Arc).

Dell has made a very specific decision that the Arc graphics, particularly the 12 Xe-core models, will have enough power to satisfy demanding users when they consider how thin and light Dell has made this laptop. Otherwise, Dell will be happy to point them to Alienware or its workstation products, and the Dell Premium 14 and 16 with discrete GPUs will remain available into 2026.

Tandem OLED, 1 Hz LCD

The other hallmark of the reemergence of XPS is improved display technology.

There's a 1920 x 1200 non-touch display option, which will surely get you better battery life than OLED. But what's most interesting about it is the 1-120 Hz variable refresh rate, which Dell says is a first for this model. That extremely low refresh rate should help save power when static images or text are on the screen.

On the OLED screens (2880 x 1800 on the XPS 14 or 3200 x 2000 on the XPS 16), Dell is using bright tandem OLED touchscreens with VRR from 20 - 120 Hz.

Either way, you still get the tremendously thin InfinityEdge displays that the XPS laptops have made a signature.

Dell XPS 14 and XPS 16 Price and Release Date

Dell is launching the XPS 14 and XPS 16 tomorrow, January 6, in limited configurations. The XPS 14 will start at $2,049.99 while the XPS 16 will launch at $2,199.

New entry-level configurations, which we don't know the price of but will include options under $2,000, will launch in February.

These systems will release in a graphite colorway, with a lighter "shimmer" coming later this year. For those looking for an alternative to Windows 11, a version of the XPS 14 with Ubuntu 24.04 is set to release later in 2026.

Dell XPS 13

Dell is also teasing that a new XPS 13 is coming later this year. We know very little about it, though Dell says that the laptop is "expected to be our thinnest and lightest XPS laptop ever," measuring in at less than 13.3 mm (no weight was provided).

The company is also promising that this will be the "most accessible" price for an XPS yet. Dell previously started the XPS line at $999 (though often with 4GB of RAM), so we're hoping to see Dell be aggressive here without going too low on the specs. Dell is promising that the InfinityEdge screens and build quality will be the same.

In the one teaser image we've seen, it looks like Dell will put a chiclet keyboard on the XPS 13, and the image shows a single USB-C port on the side of the system in view.

Other rebrands

Outside of XPS, Dell is also bringing back the Precision name. Dell Pro Precision is replacing Dell Pro Max for performance workstations. Dell Inspiron is still under the plain "Dell" name, and the Dell Pro name remains in lieu of Latitude, which is fine with me.

For gaming, it's still Alienware, with no sign of the Dell G-series coming back. But with XPS and Precision back, two of Dell's most beloved brands are in play again.

The competition to calculate digits of Pi was initially an informal pursuit but grew more serious over time. Our server-oriented colleagues at StorageReview have proven that storage performance can make or break a Pi run, setting their latest record at a whopping 314 million digits with a single server that ran for four months.

Calculating Pi quickly became a way to benchmark the floating-point performance of CPUs. As the calculations grew ever larger, however, the task became more complicated, as RAM, I/O architectures, and storage systems came into play. That's a point StorageReview clearly illustrated by achieving a record with a single 2U server over a four-month calculation run.

The said machine is a Dell PowerEdge R7725 unit fitted with two AMD Epyc 192-core chips, for a total of 384 cores, along with 1.5 TB of DDR5 memory, an amount that could probably buy a small country at today's prices. The storage array is where this setup shines, though, with 2.5 petabytes of storage thanks to a 40-drive array of Micron 6550 Ion SSDs at 61.44 TB each.

It's long been the case that calculating Pi to such long extents requires a significant amount of bytes to store intermediate computations. After all, you're dealing with factors that are trillions of digits long. Past approaches, such as Google's 100-trillion record in 2022, used cloud server instances, and Linus Media Group and Kioxia's 300-trillion-digit run earlier this year used a Weka cluster with shared storage. But StorageReview opted to prove a point by using plain ol' simple fast local SSDs.

It's worth noting that one key factor enabling the 314-trillion-digit run is that, unlike the previous generation, the 17th-generation Dell servers used don't have a PCIe switch in their storage backplane; instead, they use a direct connection to the CPUs' PCIe lanes. With 40 bays, that works out to 2 to 4 lanes per SSD, but that still worked out to a meaty 280 GB/s of read/write performance, much higher figures than StorageReview's own past experiments.

There were additional relevant optimizations as well. The team tweaked the machine's scratch array for the patterns generated by the y-cruncher software at large digit counts. It also changed the server's standard air-cooling configuration to a CoolIT AHx10 setup, resulting in higher steady-state load clocks for the Epyc chips.

The power consumption was only 1,600W, a high number on its own but actually a pretty impressive figure as far as efficiency is concerned. Last but not least, the OS was changed from Windows Server to Ubuntu 24.04.2, a simple switch that resulted in better I/O performance on its own. We can't help but wonder if using the latest Windows Server release with native NVMe support would have been comparable. If you're curious about more details, go ahead and read the entirety of StorageReview's write-up.

'Twas the festive season but Santa didn't know how
to deal with the new RAM apocalypse, now!
Who could've predicted this horrid event
in which memory costs rose 500 percent?

He didn't expect this holiday twist —
It's memory-intensive to create his list!
Even Crucial got killed in this big AI boom.
(This boom smells as funky as Zotac's perfume).

But he still had some systems lying around.
Surely one of them would have to be sound!
He had an XPS, Optiplex — oh, what the hell?
Which one is which? They're all just a Dell.

So instead, he switched to an Apple Silicon Mac
and played Cyberpunk to forget the setback.
Then he jumped to a Windows 10 system he'd moved to Linux
and entered his password: 123456.

❄️❄️❄️

But none of these systems made the list the right way.
They all fell like Steam on Silksong's launch day.
So he figured he'd do these holidays with a twist:
He'd simply put everyone onto his list.

Compiling this data would take quite a while.
Santa had what Torvalds called "random turd files."
He found several old lists made in Microsoft Word
and even more data he had stored on a bird.

To collate the data, he had the elves convene,
using prototypes of the new Steam Machine,
and old rigs he updated with a bit of skill,
and a few lucky builds that he found at Goodwill.

Now that the rigs were doing the heavy lifting,
It was time for Santa to put his mind to gifting.
Like 3D-printed loafers that are beyond description
And some great Tom's Hardware Premium subscriptions!

❄️❄️❄️

Gold RTX 5090's would be all the rage.
There were VPNs for people verifying their age.
Elves made hair clips out of old M1 Pros,
And for Intel, a new permanent CEO.

There were non-binary RAM kits on sale at some shops,
and 5070 Ti's with all of their ROPs.
Nintendo Switch 2s without stapled screens,
and TSMC sneakers that go great with your jeans.

"Hey Santa!" cried one elf, looking over his shoulder.
"Why are all these anime girls in your temp folder?"
Santa explained that his JPGs weren't a crime,
But blamed them on a bug in XPG Prime.

With that unfortunate question answered,
He called Rudolph, and Comet, and Dancer, and Prancer.
"Can you stop by the store and try to obtain
some new Xboxes before the price rises again?"

❄️❄️❄️

Then Mrs. Claus came downstairs in shock.
"Santa, look what I found under stockings and socks!"
He felt his jaw drop like it was full of rocks —
It was a whole bunch of RAM he had never unboxed!

Santa couldn't help it — he let out a snort.
Like RDNA 1 and 2, he could have more support!
But he and his crew were saving the day,
with existing computers, the old-fashioned way.

And Santa and friends were all having a ball.
It was the best holiday lead-up that he could Recall.
He might even have extra time to clean up his house
to smell fresher than Asus's aromatic mouse.

It took all of Santa's brains and all the elves' might,
But they had a list, and had gifts, and were ready for flight.
To ensure they had the fuel to get this year's trip right,
They stopped by a Denny's for some Breakfast Bytes.

No matter what you’re celebrating this year,
Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Christmas with cheer;
We at Tom’s Hardware wish you the best.
We’ll be at our benches, running our tests.

🎅🎄🎁☃️❄️ 🎅🎄🎁☃️❄️ 🎅🎄🎁☃️❄️

The Tom’s Hardware staff first published a holiday poem in 2014 on Christmas Eve. It was updated a little bit and published again each year at the same time. The poem was given a complete overhaul in 2018 and has been rewritten with new stories and references every year since. For more holiday fun, see the versions from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

The painful RAM shortages being felt across the computing industry are soon coming to impact the corporate world. Dell is set to increase prices across all of its commercial laptop offerings on December 17, according to an internal report obtained by Business Insider. The price changes are coming exclusively to Dell's commercial business, selling machines to companies and corporate clients, at least for now.

Dell preps significant price hikes up to 30% for corporate products — company warns that ordering today for future delivery does not lock in current pricing

The price increases primarily target laptop and desktop models with higher amounts of RAM or SSD storage capacity, attributed to the critical RAM shortage being felt around the world due to AI hyperscalers. However, some professional monitors and GPU upgrades will also see higher price tags starting on the 17th. The affected Dell commercial portfolio will, on average, be 10-30% higher after the changes take effect.

Beginning this Wednesday, Dell Pro and Pro Max laptops and desktops with 32GB of RAM will become $130 to $230 more expensive. Computers with 128GB, Dell's highest offering, will see prices rise anywhere from $520 to $765 per device. Notebooks ordered with 1TB of internal SSD storage will become $55 to $135 more expensive.

Other price increases include monitors, a curious increase as monitors and displays do not contain RAM or NAND flash memory. Regardless, the Dell Pro 55 Plus 4K monitor is set to rise from $1,349 to $1,499 once the other price increases take effect. GPU prices in the commercial realm will also rise with the tide. Dell laptops with the Nvidia RTX Pro 500 Blackwell GPU 6GB will increase by $66, while stepping up to a 24GB Blackwell GPU will cost $530 more.

The employee who leaked the price changes, who remains anonymous but verified by Business Insider, also shared that Dell's messaging to its commercial sellers has also changed with the price rise. Dell's commercial wing accounted for 85% of all client sales last year, so it has a strong interest in maintaining these numbers. However, it may become difficult to keep these metrics the same as we enter the new year.

Dell is reportedly advising its sellers to prioritize selling to the largest client accounts fast, warning clients that "ordering today will not lock in the current prices". Dell is also limiting the discounts it can offer clients, leaving even the largest corporate accounts without the traditional bulk discounts that may shield them from typical market volatility. The Dell employee also claims that Dell's profit margins across the board are shrinking amidst "unprecedented" market conditions.

Confirmation of these corporate price increases comes less than a week after Dell was erroneously caught in the crossfire between Framework and Apple, when Framework's social media team was baited by a fake post claiming Dell was engaging in RAM price gouging at the consumer level. While Framework was wrong about a $550 RAM price increase three days ago, today's reports prove its X comments prophetic.

That Dell's corporate partners and clients are being severely affected by RAM shortages is a bad sign for the state of the DRAM and NAND flash markets, which are threatening to ravage the tech sphere for the next year or more. Team Group claimed at the start of the month that 2026 will only get worse for the market, with Phison's CEO claiming back in October that the drought may continue into the 2030s.

Dell and HP have begun to ship some of their PCs with disabled HEVC/H.265 hardware decoding, potentially in a bid to avoid paying royalties to patent holders, reports Ars Technica. The majority of PCs that come with disabled HEVC/H.265 hardware decoding capability are business-oriented entry-level or mainstream machines, whereas premium offerings with high-quality displays come with all the features activated.

Dell and HP confirmed to Ars Technica that a number of their laptops, including Dell's 'standard and base systems' as well as HP's EliteBook and ProBook 600 Series G11, 400 Series G11, and 200 Series G9 laptops, come with disabled support for hardware decoding of video streams encoded using the HEVC/H.265 codec. Dell emphasized that systems featuring an integrated 4K display, a standalone GPU, Dolby Vision, or Cyberlink Blu-ray software come equipped with HEVC/H.265 hardware decoding capability. Interestingly, Dell advises users to purchase 'an affordable third-party app from the Microsoft Store' to re-enable HEVC decoding.

While neither Dell nor HP explained the motives behind removing hardware decoding capability that has been around for a long time, Ars Technica believes that the companies are trying to cut down costs as HEVC/H.265 codec patent holders plan to increase their licensing fees in the short term. Indeed, to support hardware decoding of HEVC/H.265 videos on a device, device makers must pay royalties to MPEG LA ($0.2 per device, or $25 million per annum per entity), HEVC Advance (up to $1 per device, or annual license cap of $40 million), Velos Media (rumored between $1 and $2 per device), Via LA ($0.25 per unit or $25 million per entity per annum). Given that both Dell and HP sell tens of millions of PCs every year, the drop in such licensing payments translates into huge savings amounting to tens of millions of dollars per year. However, such savings also translate to greatly reduced experience for end users.

Virtually all discrete and integrated GPUs support hardware decoding of video streams encoded using the HEVC/H.265 codec, as the first GPUs featuring this capability emerged in 2015 – 2017 (starting with Kaby Lake in Intel's case). GPU developers must pay to implement HEVC hardware decode at the silicon level, so patent pools get their money directly from companies like Apple, AMD, Intel, Nvidia, or Qualcomm. However, to enable hardware decoding on the device level, OEMs must pay patent pools as well. If they do not pay royalty fees, they must disable the capability on the software (by modifying drivers) or firmware level, or by asking their GPU vendor to fuse the capability off in silicon (which is not something that is usually done).

If a capability is turned off using a modified driver, then an end-user can easily re-enable it by installing generic drivers from AMD, Intel, or Nvidia, but at the cost of losing some customizations. However, things disabled on the firmware level are hard to restore. Also, despite Dell's advice, no third-party player can re-enable hardware HEVC decoding if it is disabled in drivers or firmware. It can only add power-hungry software decoding, but this is probably something that many pre-installed programs can do by default.

As a result, it looks like users of inexpensive systems now have to prefer content encoded using AV1 or other open-source hardware codecs, or hope that their CPUs are powerful enough to decode high-resolution HEVC streams.

Dell’s 16 Premium (starting at $1,699) delivers the hallmarks of a high-end laptop: sleek, ultramodern styling, top-tier materials, a gorgeous OLED display option, and performance that rivals desktop replacements. While some design flourishes, like the touch-based function row, undermine usability and the OLED model’s short battery life keeps it from being a truly well-rounded workhorse, this laptop still stands as a Windows-based contender to the Apple MacBook Pro.

Design of the Dell 16 Premium (DA16250)

The Dell 16 Premium inherits its design from the XPS 16 (9640). Although the design has matured a bit, it’s still ultramodern, with radical design cues that position it as a cutting-edge system. Standout features include a seamless glass palm rest, which has no visible touchpad border, and a capacitive touch bar replacing the top keyboard row. (See more about these features will be discussed in the keyboard and touchpad section.) I find the design refreshing, as it looks much more futuristic than the average laptop, though it's divisive among Tom's Hardware's reviewers.

Calling the 16 Premium solid doesn't do it justice. Constructed from aluminum and glass, it delivers impressive strength. OLED-equipped models like our review unit also feature a glass display that compliments the premium feel. Build quality is top-notch, with tight panel gaps and a lid that opens effortlessly with one hand. Our model is white, though Dell also offers a darker graphite finish.

Measuring 14.1 x 9.4 x 0.75 inches (WDH), the 16 Premium shares a nearly identical footprint with the Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch (14.01 x 9.77 x 0.66 inches), and weighs nearly the same, at 4.65 pounds to the Apple’s 4.67 pounds.

Dell’s port selection is minimal, featuring three Thunderbolt 4 ports (two on the left, one on the right), a microSD card slot, and an audio jack. Although USB Type-C has become mainstream, traditional USB-A remains a need for many users, so investing in adapters may be necessary. For wireless connectivity, the 16 Premium boasts an Intel networking card supporting Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

Dell 16 Premium (DA16250) Specifications

Productivity Performance on the Dell 16 Premium

Our Dell 16 Premium review unit is a high-end configuration, equipped with Intel’s Core Ultra 7 255H processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD.

The GeForce RTX 5070 is a notable bonus for content creators and media generation. While it's capable of gaming, this laptop is not likely to perform better than an entry-level gaming model, as the GPU has a mere 65 W total graphics power.

In our benchmark comparisons, its primary rival is the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch, tested in a $3,649 setup with a 14-core M4 Pro CPU, 20-core GPU, and 48GB of RAM. On the Windows side, we included the HP OmniBook Ultra, which was $1,749 as tested featuring an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 CPU and AMD Radeon 890M integrated graphics. Completing the lineup is Dell’s previous-generation XPS 16 (9640) using older components: a Core Ultra 7 155H and an RTX 4070 GPU.

In Geekbench 6’s synthetic CPU test, the Dell 16 Premium posted a single-core score of 2,784, the second lowest in our group that was only ahead of the XPS 16 (2,373) and trailed the AMD-powered HP OmniBook Ultra (2,847). Its multi-core performance was better, reaching 16,850 points and surpassing the HP’s 14,838. The Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch was in a league of its own, with the M4 Pro producing a score of 3,910 in single-core and a commanding 22,822 in multi-core.

The Dell 16 Premium underperformed in our 25GB file transfer test, averaging just 1,079.96 MBps. In contrast, the HP OmniBook Ultra reached 1,780.23 MBps, while the MacBook Pro 16-inch remained out of reach, delivering 2,237.5 MBps, more than twice the Dell’s throughput.

In our Handbrake test, the Dell 16 Premium completed the 4K-to-1080p transcode in 3 minutes and 50 seconds, decisively ahead of the XPS 16 (4:42) and HP OmniBook Ultra (4:18). Still, it couldn’t touch the MacBook Pro 16-inch, which finished in 2 minutes and 38 seconds.

We stress-tested the 16 Premium with 10 consecutive runs of Cinebench 2024. During the test, scores ranged between 980.7 and 1,011.75 points, indicating stable thermal performance.

Display on the Dell 16 Premium

The base configuration of the 16 Premium features a 16.3-inch non-touch IPS panel with a 1920 x 1200 resolution. Our review unit upgrades to an OLED display, offering a sharper 3840 x 2400 resolution, touch functionality, and a dynamic refresh rate ranging from 48 to 120 Hz.

The picture quality is nothing short of captivating. While watching Planet Earth III, I could discern subtle details in shadowed night scenes and was struck by the HDR brilliance of sunlight piercing through jungle foliage. The 120 Hz refresh rate lends a silky smoothness to everyday interactions, whether dragging windows or scrolling content. Touch responsiveness is excellent, and the hinge provides enough resistance to minimize wobble during use. The only drawback is the glossy glass surface, which tends to attract fingerprints and dust.

These laptops deliver strong color coverage, with the Dell 16 Premium reaching 79.5% of the DCI-P3 gamut and 112.2% of sRGB, putting it within a couple percentage points of its peers. Its peak brightness of 367 nits may seem modest, but that’s typical for OLED panels; by contrast, the MacBook Pro relies on mini-LED technology. In HDR testing, portions of the Dell’s display peaked at 572 nits.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Dell 16 Premium

Dell made some radical design choices with the 16 Premium around input devices. The most divisive is the replacement of the traditional top-row function keys with a capacitive touch bar. Each “key” responds instantly to touch, though it lacks haptic feedback. By default, the bar displays media and system controls, such as volume, brightness, and the like, and supports Fn-Lock via the Fn + Esc shortcut to make F1 through F12 primary. As someone that relies on keyboard shortcuts whenever possible, such as Alt + F4 to close a window, I found this design counterintuitive, as it required me to look down each time I wanted to hit an F key.

Dell’s zero-lattice keyboard design eliminates spacing between keys, which is an aesthetic rather than a functional choice. The keys deliver decent tactile feedback, with an adequate 1 mm of key travel and a gentle cushion at the bottom of each stroke. I clocked 114 words per minute with 99% accuracy on MonkeyType, which is about as quickly as I can go on a laptop. That said, the arrow key cluster’s half-height up and down keys and full-size left and right keys aren’t intuitive. The power button, located adjacent to the backspace key, doubles as a fingerprint reader for biometric login.

The white keyboard paired with white backlighting is a risky design choice. Under bright lighting, the illuminated typeface can become difficult to make out. Having encountered this issue on previous white XPS models, I was curious to see whether Dell had addressed it. Thankfully, they have. The ambient light sensor now intelligently disables the backlighting in well-lit environments, retaining legibility. Conversely, in low-light settings, the backlighting activates appropriately, ensuring the typeface remains clearly visible.

As for the touchpad, it’s centered below the keyboard as expected, even though it has no visible border. Initially, I had reservations, but the absence of defined edges didn’t hinder usability. The haptic motors deliver a satisfying tactile bump with each press, and right-clicking proved consistently accurate.

Audio on the Dell 16 Premium

For a fairly slim laptop, the 16 Premium delivers first-rate audio. Its quad-speaker setup, consisting of two 3 W woofers and two 2 W tweeters, produces rich, full-bodied sound that matches entry-level Bluetooth speakers. Dubstep tracks from Seven Lions came through with crisp vocals and punchy bass drops, while Steve Winwood’s Valerie showcased the system’s clean instrument separation.

The one wrinkle in this setup: Dolby Atmos equalizers aren’t enabled out of the box. I had to manually download the Dolby Access app from the Windows Store, which felt like an oversight. While the preset modes didn’t dramatically alter the sound (I stuck with Balanced), they did further improve the already excellent clarity.

Upgradeability of the Dell 16 Premium

Accessing the 16 Premium’s internals is straightforward: the bottom panel is secured by eight Torx screws, all conveniently uniform in length. After removing them, the perimeter clips need to be gently disengaged. I used a plastic trim tool for this step, carefully working my way around the edges.

Options for upgrades and repairs are minimal. Only the M.2 storage drive and battery can be replaced; all other components are soldered and non-serviceable.

Battery Life on the Dell 16 Premium

In our battery test, which includes web browsing, video streaming over Wi-Fi, and OpenGL workloads at 150 nits, the Dell 16 Premium lasted just 7 hours and 15 minutes. That’s over three hours less than the previous-generation XPS 16 (10:44) and more than five hours behind the HP OmniBook Ultra (12:52). The MacBook Pro 16-inch remained a superstar, clocking an exceptional 21 hours and 1 minute. Clearly, Dell has room to improve its power efficiency.

Some clue as to what’s going on reside in Dell’s own battery estimates. In their internal testing, OLED-equipped models are rated for just 9 hours of Netflix streaming, compared to 27 hours on the non-OLED variant, a threefold difference. While we couldn’t verify those figures, the takeaway is clear: users prioritizing battery life should avoid the OLED panel.

Heat on the Dell 16 Premium

Thermal management on the 16 Premium is handled by two internal fans, which vent heat through rear exhausts lining the display hinge. The system performs well: during our Cinebench stress loop, surface temperatures peaked at just 78 degrees F on the touchpad, 86 F between the G and H keys, and 93 F on the underside near the exhaust vents. Internally, the Core Ultra 7 255H processor operated at an average temperature of 78 C.

Throughout testing, the chassis remained comfortable to the touch, and the fans operated quietly, blending into ambient household noise.

Webcam on the Dell 16 Premium

Dell’s webcam offers impressive picture quality. Despite only having a 1920 x 1080 video resolution, the picture is sharp, clear, and almost free of noise even in slightly darker than optimal environments. It also offers an IR sensor for facial recognition, allowing password-less logins using Windows Hello. Alas, Dell missed adding a sliding privacy shutter or an e-shutter, which competitors like HP and Lenovo often offer.

Software and Warranty on the Dell 16 Premium

Dell preinstalls a few utilities on the 16 Premium, including the My Dell app, which shows system health, warranty info, and access to some settings like Dolby Vision display modes. Users probably won’t need to interact with this app regularly.

The system also comes with one year of Dell Care Plus, which provides onsite repairs following remote diagnostics. It also includes proactive hardware monitoring via the Support Assist app, which can anticipate component failures and, according to Dell, even initiate automatic part replacements.

Dell also includes a years’ subscription of McAfee Premium anti-virus, not a trial.

A one-year warranty is standard, with extended coverage available. Accidental damage coverage is also available via Dell Premium for $89.

Dell 16 Premium (DA16250) Configurations

Dell’s 16 Premium begins at $1,799, equipped with a Core Ultra 7 255H processor, Arc 140T integrated graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The base configuration features a 1920 x 1200 non-touch display with a variable refresh rate of 30–120 Hz and a peak brightness of 500 nits. Our $2,949 review unit steps up to a 4K OLED touchscreen, discrete Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics, and doubled memory and storage (32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD).

Customizable models offer a Core Ultra 9 285H CPU, up to 64GB of RAM, and storage options reaching 4TB. Graphics upgrades include in-between options of the RTX 5050 and 5060. The laptop is available in Graphite and Platinum finishes.

Our review unit is priced in line with the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch featuring the 14-core M4 Pro, which is $2,499 with 24GB of RAM or $2,899 with 48GB. Opting for 1TB of storage pushes the price to $3,499. On the Windows side, Dell faces limited competition. One notable contender we haven’t yet tested is the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i Aura Edition, listed at $1,899 at the time of writing. It features a Core Ultra 9 285H processor, RTX 5060 GPU, 32GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and a 3000 × 2000 OLED display.

Bottom Line

Dell’s 16 Premium largely delivers on its high-end ambitions. Its forward-looking design impresses with both quality and style, and it offers excellent entertainment potential with its beautiful OLED screen and quad speakers. Performance is also strong, at least among Windows machines, thanks to an Intel Core H-class CPU and quiet, effective cooling.

However, some design choices detract from usability. The capacitive touch bar, while responsive, lacks the tactile intuitiveness of physical keys, and the absence of USB-A ports limits connectivity. Our most notable complaint is the disappointing battery life of the OLED model.

Despite the Premium rebrand, this laptop still has all of the promise and compromises of the XPS 16. If you want a futuristic rival to the MacBook Pro, it's an option, but you'll have to handle the trade-offs to get the cool design and performance.

Dell is reportedly laying off staff from its China operations, with affected personnel only having until October 10 to apply for open internal positions. Some of the affected departments include its EMC storage division and the Client Solution Group (CSG), which according to Digitimes, affects Dell's offices in Shanghai and Xiamen. However, the company has not publicly announced this reduction-in-force yet, so it’s unclear how many people are affected.

This latest news of layoffs comes amid the company’s restructuring to boost profitability. Around a year ago, it was estimated that Dell let go of over 12,000 positions, reducing its workforce by around 10%. The company has not been hiring externally and has even made a leadership adjustment with the departure of Yvonne McGill as its CFO, after nearly 30 years of working with the PC maker. Dell did not say why McGill is leaving her position, but clarified that it was not related to the company’s financial reporting or internal controls.

The EMC storage division is the company’s enterprise storage arm, focusing on delivering solutions to storage, server, and data protection services to IT departments, data centers, and other institutions. On the other hand, CSG delivers end-user hardware, like laptops and monitors, to consumers and companies. These divisions are historically important for Dell’s presence in China, but the changing geopolitical landscape and market demands are making strategic contraction a necessity for the company to adjust to shifting realities.

Other companies have also been caught in the crossfire between the U.S. and China’s trade war. Microsoft closed its AI and IoT labs in the East Asian nation last year, with Redmond asking nearly 10% of its China-based workforce to relocate to the U.S., Ireland, Australia, or New Zealand. IBM also shuttered its research and development facilities in the country in August 2024, resulting in the retrenchment of over 1,000 people.

Even Nvidia is facing some trouble in China after the U.S. banned the export of its H20 AI GPUs in April. The White House eventually allowed it to sell the advanced chips again, this time by issuing export licenses to the company. However, it only allowed this after Nvidia and AMD agreed to share 15% of their China revenue with the federal government. Deliveries still aren’t being made, though, as the Commerce Department still has a massive backlog of export licenses to process, and Washington’s lawyers are still figuring out the legality of the 15% ‘export tax’.

The export tariffs enacted in April are expected to raise retail prices by 11% to 70% across different categories, cut consumer spending by $123 billion annually, and shrink U.S. economic output by $69 billion, according to a report by Trade Partnership Worldwide (TPW), published by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) on Wednesday.

There are a couple of catches: the report, which evaluates how recent U.S. tariffs will affect prices of 10 widely used technology products in the U.S., assumes that all tariffs will come into effect, and that there will be full pass through to retail buyers.

On April 2, the Trump administration introduced a tariff program under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that included a 10% general rate on all imports and increased rates for 57 countries by between 11% and 50%. A 10% universal tariff went into effect on April 5, while higher rates were applied to specific countries starting April 9.

A pause was placed on the elevated country-specific tariffs on April 10, though the baseline 10% tariff remained. On April 11, electronics and semiconductor-based products were temporarily spared from these new tariffs, but a Section 232 probe into the broader electronics supply chain launched on April 16 brought renewed tariff risks, with early 25% duties already applied to materials such as aluminum and steel, as well as vehicles. Perhaps most importantly, tariffs on goods from China (except electronics) surged to 145%.

The TPW study modeled a scenario where the 90-day hold on tariffs ends in July, and higher rates resume on affected goods. Products not complying with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade rules would face stacking tariffs (i.e., up to 50%), whereas Chinese goods could be hit with combined rates of 145%. The analysis covered batteries, client PCs (desktops and laptops), displays, game consoles, tablets, TVs, headphones, and various computer accessories.

Game consoles and PCs

Game consoles face the steepest projected increase, with average tariffs climbing from 0% to 130%. Because 87% of these devices come from China, which would be subjected to a 145% rate, prices could rise by as much as 69%, or $428 more per unit, the report says. As a result, imports could fall 71%, and domestic production, which makes up only 1% of the market, would rise by just 62%. Consumers are expected to cut back purchases by 73%, resulting in a $12 billion drop in their overall purchasing power. The U.S. economy would lose $10.4 billion annually from this single category alone.

Laptops and tablets are projected to become 34% more expensive. For now, these items are exempt from country specific tariffs, but they could still be taxed under the Section 232 review. Nearly 79% of laptops and tablets are made in China and for now there are no manufacturing capacity in the U.S. to replace gigantic assembly facilities in China.

As a result, TPW expects average price hikes of up to $269 for laptops and $152 for tablets. Imports would decline 47%, while domestic output would increase only 5%. The result would be a $23.8 billion annual loss in consumer spending power and a $12.3 billion reduction in GDP.

Desktop computers are largely sourced from Mexico and other countries rather than China, but they would face a price hike from 0.3% to 42.3% because of tariffs. With limited U.S. production capacity (under 9% growth expected), prices could increase by 24%, adding about $287 to the average retail cost of $1,193. Imports are forecast to drop 53%, and consumption by 42%. The result would be a $13 billion loss for consumers and a $5.1 billion hit to GDP.

TPW did not conduct a research on how tariffs affect computer components. For now, these items are exempt from country specific tariffs, but they could still be taxed under the Section 232 review. However, if graphics cards and motherboards continue to be sourced from China and are not exempt from tariffs at some point, they are are subject to combined U.S. tariffs reaching up to 145% or more — similar to those applied to other China-made tech products such as game consoles and computer accessories. This could raise the retail price of a $500 graphics card to over $1,200 and a $200 motherboard to nearly $500 — assuming full cost pass-through. Given China's dominant role in assembling these components, short-term diversification of supply is limited, meaning most of the tariff burden will fall directly on U.S. consumers. As a result, PC builders and gamers would face significantly higher costs, potentially delaying upgrades or reducing demand across the DIY computing sector.

Taiwan-made graphics cards and motherboards would also face substantial price increases, though less severe than China-made ones, depending on how tariffs are applied. If they do not qualify for duty-free treatment under the USMCA and are not explicitly exempted, they may face a 25% tariff and a 25% Section 232 tariff (if electronics and semiconductors are included), totaling a potential 50% tariff (as these tariffs stack).

This would increase a $500 graphics card from Taiwan to around $750, and a $200 motherboard to $300, assuming full pass-through. Since Taiwan is a major supplier of high-end motherboards and graphics cards, the impact would still be significant but not as extreme as for Chinese products. U.S. buyers would still see elevated prices, but these goods may become more attractive relative to China-made ones, depending on how the final tariffs end up stacking. But can Taiwan satisfy the needs of the U.S. market?

Displays and TVs

Displays are 67% sourced from China, so they would be hit with average tariffs of 43.3% (10 to 25% on all imports and 45% to 145% Chinese imports, so the average is 43.3%) or more, up from 0.5%, raising prices by 32% or $111 per unit. Imports would fall by 48%, and U.S. production would rise by only 10%. This category alone could lead to $5.1 billion in lost consumer power and a $2.8 billion economic decline.

Unlike computer monitors, TVs are largely sourced from outside of China, but they would still see tariffs increase to 22.4% from 1.6%, raising average prices by 11% — or $57 per unit. Imports would decline by 15%, domestic output would rise only 2%, and the resulting loss in consumer spending power would be $1.9 billion, with a $1.6 billion GDP reduction, according to TPW.

Mobile electronics and accessories

As 78% of smartphones are imported from China, they are projected to face a 39.5% average tariff rate under the combined measures. This could push up consumer prices by about 31%, or $255 more than the current average of $826. The absence of domestic production means alternative supply will be difficult to secure quickly. Imports are projected to drop by 48%, and purchases are expected to fall by the same amount. As a consequence, this shift would erase $31.2 billion in spending power and lead to a $17.9 billion economic loss, TPW believes.

Connected devices, including smart speakers, smart watches, wearables, and Wi-Fi-connected gadgets, would become 22% more expensive, according to the report. While countries like Vietnam have been gradually increasing production of devices such as Apple's AirPods in the recent years, Chinese companies still produce a substantial share of these items. Consequently, TPW says import reductions of 40% are likely, with a 6% increase in U.S. production. Consumers would pay $81 more for smartwatches, $20 more for fitness bands, and $10 more for speakers. Total loss in consumer power would reach $18.3 billion, and economic output would contract by $7.8 billion.

Speakers and headphones, around half of which come from China, would face 86.6% average tariffs, up from 0.9%, raising prices by 22%, according to TPW. Headphones would cost $5 more, speakers $60 more. Imports from China would drop 99.8%, and total imports would shrink by two-thirds. Production in America would grow by 24%, while consumption would fall 39%, yielding a $2.5 billion reduction in consumer power and a $1.5 billion GDP loss.

Computer accessories like keyboards, printers, mice, and docks would see prices rise by 25%, with average tariffs moving from 1.5% to 39.5%, TPW believes. Imports would drop nearly in half, and production in the U.S. would climb by just 12%. Printers could cost $58 more, and the total reduction in consumer buying power is projected at $13.1 billion. The broader economy would contract by $7.6 billion.

Finally, lithium-ion batteries for consumer electronics, most of which come from China, would see tariffs rise from 5.9% to 117.7% — raising prices by nearly 18%. Imports would fall 71%, and local production would grow by 16% at best. Prices would rise up to $16 per unit, causing a $2.4 billion loss in consumer power and a $2.0 billion impact on GDP.

While the tariffs aim to stimulate U.S. manufacturing, the study shows they'll mainly impact consumers, who will face significantly higher prices amid limited domestic production gains to offset them.

There’s a new member of Alienware’s excellent QD-OLED gaming monitor family, and it looks to be potent for enthusiasts seeking to gain an advantage over the competition. The new AW3425DW sports a 34-inch QD-OLED panel in a widescreen 21:9 aspect ratio and 3440 x 1440 resolution with an 1800R curve.

Compared to its predecessor, the AW3423DW, Alienware has increased the maximum refresh rate from 175 Hz to 240 Hz. More importantly, the AW3423DW only featured HDMI 2.0 ports, limiting the refresh rate over HDMI to just 100 Hz. However, the AW3425DW has no such concessions as it supports 240 Hz over HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4. Speaking of ports, the AW3425DW features one DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.1 ports. It also features an integrated hub with 5 Gbps USB-A and USB-C ports (the USB-C port supports 15-watt charging).

Given that this is a QD-OLED panel, you won’t be shocked to learn that it boasts a 1,500,000:1 contrast ratio and a quick 0.03 ms response time. SDR brightness isn’t usually a strong point for OLED panels, and the AW3425DW is rated for 250 nits. However, peak HDR brightness is measured at 1,000 nits with a 3 percent window. As expected from any high-end gaming monitor, the AW3425DW supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and Nvidia G-Sync.

Besides the internal upgrades, the AW3425DW also incorporates the new AW30 design language finished in Interstellar Indigo. The organic shapes look quite sleek, and you'll also find AlienFX RGB lighting, which is customizable via the Alienware Command Center software package.

A couple of additional notes on the AW3425DW: most OLED gaming monitors feature a glossy finish to make colors pop a bit more, but this one has an anti-reflective coating. Alienware has also incorporated a graphene-infused heatsink within the panel to better dissipate excess heat. According to Alienware, this is yet another mitigation strategy to root out potential screen burn-in.

The Alienware AW3425DW is currently available in the United States and is priced at $799.99.

If you're on the hunt for a cheap laptop for work and play or do some light gaming, then today's deal might be useful to you. Spotted at Dell.com, the Inspiron 16 Plus laptop is on clearance sale. This is a more productivity-based laptop that is useful for browsing the internet, coding, or studying, but not so great for gaming as it doesn't feature a dedicated laptop graphics card. It does have an integrated Intel UHD graphics solution, so you can still play less taxing games on this laptop.

Today's deal is on the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus laptop for just $ 599. The original list price stated for this laptop is $999, so you're saving $400 on this clearance discount offer.

The Dell Inspiron 16 features a bright 300-nit IPS panel and has a decently sharp 2560 x 1600 resolution along with a 120 Hz refresh rate. The 16:10 screen ratio is a popular choice for modern laptops. Inside the chassis of the Inspiron 16 Plus is a 10-core 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13620H processor with integrated UHD graphics, 16GB of DDR5 4800 MT/s RAM, and a 1TB SSD for storage.

Don't forget to look at our Dell coupon codes for April 2025 and see if you can save on today's deal or other products at Dell.

PC makers have been preparing to reduce reliance on hardware produced in China for years, and large computer suppliers like Dell and HP seem to have diversified their supply chains. For smaller system integrators, the situation is more complex.

Recent U.S. government-imposed taxes on Chinese imports are driving up the cost of computer parts and there's only so much they can do. Puget Systems published a blog post explaining that while it can absorb some of the price changes caused by tariffs, it will inevitably have to pass the higher costs on to its clients.

China produces a large portion of global electronics, so its impact on the computer market is hard to overestimate even though large companies like Apple, Dell, and HP are expanding production in other countries — including Vietnam, which isn't subject to U.S. tariffs. In early 2025, two separate 10% taxes were added on nearly all goods made in China — one on February 4, the other on March 4 — resulting in a combined 20% increase.

Additionally, goods that were temporarily exempt from a separate 25% charge set in 2018–2019 may lose that exemption on June 1, potentially bringing the total increase to 45% for some items, such as the best graphics cards.

"We absorb initial cost changes on many components," wrote Jon Bach, president of Puget Systems, in the blog post. "We adjust our pricing when ongoing long-term costs are clear, and absorb differences otherwise. This reduces noise and prevents us from making many nickel-and-dime changes."

Starting April 1, Puget Systems will adjust pricing based on updated component costs. Graphics cards and accelerators, due to their high cost, are being hit hardest — prices are going up by 10%, despite already being under a 20% tariff. That rate could jump to 45% on June 1, pending policy changes, Puget warns.

Puget also warns that parts like graphics cards can be expensive to buy at launch due to shortages. When combined with additional tariffs imposed by the U.S. government, graphics cards may get too expensive for many potential buyers.

Network and storage controllers are increasing by 20%, along with chassis and power supplies, as these are generally produced in China. CPU coolers and fans are also expected to rise around 20%, though their overall impact on system pricing is minimal.

For motherboards, initial changes will be held off, as parts come from various countries and it is still unclear how original design manufacturers will handle pricing under the new tariffs, so any adjustments will depend on how costs evolve. CPUs remain unaffected since most are not sourced from China.

SSDs and hard drives are seeing about a 10% price increase, mainly due to shifts in the broader supply network rather than tariffs on core components like NAND chips or media platters. Memory is also expected to rise around 10%, though recent spot market price drops may reduce the impact.

Costs for Puget's own services, such as warranties, will remain at the existing level as the company only changes in response to internal business expenses, typically tied to inflation and staffing.

In addition, some suppliers have raised prices more than necessary, using uncertainty as a reason to drive urgency and increase revenue. This kind of behavior is not limited to one industry and affects prices throughout the entire supply chain. Because the supply network is so layered, predicting costs can be difficult.

There's hope for some future relief if suppliers reduce prices, and those savings would be passed on. But that's something that would happen at a future date. In the meantime, Puget Systems stockpiles hardware, which helps to manage shortages and delay price hikes.

In addition, great relationship with suppliers and manufacturing partners also help: Puget can often get information about upcoming changes straight from the source and prepare.

But there's only so far such measures can reach, and with how quickly everything is changing, eventually Puget will be paying higher costs. At that point, it will need to pass those costs along to its customers. For now, Puget encourages customers to share their upcoming needs, make purchases early if possible, and factor possible price jumps into their budgets.

You might not be able to get your hands on a new Nvidia 50-series graphics card separately, but there are still a few floating about in prebuilt gaming PCs from various builders. Today's deal focuses on a top-spec build from Dell's Alienware lineup that features an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 at its heart. Now I do use the term "deal" here a little loosely, as yes, there is a deal whereby you get $400 off of the list price of this gaming rig, but, the cost of the whole PC is pretty expensive, and not a good deal if you're only after the GPU.

If you like this PC deal, check out Dell.com where the Alienware Area-51 (RTX 5080) gaming PC is listed for $4,649, a markdown of $400 on the list price of $5,049. This is a very beefy and competent gaming PC spec list with components that will be able to help push the most out of the latest game titles.

Dell has listened to customer feedback, done away with proprietary parts, and constructed a gaming PC that can be easily upgraded when more powerful components become available. The new case design features a glass side panel and a subdued yet modern design, and the hardware inside is up-to-date and powerful. The list of hardware inside this Alienware Area-51 includes the aforementioned Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU with 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, Intel's 24-core Core Ultra 9 285K processor, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and 4TB of SSD storage.

For cooling the CPU, the Alienware Area-51 uses a 360mm All-in-One liquid cooler, and to ensure the power-hungry GPU gets enough power and covers transient spikes, the PC comes with a 1500W Platinum-rated ATX12VO power supply.

Don't forget to look at our Dell coupon codes for March 2025 and see if you can save on today's deal or other products at Dell.

Leading PC makers have been shifting their production away from China for several years already, and now that the Trump administration is imposing prohibitive tariffs on imports from China, they are not caught completely off guard. HP will continue to shift production to other regions, and by the end of its fiscal year, 90% of its products for North America will be made outside of China. Dell also expects its diversified supply chain to lower the impact of tariffs but will have to pass the extra costs to end users if it cannot mitigate them. 

" By the end of fiscal year 2025 [in October], we expect more than 90% of HP products sold in North America will be built outside of China," said Enrique Lotes, chief executive of HP, during the company's earnings conference call with analysts and investors. "China will continue to be an important manufacturing hub for the rest of the world. As we look ahead, we are managing the current tariff increases on China and have included them in our outlook." 

Early this month, Trump's administration imposed a 10% tariff on imports from China, and earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump proposed an extra 10% duty on goods made in China and shipped to the U.S. For PC makers, this means increased costs. However, companies like HP seem to be prepared for this.

HP and other PC makers have been working to restructure their production network and reduce reliance on China, which has historically played a key role in manufacturing for North America. Shifting production from one country to another is difficult and cannot be done as a short-term or mid-term solution. So, to mitigate the ongoing instability due to tariffs, HP stockpiled hardware during the quarter to protect against cost fluctuations and ensure a steady supply of products. Of course, such actions lead to higher inventory levels, which affects HP's cash flow and cash conversion.

 "As part of the tariff response actions, we purposely produced additional inventory and also took advantage of strategic buy opportunities as part of overall cost mitigations," said Karen Parkhill, chief financial officer of HP. "While these actions will be economically beneficial to the year, they increased our cash conversion cycle, and as we pay for and sell the increased inventory, we anticipate a further impact in cash conversion."

While HP clearly says that 90% of the products it sells in North America will be made outside of China by October, its rival Dell only says that it has a diversified supply chain, which is expected to help it mitigate the tariffs on China-made goods.

"We built an industry-leading supply chain that is globally diverse, agile, resilient that helps us minimize the impacts of these trade regulations, tariffs to our customers and shareholders," said Jeffrey Clarke, chief operating officer, at the company's earnings call. "[…] Whatever tariff we cannot mitigate, we view that as an input cost and as our input costs go up, it may require us to adjust prices. That is what we have done in the past. I cannot imagine we are going to do anything differently."

IDC has revised its expectations for the personal computer market, lowering its forecast for 2025 and beyond due to U.S. tariffs on China-made goods and reduced consumer demand. But the PC industry has tailwinds as well as headwinds, so sales of PCs will increase in 2025 compared to the prior year.

Global PC shipments are now projected to reach 273 million next year, growing 3.7% from 2024 — slightly less than previously estimated by IDC. PC growth is expected to slow further, remaining under 1% annually through 2029. On the other hand, workstations are expected to maintain steady demand. PC makers pin their hopes on AI-powered PCs, yet the category has struggled to gain traction so far; IDC expects to see stronger adoption by 2026 as the technology matures and the ecosystem around them improves.

Sales of tablets are projected to struggle, with shipments predicted to drop 0.8% in 2025 to 143.3 million and gradually decline to 141.6 million by the end of the decade mainly due to market saturation among consumers.

"Price hikes stemming from tariffs in the US combined with subdued demand are leading to a negative impact within the largest market for PCs," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "However, the weakness amongst consumer demand is universal as macro issues persist. There are still some silver linings though: workstation volume should remain healthy, along with near-term tablet demand in China boosted by consumer subsidies."

Consumer PC and tablets shipments are set to rise slightly by 0.2% in 2025, totaling 236.7 million units, but demand remains weak due to price hikes in the U.S. linked to tariffs as well as economic conditions in the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, the commercial sector — excluding education — will expand to 138 million PC and tablet units, or by 4.3%, in 2025 (possibly driven by the end of Windows 10 support) and maintain modest long-term growth at 0.8% annually. IDC notes that while the transition to Windows 11 is influencing purchasing decisions, budget constraints may push some businesses to rely on extended Windows 10 support instead.

The education segment, which will initially grow to 41.7 million PCs and tablets this year, or by 6.7%, is expected to shrink in the long run, with a compound annual decline of 2.1%.

Japan stands out as one of the few regions experiencing strong growth, as companies and smaller businesses are quickly replacing older systems before Windows 10 support ends in October. While expansion is set to slow after this surge, an ongoing education-sector initiative is expected to provide continued support for the market, according to IDC.

"In light of so many challenges around the world, Japan is a much-needed source of double-digit growth this year. Enterprises there as well as SMBs have been quickly replacing PCs in advance of the Windows 10 End Of Service in October," says Bryan Ma, vice president of Devices Research. "Growth rates naturally come down next year, but at least there is still a large education project to absorb some of the landing."

Right now at Best Buy, you can find the Dell S2721NX 27-inch FHD monitor for one of its lowest prices to date. This IPS display usually goes for around $159 but it's currently discounted to just $89. This deal is part of a limited offer that's scheduled to expire by the end of February 23rd, 2025 (14 hours left at the time of publishing), so you don't have too much time to mull over whether or not you want to indulge in a new monitor.

Unfortunately, we haven't had the opportunity to review the Dell S2721NX just yet, but we definitely have plenty of experience with leading brands like Dell and other monitors on the market. If you want to get a better idea of how this monitor compares to other popular displays, you should check out our list of best gaming monitors. There you can see what our favorite picks are in various categories ranging from budget displays to those with super high-quality specs.

The Dell S2721NX monitor is built around a 27-inch IPS display panel. It has an FHD resolution which measures 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. The refresh rate isn't the highest on the market, reaching just 75 Hz, but for a monitor under $100, we can't complain too much. FreeSync should help smooth out stutters and tearing as long as your GPU can hold between 48 and 75 Hz, too. The S2721NX has a refresh rate of 4ms.

Adding further appeal to the S2721NX for occasional gaming is its low latency and low framerate compensation support. The brightness is capable of reaching 300 Nits which definitely isn't too bad for a monitor in this price range. An anti-glare matte 3H coating should aid visibility if there is a strong light somewhere in your work/play environment. The 1,000:1 contrast ratio is pretty typical for an IPS panel.

As far as video input goes, you get two HDMI 1.4 ports to take advantage of, no DP sadly. There's a 3.5mm headphone jack, too.

The purchase is supported by both Best Buy's return policy as well as a 1-year manufacturer's warranty from Dell.

Again, this discount is part of a limited offer that is set to expire by the end of the day. If you want to take a closer look at the deal, head over to the official Dell S2721NX 27-inch IPS FHD monitor product page at Best Buy for more information and purchase options.

We’re starting the week with coverage of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The show officially begins today, but many big names in the industry have already started announcing new products aimed squarely at the gaming audience.

From Nvidia to Intel to AMD, there is plenty of hardware news to tickle your fancy. We even have some updates on the display standard side in the form of DisplayPort 2.1b and HDMI 2.2.

Nvidia announces GeForce RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070 based on “Blackwell”

Perhaps the biggest hardware news of the day came from Nvidia, which announced its latest family of GeForce graphics cards built on Blackwell architecture. The new graphics card family is heading to the desktop market, and Nvidia announced that the full slate is also on deck for gaming laptops.

All the new Blackwell chips are built on TSMC’s 4NP process node. Although Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang didn’t provide transistor counts for the lesser members of the family, he revealed that the GeForce RTX 5090 has a staggering 92 billion transistors. The flagship chip also has 32GB of 28 Gbps GDDR7 memory, 3,400 AI TOPS of performance, and 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance. The new GPUs are already in volume production and will be available later this month. The GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 will be priced at $1,999, $999, $749, and $549, respectively.

• Nvidia announces RTX 5090 for $1,999, 5070 for $549, AI, DLSS 4, and more
• Nvidia RTX 5070 at $549 takes on the incumbent RTX 4070
• Nvidia DLSS 4 key to RTX 50-series' claimed 2X performance boost
• Asus debuts quad-fan flagship ROG Astral RTX 50-series GPUs at CES

Intel Arrow Lake goes mobile, AMD’s family of 3D V-Cache chips expands

Intel is ready to fire its arrows at the laptop market with the Core Ultra 200HX and Core Ultra 200H processor families. Intel hopes to shore up its defenses against its perennial competitor, AMD, and a newcomer, Qualcomm. The Core Ultra 200HX processors will be featured in desktop replacement gaming laptops, headlined by the Core Ultra 9 285HX. The Core Ultra 200H family is destined for mainstream laptops, with the Core Ultra 9 258H sitting at the top of the totem pole.

There will also be a mix of other 200 series processors based on older architectures, including the Core 200H (non-Ultra), based on Raptor Lake; Core Ultra 200U, based on Meteor Lake; and Core Ultra 200S (a fork of desktop-based Arrow Lake processors).

While Intel’s gaming ambitions took a hit with Arrow Lake, AMD shows no signs of slowing down. It announced two new members to its X3D family: the Ryzen 9 9950X3D (16 cores, 332 threads and the Ryzen 9 9900X3D (12 cores, 24 threads). AMD claims that the former offers a 20 percent uplift in performance over Intel’s flagship Arrow Lake K-Series processor and comes within 1 percent of the famed Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Let’s hope that retail availability for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is better than the notoriously hard-to-find Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

If thin-and-light notebooks are your area of focus, you might want to look at AMD’s “Strix Halo” Ryzen AI Max series processors. AMD’s point of reference for performance comparisons is with Intel’s Lunar Lake processors, and it says that its chips offer up to a 1.4x improvement in gaming performance.

The most potent member of the family is the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (16 cores, 32 threads) with an onboard Radeon 8060S GPU (RDNA 3.5).

And for folks that want the absolute best performance on a gaming laptop, look no further than the new HX3D “Fire Range” mobile processors. They bring the 3D V-Cache goodness from the desktop side to laptops. The new Zen 5-based chips, available during the first half of 2025, are led by the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D. It features 12 cores (32 threads) and throws in an extra 96MB of L3 cache to boost gaming performance and offers a maximum boost clock of 5.4 GHz.

• Intel launches Arrow Lake mobile family with Core Ultra 200HX and 200H processors for gaming laptops
• AMD’s beastly ‘Strix Halo’ Ryzen AI Max+ debuts with radical new memory tech to feed RDNA 3.5 graphics and Zen 5 CPU cores
• AMD launches Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D, claims 20% faster gaming performance than Intel’s flagship Arrow Lake processors
• AMD launches Ryzen AI 300 and 200 series chips for laptops
• AMD Launches ‘Fire Range’ HX3D mobile processor with game-boosting 3D V-Cache, other HX Series SKUs built on Zen 5 desktop CPU silicon

Dell retires XPS, Inspiron, and Optiplex branding

Dell’s long-standing XPS, Inspiron, and Optiplex brands are getting the axe. Dell says this move will simplify its naming conventions for consumers, but we have our doubts about those claims. At first glance, this move seems similar to Apple’s laptop nomenclature.

In the future, Dell will use a three-tier system for its consumer PCs: Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max. Each tier will then be subdivided into Base, Plus, and Premium. But it gets even more complicated, with 2-in-1 labels for convertibles and screen sizes thrown into the product name as well.

If there’s any consolation, the Alienware brand emerges unscathed from this naming revamp.

• Dell kills XPS and Optiplex brands, adopts Apple-inspired three-tiered naming scheme for its PCs

HDMI 2.2 and DisplayPort 2.1b standards announced

Although it might not be as sexy as a new graphics card or a brand-new laptop, new HDMI and DisplayPort standards were announced at CES. HDMI 2.2 increases the maximum bandwidth to 96 Gbps, necessitating Ultra96 HDMI cables. The standard supports high-bandwidth applications, supporting 4K at up to 480 Hz, 8K at up to 240 Hz, and even 10K at 120 Hz.

DisplayPort 2.1b now supports 80 Gbps transfers at distances of up to three meters using active “DP80LL” cables.

• HDMI 2.2 and DisplayPort 2.1b display standards announced, offering greater bandwidth and strict cable requirements

AMD teases its first RDNA 4 desktop graphics cards

Although AMD didn’t give us a full breakdown of specs and how they will compare to their Nvidia and Intel counterparts, the company did announce the upcoming availability of Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics cards.

These RDNA 4 GPUs will be built on a 4nm TSMC process node and promise to deliver improved ray tracing performance and optimized compute units. This time around, AMD won’t be gunning for the absolute highest tier of performance with its graphics cards. Instead, the Radeon RX 9700/9700 XT and Radeon 9600/9600 XT seemingly coincide with the GeForce RTX 4070/4070 Ti and RTX 4060/4060 Ti (and their eventual RTX 50 Series successors).

• AMD RDNA 4 Radeon RX 9000-series GPUs revealed
• Asus first to announce Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards
• AMD explains the missing RDNA 4 GPUs in its CES 2025 livestream

New laptops and everything else

Several new laptops were announced along with other odds and ends on the first (unofficial) day of CES.

• HP's latest Omen 16 laptops, Omen 16L gaming desktop offer compact, understated design and AMD or Intel CPU options
• MSI’s New gaming laptops include a Norse-themed Titan Dragon Edition, translucent Cyborg
• Acer’s new Predator Helios gaming laptops up the ante on performance and RGB – RTX 50 series and Intel Core 200HX CPUs meet a disco’s worth of glowing RGB
• Asus unveils full suite of RTX 5000 series gaming laptops, complete with 100% DCI-P3 screens
• Acer’s eco-friendly Vero 16 laptop is made from oyster shells and recycled plastic
• Acer’s gaming handhelds go big with 9- and 11-inch displays – Nitro Blaze 8, Blaze 11 pack AMD 8840HS CPUs
• AMD announces Ryzen Z2 series processors for handhelds
• Intel announces H810 and B860 budget chipsets for Core Ultra 200 CPUs
• Qualcomm teases mini desktop PC, announces 8-core Snapdragon X chip to bring Arm-powered Windows CoPilot+ laptops down to ~$600
• Alienware unleashes 27-inch AW2725Q QD-OLED 4K 240Hz gaming monitor for gamers who like high ppi
• New Alienware Area-51 laptops have a Gorilla Glass window, color-shifting paint job
• Acer’s Predator X323QX elevates 16:9 gaming to 5K at 144Hz
• HP’s new Omen gaming monitors include 280 Hz IPS Black and Google TV options

At a New York event headlined by founder Michael Dell, Dell announced a dramatic rethink of its laptop sub-brands. It is ditching well-known and long-running options like XPS, Inspiron, and Optiplex for a three-tiered system that it’s hard to not directly compare to Apple. Going forward, Dell’s new consumer PCs will be known simply as Dell, while business-focused models will get the Dell Pro moniker, and high-performance workstation-class systems will be labeled Dell Pro Max. Its gaming-focused Alienware brand is exempt from this renaming scheme.

The company looks at this as a simplification (rival HP did something similar under the Omni brand last year), with internal research indicating buyers only really care about the Dell name. But there will, of course, have to be numbers to indicate screen size, and there are three tiers (Base, Plus, Premium) to indicate the level of features. For convertibles, there will be a 2-in-1 label to denote a 360-degree hinge. And the company is expanding its AMD and Qualcomm offerings, while continuing to offer Intel Lunar Lake. So, it’s unclear how exactly this will simplify the company’s naming scheme.

Examples in the press materials provided include a consumer-focused 16-inch convertible featuring a Lunar Lake chip with the Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1 name and a DB06250 model name. A 14-inch workstation with an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and Nvidia Pro RTX 2000-series graphics was labeled as Dell Pro Max 14. The latter had no provided model name, but you can be sure that, with many models offering multiple Qualcomm, AMD, and Intel CPUs, full model and configuration names will still be complex.

Gamers have dodged the revamp, so Alienware’s Aurora brand and others will endure. 

To be fair to Dell, I am sure the XPS brand is more iconic to the tech journalism world (and Latitude and Precision are far more recognizable to the IT crowd) than to the average consumer. But I would not be surprised to see the company re-launch some of its classic brands to much fanfare within three or four years. You heard the rumor here first: Dell announces a sub-two-pound XPS 14 at CES 2029!

Dell 14 Plus

The Dell 14 plus is one of the first laptops launching under the company’s new naming scheme, which we got some brief hands-on time with at Dell’s event.

It will be offered with Intel’s Lunar Lake CPUs, from a Core Ultra 5 226V, up to an Ultra 9 288V, 16 or 32GB of RAM, with either a 1920x1200 display or a 2560x1600 display. The latter is listed as IPS. As this is the mid-range consumer tier, don’t expect the best in ultra-portability. The laptop is 0.67 inches thick and has a listed starting weight of 3.42 pounds.

Dell 15 Plus 2-in-1

A larger Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1 was also shown off with an eye-catching 600-nit Mini-LED touchscreen with a 90 Hz refresh rate. It offers the same CPU and RAM options as the Dell 14 Plus, but is available in the silvery “ice blue” of the 14 Plus and a darker “midnight blue.”

The screen on the 16 Plus looked great in our brief time with it, but otherwise nothing particular stands out about the design of these devices. Then again, that’s true of most mid-range consumer laptops made by Dell or anyone else.  

If you've been in the market for a dedicated gaming rig, you've got to check out this discount on the Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 4070i gaming desktop. It usually goes for around $2099 but today it's discounted to $1499 as part of a Black Friday promotion. This saves you $600 off the asking price, netting an RTX 4070i GPU, Intel Core i7-14700F CPU, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of internal storage.

We reviewed a slightly different version of the Aurora R16 gaming desktop that had some spec differences and were very pleased with our experience. We ended up giving it a rating of 3.5/5 stars, remarking on its port selection and small footprint. Our biggest gripes were that the fans can occasionally get loud and the fact that it uses a proprietary motherboard.

The main processor powering the Alienware Aurora R16 gaming desktop is an Intel Core i7-14700F. It works alongside an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070i Super graphics card that has 16GB of GDDR6X. For memory, it comes with 16GB of DDR5-5600 via two 8GB modules and a 1TB internal SSD. It's also powered by a 1000W Platinum SSD.

As far as networking support goes, it has WiFI 6E AX210 802.11ax support and an Ethernet port for wired connections. Like we mentioned above, it's got quite a bit to choose from as far as ports go. The front panel has three USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports and a USB Type-C Gen 2 3.2 port. The rear ports include an assortment of audio ports, two USB Type-C ports and six USB Type-C Gen 2 3.2 ports.

It's not clear for how long this offer will be made available so we can't guarantee it will last past Black Friday. Visit the Alienware Aurora R16 gaming desktop product page at Dell while supplies last.

The Dell Alienware m18 R2 featuring Nvidia's flagship RTX 4090 mobile GPU alongside Intel's 24-core i9-14900HX has dropped to $2,999 this Black Friday. Whether it be heavy workloads, gaming, or internet browsing, the m18 carries 64GB of DDR5-5200 RAM, a 4TB SSD, and a stunning 18-inch 480 Hz display to fulfill all your needs.

The RTX 4090 laptop GPU - based on AD103 silicon - offers 9728 CUDA cores and 16GB of VRAM. We see Intel's i9-14900HX on the CPU end in action - with a massive 24-core count (eight P-cores and sixteen E-cores) and 32 threads. Intel's "HX" processors are essentially rebadged desktop processors in the mobile form factor. This allows the i9-14900HX to boost up to 5.8 GHz and is further backed by 68MB of total cache (36MB L3 + 32MB L2).

The Dell Alienware m18 comes installed with Windows 11 Home and includes a 360W SFF power adapter. Check out our detailed review of this laptop for a closer look at its relative performance. Below, you can see several of our extensive gaming benchmarks we ran on this laptop to compare it with other leading models. 

Modern workloads are memory-intensive and to address that problem, the m18 comes equipped with 64GB of DDR5-5200 RAM (2x32GB) - running in dual-channel. The 4TB SSD, on the other hand, should eliminate all storage concerns, although Dell did not disclose the specific speeds.

Moving over to the externals, the m18's chassis is built using anodized Aluminium and offers a Dark Metallic Moon finish. The display is decked out with a large 18-inch 1920x1200 panel, running at 480 Hz, with G-SYNC compatibility, and can display 100% of the DCI-P3 color space. All this performance does come at the cost of a lower battery runtime. However, the 97Wh 6-cell battery should be ample to provide a few hours of backup.

You also have the option to swap the existing keyboard with an LP-mechanical US-profile keyboard with CherryMX switches for $50 more. While ultrabooks and slim laptops are all the hype, they compromise on I/O ports. On that note, the m18 offers a robust selection of ports, including four different USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one RJ45 Ethernet port, one 3.5mm port, one HDMI 2.1 port, one power-adapter port, one mini-display port and one SD-card slot.

We are working hard to find the best deals for you this Black Friday. If you're looking for other products, check out our Black Friday Computer Hardware Deals Live blog for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals Live blog, Monitor Deals Live, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

After Donald Trump announced plans to slap a 10% tariff on Chinese imports, leading PC makers Dell, HP, and Microsoft decided to prepare and asked their manufacturing partners in China to maximize their output in November and December to lower costs and mitigate potential disruptions, reports Nikkei. The longer-term plan of all three companies (and the industry at large) is to transfer production from China to other countries. 

"We have been in meetings with several U.S. clients, and they are all eager to know whether we can further accelerate our plan to have meaningful production outside of China," one electronics component maker that supplies Apple, HP, and Microsoft told Nikkei. 

Virtually all leading electronics suppliers have been shifting their production away from China in recent years to reduce their geopolitical risks. Hence, the strategy has nothing to do with Trump returning to power. However, with a 10% tariff on Chinese imports and 25% on goods from Mexico and Canada announced on Trump's first day in office, the tech giants are taking swift action. 

Since plenty of components and assembly are done in China, Dell, HP, and Microsoft asked their suppliers in the People's Republic to maximize their production in November and December so they could ship these goods either to the U.S. or warehouses in other countries to avoid paying tariffs. 

Dell, which already produces some goods in Vietnam, is exploring further diversification within Southeast Asia to reduce geopolitical risks. For HP, one partner has rented a factory in Thailand to immediately begin production for the major client. Others have built new warehouses and production facilities in Thailand for HP, and more are under construction. Both Dell and HP aim to sharply reduce their use of Chinese-made parts in desktops and laptops and are currently reassessing procurement plans through 2025. 

Microsoft is also pushing suppliers to increase cloud server component production in November and December to avoid tariffs. The company also plans to relocate the assembly of Xbox consoles and Surface laptops outside China. Since it is impossible to move production from one facility to another overnight, the company reportedly aims to produce as many of these devices as possible outside of China by the end of 2025.

In addition, contract electronics manufacturers have been preemptively increasing output since Trump's election victory, which includes pretty much all types of components, such as mechanical parts, passive components, and PCBs. Concerns over 'origin laundering' mentioned by Trump during the campaign have added urgency, so companies are striving to meet regulatory and tariff requirements.

With Black Friday just around the corner, you can already find some pretty good discounts on quality hardware, like this offer from Dell on the Alienware Aurora R16 gaming desktop. It debuted with a price tag of $3,999, but as of writing, it's currently available 33% off, or just $2,999. This is one of the best prices we've seen for the machine since its launch.

We reviewed both editions of the Alienware Aurora R16 in late 2023 and ultimately rated our experience at 3.5 out of 5 stars. Overall, the machine performed well, but a few caveats stood out. However, considering today's discount, it's easier to look past those concerns. 

Under the hood of this gaming rig, you'll find an Intel Core i9-14900KF processor paired with an OEM GeForce RTX 4090 GPU. It comes with 32GB of DDR5-5600 and two SK Hynix PC801 1TB internal SSDs. The processor is cooled by a 240mm liquid cooler and two 120mm case fans. For network connectivity, you've got both an Ethernet port for wired connections as well as Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1675x for wireless support.

The front port selection includes three USB 3.2 Type-A ports and one UB 3.2 Type-C port alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the rear panel, you get four USB 2.0 Type-A ports, two USB 3.2 Type-A ports and two USB 3.2 Type-C ports. There's also a decent selection of audio ports including a line in, line out, mic in and SPDIF to take advantage of. Video output includes an HDMI port and three DisplayPorts. The unit also features a 1000W Platinum power supply.

This system is poised to deliver great performance with Intel's fastest gaming CPU paired with Nvidia's fastest gaming GPU. However, while we appreciated its footprint paired with a vast selection of front ports, we weren't fans of the proprietary motherboard and how loud the fans could get when cooling under heavy loads. Again, these considerations aren't as pressing given the reduced cost. 

Visit the Alienware Aurora R16 gaming desktop product page at Dell for more details and purchase options.

Jeff Clarke, chief operating officer and vice chairman of Dell, has announced that his company had started shipments of servers based on Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs for AI and HPC and Grace CPUs. The machines use liquid-cooled PowerEdge XE9712 racks and are aimed at enterprises.

"Incredibly excited to ship the industry's first enterprise-ready Nvidia GB200 NVL72 server racks," Clarke wrote in an X post. "These fully integrated, liquid-cooled PowerEdge XE9712 racks are a huge milestone, the foundation for Dell AI Factory with Nvidia to advance HPC and AI innovation."

Dell mentioned CoreWeave, a cloud service provider focused on AI that has very close ties to Nvidia. As the company exclusively uses Nvidia GPUs, it gets preferential treatment and product allocation from the green company, so it is not particularly surprising that CoreWeave is among the first CSPs to get Nvidia's Blackwell hardware.

"We are proud to bring up the first Nvidia GB200 NVL72 from Dell with Nvidia Quantum InfiniBand, setting a new bar for AI infrastructure," an X post by CoreWeave reads. "This would not have been possible without the support of our valued partners at Dell and Switch."

It should be noted that the GB200 hardware that Nvidia ships today is based on the initial low-yield revision of B200 processors. These GPUs are in relatively short supply, so do not expect the company to ship a boatload of such processors. Officially, the company expects to ship several billion dollars worth of Blackwell hardware this fiscal year, which is significantly below the company's earnings from Hopper hardware in the most recent quarter.

Yet, it is strategically important for Nvidia to start shipments of Blackwell GPUs rather sooner than later in a bid to enable its partners to tailor their software for the latest architecture.

Each Nvidia NVL72 server rack is projected to consume up to 120kW of power (up from 40kW in the case of Hopper-based racks), which is significantly higher than typical server racks currently used by cloud server providers. To install such machines into their datacenters, CSPs may have to redesign their server rooms in a bid to feed such servers with sufficient power.

Earlier this month, the Australian Border Force (ABF) found 100kg (~220 pounds) of methamphetamine hidden inside a consignment of imported PC tower cases. This week, after all the contraband had been removed, the ABF and Australian Federal Police (AFP) arrested a 45-year-old Malaysian man when he allegedly accepted delivery of the imported cases. The unnamed individual will face charges of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of border-controlled drugs, which could lead to life imprisonment. Do they not show the 20-year-running reality show Border Security: Australia's Front Line in Malaysia?

The foolhardy smuggler appears to have had his partner(s) in crime ship a consignment of at least 12 boxes packed with tower PC cases, which were in turn stuffed with illicit packages. PC cases typically offer generous capacity for today’s powerful PC components which also makes them useful for hiding sizable quantities of illicit goods – like drugs.

These PC towers seem to be in Suncomp-branded outer cartons, but from the glimpses we have they are empty Dell Optiplex cases. Perhaps the cases come from recycling or office surplus, to save budget for more drugs. The images shared by the AFP show that a single case can fit in a considerable amount of contraband.

AFP Acting Superintendent Stuart Millen had some words to share about the PC meth haul “This amount of methamphetamine could have been sold as about one million street level deals. It would have caused widespread harm, with the negative impact felt in domestic violence, in our hospitals and the road toll,” he said. Millen also reminded readers that drug smuggling criminals aren’t nice.

The AFP press release about this case also hints that there were some anomalies that led to them uncovering this smuggling plot. Of course, they don’t explain exactly what the tip-off was, but they know criminal syndicates are hiding “illicit substances in creative cavities to evade our detection.” ABF Acting Commander Matthew O’Connor also claimed this meth smuggling plot was foiled by a combination of the skills of officers on duty and collaboration with federal and state police.

Following sanctions from the United States and its allies over the war against Ukraine, Russia now has to smuggle advanced processors into the country. As discovered by Bloomberg, an Indian pharmaceutical company has been exporting Dell servers to Russia, circumventing sanctions imposed by the U.S. government.  

Between April and August 2024, Shreya Life Sciences shipped 1,111 Dell PowerEdge XE9680 servers, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, to Russia. These servers are based on Intel's 4th Generation Xeon Scalable CPUs and are equipped with AMD Instinct MI300X or Nvidia H100 processors for AI and HPC processors. The shipments, which were legally conducted under India's trade regulations, were sent to two Russian companies, Main Chain Ltd. and I.S LLC. Trade data shows that these exports began in September 2022, following the imposition of sanctions that cut off access to Western markets. 

The servers trace back to Malaysia, where they were initially sourced by Dell's subsidiary in India before being exported to Russia. Shipping documents for over 800 PowerEdge XE9680 servers show Malaysia as the country of origin. Between March and August 2024, India imported 1,407 of these Dell servers from Malaysia. Despite multiple attempts to seek comments from Malaysian officials regarding the exports, neither Malaysia’s Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry nor the Prime Minister’s Office provided a response to Bloomberg. 

Shreya’s exports of Dell servers to Russia surged in April 2024, with an average price of $260,000 per server. These servers are classified under HS code 847150, part of a list of dual-use goods restricted by the EU and U.S. to prevent their use in Russian military operations. Main Chain, the primary recipient of Shreya's exports, was registered in Russia in January 2023 and is headed by Anastasia Obukhova, who previously ran small tourism companies. 

Shreya Life Sciences, founded in Moscow in 1995 by Sujit Kumar Singh, initially focused on distributing pharmaceutical products but later expanded into manufacturing. In addition to its pharmaceutical exports, which amounted to $22 million between January 2022 and August 2024, Shreya began exporting restricted machines to Russia in September 2022. Its first shipment included computer hardware worth $755,333, sent to Russian trading company Lanprint Ltd., which was later sanctioned by the U.S. in September 2023. After Lanprint and another client, Silkway LLC, were sanctioned, Shreya shifted its exports to Main Chain Ltd. and I.S LLC, neither of which are currently on the U.S. sanctions list. 

Shreya, alongside another Indian company, Hayers Infotech, which operates out of the same office in Mumbai, has reportedly exported $434 million worth of high-tech goods to Russia since February 2022 facilitating the flow of AI and HPC GPUs to Russia, despite international efforts to stop such exports. Such routes has placed India under scrutiny by Western governments and made India the second-largest supplier of restricted technology to Russia, after China. In recent months, U.S. and E.U. officials have traveled to India to persuade the Indian government to cease these exports. However, India's stance remains unchanged, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government continues to prioritize its economic and military ties with Russia, particularly in the context of discounted Russian oil imports.

There are many options available for laptop gamers looking for the most bang for their buck. When it comes to the best gaming laptops under $1,000, the Dell G16 (7630) makes a strong case with a fast Core i7 processor, a GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, and a 2560 x 1600 display refreshing at 240 Hz.

That’s a lot of kit for just $999, but that's not everything. The laptop includes several USB Type-A ports, a Thunderbolt 4 port, Gigabit Ethernet, and, impressively for the price, a Cherry MX mechanical keyboard with RGB lightning. At least on paper, the Dell G16 looks like a slam dunk in the entry-level gaming class, but read on to see how it fares against the competition.

What is the design of the Dell G16 (7630) like?

The G16 is a big laptop, and I don’t just mean in weight (6.3 pounds), but also in terms of pure size. It’s a big and thick machine – I measured it at 1-inch thick at its thinnest point (front) with the lid closed, and 1.25 inches thick at the rear. The thick and wide chassis not only allows Dell to put in a large 16-inch display, but there’s ample room to put in enough cooling for the 13th Gen "Raptor Lake" processor and the 140-watt GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU.

A mostly-plastic chassis is par for the course in laptops in the sub-$1,000 price range. You’ll also find that trend with the G16, with thick plastic used for the primary chassis and plenty of cutouts for ventilation. However, Dell tries to class things up with an aluminum lid with its logo emblazoned in the center.

The G16 looks good with its angular motif, projecting a bit of style that we’d expect in a laptop costing hundreds more. However, I will say that the angular design did irritate me in one way; The way the keyboard is positioned, the front-ridge edge of the deck dug into my palm when using the arrow keys, which was annoying.

There are two USB 3.2 Type-A ports on the right side of the chassis; while moving to the left side, you’ll see a Gigabit Ethernet port (with a drop-jaw hinge), a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and an LED status light for the battery. On the rear panel you will find a proprietary power port that accepts the 330-watt adapter with a barrel-style plug, another USB 3.2 Type-A port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a Thunderbolt 4 port.

Between the G16's heavy weight and sizable footprint, It’s not a device I’d feel comfortable lugging around frequently. For comparison, the Lenovo LOQ 15ARP9 measures 14.17 x 10.19 x 0.94 inches and weighs 5.12 pounds, while the MSI Katana 15 is 14.13 x 10.20 x 0.98 inches and 4.96 pounds. The Acer Nitro 16 is the next-portliest laptop in this group at 5.95 pounds, with dimensions of 14.8 x 11.02 x 1.1 inches.

What are the Dell G16 (7630) specifications?

What is the gaming performance of the Dell G16 (7630)

Our Dell G16 review unit is configured with an Intel Core i7-13650HX processor, 16GB of DDR5-4800 memory, and a GeForce RTX 4060 GPU (140W TDP). That’s a definite step up regarding its graphics performance ceiling compared to laptops using the same GPU with a 115W TDP. Dell ships the G16 with a 16-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600) display with a heady 240 Hz refresh rate.

The assembled competitors are the Lenovo LOQ 15ARP9 (Ryzen 7 7435HS, 115W RTX 4060), Acer Nitro 16 (Ryzen 5 7640HS, 140W RTX 4050), and the MSI Katana 15 (Core i7-13620H, 105W RTX 4050).

I’ve been playing more of Forespoken in recent months and decided to take the game for a spin on the G16. Running the game at the laptop’s native resolution of 2560 x 1600 resulted in a dismal 20 fps with Ultra-High settings enabled. Dialing things back a bit to the Standard graphical setting saw those frame rates climb to the high 40s, and sometimes even in the mid-50s if there wasn’t a lot of action on the screen.

I next shifted focus to our standard game benchmark suite, consisting of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Cyberpunk 2077, Far Cry 6, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Borderlands 3. Starting with Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest setting), the G16 led all competitors with 98 fps at 1080p resolution, but it only bested the next-fastest LOQ by 2 fps. When running at its native resolution of 1600p, performance dropped to 57 fps.

Cyberpunk 2077 (Very High settings) is one of our newer gaming benchmarks, so we only have results for the G16 and the LOQ. With that said, the G16 managed 33 fps at 1080p, which was once again 2 fps faster than the LOQ. When shifting the resolution to 1600p, the system could only muster 19 fps.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra settings) saw the G16 again take the lead at 1080p resolution at 85 fps, placing it 4 fps ahead of the Katana 15 and 6 fps ahead of the LOQ. Performance didn’t suffer as much as the two previous games when selecting 1600p, as we measured 61 fps.

We saw a tight grouping for top honors in Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings), with the G16 eking out the win at 1080p, but by just 1 frame over the LOQ and Nitro 16. 1600p performance dropped to 39 fps on the G16.

Finally, Borderlands 3 (Badass settings), put the G16 in the familiar spot at the top of the rankings with 82 fps at 1080p resolution. This put it just ahead of the LOQ and well clear of the Nitro 16 (63 fps) and Katana 15 (68 fps). The G16 managed 54 fps at native resolution (1600p).

Metro Exodus (RTX, 1080p settings) is our go-to benchmark for stress-testing gaming laptops. We run the test 10 times back-to-back and measure the average CPU and GPU clocks and temperatures. The CPU performance cores averaged 3.62 GHz, the efficiency cores averaged 2.96 GHz, and the CPU averaged 74.4 degrees Celsius (165.92 degrees Fahrenheit). The GPU averaged 2.2 GHz at a temperature of 59.2 C (138.56 F).

What is the productivity performance of the Dell G16 (7630)

The Dell G16 features a Core i7-13650HX processor, 16GB of DDR5-4800 memory (1x 16GB), and a 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD (WD SN750).

Kicking things off with the Geekbench 6 synthetic CPU benchmark, the G16 split the top of the ticket with the Katana 15. The G16 took top honors in the single-core benchmark (2,553 versus 2,394), but the Katana 15 emerged victorious in the multi-core test (12,727 versus 11,209).

Moving to our file transfer test, which involves copying 25GB of mixed files on the SSD, the G16 bested the competition by a large margin, with a speed of 1,718.8 Mbps. The next-closest competitor was the Katana 15 at 1,045.33 Mbps.

Our Handbrake test, during which we transcoded a 4K video file to 1080p, was also a strong showing for the G16. It completed the task in 4 minutes and 21 seconds, putting it 6 seconds ahead of the second-place Katana 15. The Nitro 16 was the group's laggard, taking 5 minutes and 48 seconds to finish.

What does the Display on the Dell G16 (7630) perform like?

The 16-inch, 2560 x 1600 display on the G16 is large and exceptionally bright, particularly when typing this review with a white background in Microsoft Word.

Our instrumented tests showed that the G16’s IPS panel hit 310 nits, tying for second place with the LOQ, and well behind the Nitro 16 (371 nits). But trust me, you won’t be left wanting for additional brightness from this display.

Color tests showed 169% coverage of sRGB and 114 percent of DCI-P3, which is quite good for a display in a budget gaming laptop. The next-closest competitor was the Nitro 16, while the Katana 15 was in the rear of the pack, disappointing in the color tests and in overall brightness.

Delivering excellent numbers on paper is one thing, but how it fares in the real world is equally, if not more important. In this case, the display proved to be responsive in every game I threw at it, although the games that I typically play don’t come close to taxing the 240 Hz refresh rate maximum that the G16 supports.

Colors in the lush environments of Forespoken looked beautiful and well-saturated. As far as I could tell, colors looked accurate, brightness was ample even in well (or overly lit) environments, and black levels were reasonable for an IPS display.

What are the keyboard and touchpad on the Dell G16 (7630) like to use?

The G16 features a Cherry MX mechanical keyboard with single-zone RGB backlighting. Key presses are firm and responsive with no hint of wobble as I typed furiously. The WASD keys are outlined in white, highlighting that this is a gaming machine.

One curious decision is to include A, B, C, D, and E keys in the function row. They are programmable using the Alienware Command Center app and can be used as hotkeys for functions. As a result, the volume, mute, and microphone keys are relegated to a vertical row above the left arrow key on the right side of the keyboard. I still haven’t gotten used to this positioning and would prefer audio controls to be on the function row. For example, I would reach to hit the Backspace key and instead hit the microphone mute key.

I did have a minor annoyance with the sharp, right-front edge of the chassis digging into my palm when using the arrow keys. With that said, I used Keyhero.com to measure my typing speed and came away with 89 words per minute with 94.09 percent accuracy.

The touchpad isn’t anything to write home about. It’s on the smaller side for such a large laptop, measuring 4.1 inches x 2.5 inches. It has a nice, smooth surface with minimal friction, which is my preference. It also has a satisfying click, although I sometimes had to press twice to register a click. There was no rhyme or reason to when this would occur, but it happened enough for me to make a mental note of it.

What are the speakers like on the Dell G16 (7630)?

Dell equipped the G16 with dual 2.5-watt speakers. They are branded or have any special branded tuning (like AKG or B&O) involved, and they sound OK. In other words, they are about what you’d expect for a laptop priced at $1,000. As usual, bass was lacking and music sounded mostly flat. The speakers are placed in the front corners of the chassis and fire downward.

I played “I Drive Alone” by Esthero, and was unimpressed with how muddled the vocals were, and the total lack of “oomph” from the background drums. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Far Cry 6 were no better regarding sound reproduction. Explosions and gunfire rang hollow, and character voices sounded as if they were belted out from a long and narrow hallway.

What is upgradeable on the Dell G16 (7630)?

There are ten Phillips head screws positioned around the perimeter of the bottom panel on the laptop. Once removed, the bottom panel quickly popped off using my fingernail as a guide.

Given the large footprint of the G16, there’s plenty of room to stick in a relatively large battery. In this case, we have an 86 WHr battery that is replenished via a 330W power adapter (which uses a proprietary, barrel-style plug).

You’ll find two M.2 slots, one of which houses the WD SN750 M.2 2230 SSD. The other slot is empty, and both slots accept full-length 2280 SSDs. There are two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots, one of which is occupied with a single 16GB DDR5-4800 module. I would have preferred two 8GB modules for a dual-channel configuration, but the overall performance of the G16 didn’t seem to suffer in our tests. The Wi-Fi module is also accessible, allowing you to upgrade to a newer Wi-Fi 7 unit if you desire.

What is the battery life on the Dell G16 (7630)?

Given the large footprint of the G16, there’s plenty of room to stick in a relatively large battery. In this case, we have an 86 WHr battery that is replenished via a 330W power adapter (which uses a proprietary, barrel-style plug).

Our battery life test relies on web browsing, video streaming, and OpenGL graphics tests with the screen brightness set to 150 nits. In this group of laptops, the G16 came in second place with a time of 5 hours and 3 minutes. However, this performance was overshadowed by the Nitro 16, which lasted an impressive 8 hours and 24 minutes. The Katana 15 was the straggler in the test, mustering just 2 hours and 39 minutes.

How warm does the Dell G16 (7630) get during gaming?

While running the Metro Exodus benchmark, we measured 35.8 C (96.5 F) between the G and H keys on the keyboard, while the touchpad was relatively cool at 25.2 C (77.5 F). The bottom of the chassis averaged abound 38 (100.5 F), but the hottest part of the laptop by far was near the rear-middle of the bottom chassis, which registered 41.7 C (107 F).

The G16 got a bit toasty when I saw it on my lap. Even when I wasn’t playing games, my legs quickly became warm while typing this review in Microsoft Word. However, things became a bit more uncomfortable when I started gaming. After a few minutes of Red Dead Redemption 2, I was ready to take the G16 off my lap and place it on the desk to escape the rising heat levels. (In general, we recommend gaming on a desk or table for this reason.

Fan noise wasn’t an issue when loafing around in Windows 11, or using standard desktop apps like Microsoft Office, Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. However, starting a game caused the dual fans to audibly whir, although not enough to become a huge annoyance while gaming. With that said, you can always pick up one the best gaming headsets if you’re overly sensitive to increased fan noise.

n the Dell G16 (7630)

Dell scraped the bottom of the barrel with the webcam. Perhaps it had a warehouse of 720p units that it needed to get rid of, which is potentially why we're stuck with one on the G16. Most of the competition in this price-sensitive segment has moved to 1080p or better webcams, which makes Dell’s decision a bit puzzling.

The picture was grainy, my facial features/frown lines/wrinkles were erased, and the blue in my shirt looked splotchy. There was no fine detail to be found anywhere in images or video. If you don’t care about how you look on video conference calls, then you might be served just fine by the G16’s webcam. However, it’s better to just opt for one of the best webcams.

What is the software and warranty on the G16 (7630)?

Compared to some companies, Dell plays it relatively safe with bloatware. Our review unit came with My Dell installed, which gives you access to information like your Service Tag for support, along with some quick links to change battery and multimedia settings. The Alienware Command Center is also included, which allows you to control keyboard hotkeys and macros, change the color of the RGB keyboard (and the light patterns), and gives you access to system vitals (clock speeds, memory usage, etc.). Dell Digital Delivery lets you manage software packages that you purchased with your system. In this case, McAfee Security was included to handle antivirus and malware protection on the G16.

That’s about it for extra apps that were installed on this system. You’ll find the usual shortcuts for TikTok, Dropbox, and Spotify, but that’s standard-issue for any Windows 11 PC.

The G16 comes with a one-year manufacturer warranty.

What are the Dell G16 (7630) configuration options?

Our review unit is the middle SKU in the G16 (7630) product range. It is equipped with an Intel Core i7-13650HX processor, 16GB of DDR5-4800 memory, a 1TB SSD, a GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, and a 16-inch 240Hz QHD+ display for $999. You can opt for an RTX 4050, which lops $100 off the price tag.

Opting for a Core i9-13900HX and an RTX 4070 takes the price up to $1,299.99.

Bottom Line

Dell has managed to pack a lot into a gaming laptop that just barely squeezes in under $1,000. Not only do you get a fast Raptor Lake-based processor (Core i7-13650HX), but you get a 140W GeForce RTX 4060 processor that helped our review unit ace all the gaming and productivity tests – it was nearly a clean sweep, save for it Geekbench 6 performance.

Throw in a 16-inch 2560 x 1600 IPS panel with a 240 Hz refresh rate, a Cherry MX mechanical keyboard, and plenty of ports for your peripherals, and it’s hard to find fault with the G16. My nits are a 720p webcam that has no place in any modern laptop these days and a general heft that makes the G16 feel more like a desktop replacement. But those are relatively minor knocks against a device that knocks it out of the park for performance per dollar.

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Dell's XPS 13 is finally available with multiple CPU options. Where previously it only ever came with Intel processors, it's now available with both Intel's Core Ultra 2 "Lunar Lake" chips and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite. The competition to be among the best ultrabooks is on.

We tested the Snapdragon version previously, and while Dell's design is as divisive as ever, it's hard to argue with a mix of performance and power. That gave us high hopes for the Lunar Lake model.

What the Intel version offers is more app compatibility, and long battery life, but the performance isn't as good as Qualcomm's. If you want a Dell XPS 13 with an x86 processor, the XPS 13 (9350) is for you. But if you're not worried about app compatibility, the Intel versions are challenged by Dell's embrace of Qualcomm.

Design of the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

Haven't I seen this movie?

While Dell first introduced this chassis in 2022 with the XPS 13 Plus (which isn't that long ago in the scheme of laptop designs), I feel like I've seen it many times before, as Dell has released multiple versions across two chip companies.

The XPS 13 is all aluminum and clean lines, with a black lid (at least on our model) and deck. Opening reveals what continues to be Dell's series of most controversial laptop design choices: a capacitive touch row above a keyboard with no spaces between the keys (Dell calls this "zero-lattice").

]There's also a haptic touchpad, but you can't see it. There are no border lines, so the wristrest appears completely clean.

Adding to Dell's minimalist aesthetic is a severe lack of ports. There are two Thunderbolt 4 over USB Type-C ports, one on each side of the laptop. That's it. No headphone jack, no SD card slot. Nothing. Those are saved for the people buying the XPS 14 and 16, because listening to music is for professionals, apparently.

That all adds up to a svelte 11.62 x 0.60 x 0.58-inch package that weighs 2.7 pounds. The Snapdragon version, the XPS 13 (9345), has the same dimensions and weighs 2.62 pounds. Apple's 13-inch M3 MacBook Air is 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches and 2.7 pounds, while the Asus Zenbook S14 is 12.22 x 8.45 x 0.51 inches and 2.65 pounds.

Dell XPS 13 (9350) Specifications

Productivity Performance on the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

This is the second system we've tested using one of Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 "Lunar Lake" processors. The Intel Core Ultra 7 258V comes with 32GB of RAM on board, and Dell paired that with a 512GB PCIe SSD. We tested in Dell's default out-of-the-box optimized mode.

On Geekbench 6, the Dell XPS 13 (9350) earned a single-core score of 2,660 and a multi-core score of 10,486.This is slightly behind the Zenbook S14 with the same chip (2,751 / 11,157), as well as the Snapdragon X Elite version of the XPS 13. The M3 MacBook Air beat out the rest of the field.

The XPS 13 (9350) was the fastest of the bunch on our file transfer test, copying 25GB of files at a rate of 1,533.85 MBps. That beat the Snapdragon-based XPS 13 (9345)'s 1,342.05 MBps and the rest of the competition.

On Handbrake, the XPS 13 demonstrated Lunar Lake's weakness in multi-core performance. It took the system 8 minutes and 35 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p, coming just ahead of the Zenbook at 8:28. The Snapdragon-based Dell XPS 13 (9345) smoked the competition at 4:47.

To push the XPS to its limits, we ran our Cinebench 2024 stress test, repeating the intense benchmark ten times. The system started with a score of 500 and slowly settled in the 470's, where it was consistent. The Intel Core Ultra 7 258V's P cores ran at an average of 2.5 GHz, while the E cores were higher at 2.83 GHz (this matches a pattern we saw on the Asus Zenbook S14 with Lunar Lake). The CPU package measured 73.33 degrees Celsius during the test.

Display on the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

We tested the Dell XPS 13 with two different displays. Our primary review unit boasted a 13.4-inch, 1920 x 1200 screen that goes up to 120 Hz, but we also checked out an OLED model with a 2880 x 1800 touch panel. (One other huge difference — the power they require. See the battery life section for more on that.)

The 1920 x 1200 display isn't as bright as I would like. Even with the brightness turned all the way up, the trailer for Thunderbolts* looked a little dim in some scenes, including a hallway fight and a fancy party. It's far from unuseable, especially when punctuated by bright red explosions, but it looked better on some other screens.

The just-past-FHD display covered 98.6% of the sRGB color gamut and 69.9% of the DCI-P3 color space, close to what we saw on the Snapdragon-based system. The OLED screen was far more vivid, as you'll see on our charts.

The 1920 x 1200 screen hit 375.8 nits, in the ballpark of the OLED model at 377 nits. Both were brighter than the Zenbook S14, but far dimmer than the MacBook Air (476.6 nits) and the Snapdragon-based XPS 13 (456 nits).

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

As long as Dell sticks with this XPS design, the keyboard and touchpad will continue to be controversial.

I don't have much of a problem with the "zero-lattice" keyboard. Despite looking different from most of the market, the 1 mm of travel feels deeper than expected. On monkeytype, I needed to take some extra time to get used to it, but even at my slowest I was at 99 words per minute.

But I'll never be able to fully accept the function row, especially for the delete and escape keys. A capable function row is just too important, and you shouldn't have to look down to change the volume, screen brightness, or even hit escape or CTRL + ALT + Delete (the latter of which is on the function row). We're going into our third year with this design, and it's time for Dell to give up and add buttons. Is this system extremely pretty? Yes. But when I use this function row, it feels like Dell chose to make a sleek system rather than a usable one.

I feel a bit less strongly about the touchpad. I'm into haptics, but I still wish, even after using several models, that Dell would put a border around the touchpad, like Apple does on the MacBook Air. It's better for usability, and while I never veered off of the touchpad, it gives me a sense of confidence to know the borders.

Audio on the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

As far as speakers on thin laptops go, the XPS 13's are decent. The four 2W speakers get suitably loud, though, as we found on the XPS 13 9340 and 9345, don't feature much in the way of bass.

When I listened to Noah Kahan's "Stick Season" in one of our test labs, the speakers easily filled the room, and the vocals and guitars were crisp and clear. But the bass and drums lacked, and even going into My Dell and changing the EQ didn't do much. (For this song, "folk" or "acoustic" should've been sufficient. Nothing really changed. Heck, even picking "metal" didn't do anything.)

Upgradeability of the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

To remove the bottom of the laptop, you need to remove six Torx screws from the bottom of the laptop. One of the screws on our unit stripped, but Dell's publically available owner's manual shows that the rest of the process is identical to what we've seen on other XPS 13 systems with this design. (If you do go looking for the manual, make sure you don't find the one for the previous XPS 13 (9350) released almost a decade ago).

You can remove the base with just your fingers once the screws are out. That being said, inside, the only replaceable parts are the battery and the SSD. The RAM has never been upgradeable in the current XPS 13 design, but in this case, that's because it's actually on the CPU package.

Battery Life on the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

Intel's big promise with its Core Ultra Series 2 ("Lunar Lake") chips has been making x86 more efficient than ever. But with the new XPS 13, that will also heavily depend on what kind of screen you get. Dell loaned us a second unit with identical specs, except for a 2880 x 1800 OLED panel. It showed a surprisingly wide difference in battery life.

The laptop with a 1920 x 1200 LCD screen ran for 17 hours and 29 minutes (though part of that may have been held back by one outlier run in our average). The version with the higher-resolution OLED panel lasted just 8 hours and 40 minutes. Me? I'd take the lower resolution screen for the tradeoff.

The leader in this test was the Snapdragon version of the XPS 13, model 9345. That version, also with the 1920 x 1200 screen, ran for 19:31. The Asus Zenbook S14, using the same chip as this laptop, had a longer battery life with an OLED panel at 13:51.

Heat on the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

We grabbed some skin temperature measurements while running our Cinebench 2024 benchmark gauntlet. The system was fairly cool considering how stressful this benchmark is. The keyboard hit 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit, while the touchpad (or at least, the part of the deck where the haptics are) reached 88.7 F. The hottest point on the bottom, in a corner near the vent, measured 101.3 F.

Webcam on the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

The 1080p webcam on the Dell XPS 13 (9350) was serviceable in good light. It's color accurate, and while it's not the sharpest I've ever looked, I would use this webcam on important video calls. I never had an issue with the IR camera for Windows Hello, which was swift and reliable.

For those who want to blur backgrounds or experiment with filters, Lunar Lake can use Windows Studio Effects.

Software and Warranty on the Dell XPS 13 (9350)

Dell has its fair share of software preinstalled on the system, but it's not overwhelming.

The primary app is MyDell, which has options to see other Dell applications, customize audio and adjust your display's color profiles. There is a link for making network changes in another app, but it didn't have an application for that on our review unit.

Dell Digital Delivery lets you install software purchased with your system, while SupportAssist gives you easy access to your service tag, performs hardware scans, and, surprisingly, features a working section to optimize your Wi-Fi network. Huh.

There's also a trial of McAfee (Dell also includes a bookmark in the Edge browser, which cheapens the experience a bit).

Like most Windows notebooks, there are some links in the Start menu to the Windows store, including apps like Spotify and LinkedIn. Intel includes its Intel Unison app.

Dell XPS 13 (9350) Configurations

We tested the XPS 13 with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, 32GB of RAM (on the chip), 512GB of storage, and a 1920 x 1200 non-touch display. This configuration will launch on October 15 and costs $1,599.99.

The base model is $1,399.99, with an Ultra 7 256V, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and the same display. Moving up to either a 2560 x 1600 120 Hz touchscreen or an OLED 2880 x 1800 touchscreen adds an extra $300.

Moving from 512GB to a 1TB SSD is an extra $100, while a 2TB drive is a $300 jump, which is pretty obscene giving current SSD prices.

Bottom Line

The latest Dell XPS 13 prioritizes efficiency over performance. If you get the version with the 1920 x 1200 screen and forego OLED, you can get almost 17 and a half hours of battery life. Not bad.

But there's still the fact that there's another XPS 13 out there, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite version, that lasted longer on our tests and offers stronger performance. What Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 chips offer here are x86 compatibility. For those who do most of their work in a web browser, the XPS 13 (9345) with Snapdragon may be a better choice, and it's $200 cheaper as of this writing.

If you're worried about software compatibility, though. That makes x86 the only game in town. That being said, other Lunar Lake laptops, like the Asus Zenbook S14, offer a more traditional design, including a headphone jack and standard function keys that are more accessible. It's great to see Dell offer a variety of processors in its flagship laptop. Now it's time to make it work for a greater variety of people.

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Ever-popular for their pre-built gaming PCs and potent laptops, Dell often commands premium price tags, notably on its Alienware gaming line-up. We track deals on Dell and Alienware systems from multiple retailers, so make sure to keep checking this page for updates, especially during Amazon Prime Day 2026.

Dell's Alienware brand has been synonymous with gaming over the years. High-spec gaming machines from the Aorura line up, and now Area-51 relaunch, use top-tier hardware like the RTX 5090 graphics card from Nvidia, the most powerful consumer GPU available, and newer-generation CPUs for peak performance.

We use our in-depth knowledge, gained from thorough reviews, expansive benchmarks, and extensive historical pricing analysis, to help us pick the best deals for you to choose from. We keep that constantly-updated list below.

Best Dell and Alienware Deals: Quick Links

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