Dell's freshly renamed and reclassified 16 Plus 2-in-1 (model DB06250, which starts at $999.99; $1,449.99 as tested) aims to blend robust performance with a versatile design in a large-format convertible laptop. However, the nature of a 16-inch 2-in-1 presents a unique challenge: While convertible laptops aim for portability and intuitive tablet use, a display of this size is often unwieldy and bulky as a tablet. The Dell 16 Plus struggles to mitigate the inherent problems of size and weight, leading to a design that feels physically cumbersome and, coupled with somewhat disappointing performance, ultimately weighs down what is otherwise a well-made laptop. For a truly portable and long-lasting 16-inch convertible, we recommend the Editors' Choice-award-winning LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16 (2025).

Configurations and Pricing: A Three-Tier 2-in-1

The Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1 (DB06250) is available in multiple configurations, with varying processors, memory, and storage options. The base configuration, which starts at $999.99, includes an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V processor with Intel Arc 130V integrated graphics, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage. This version has a standard, 16-inch IPS touch-screen display with FHD+ (1,920 by 1,200) resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate.

Our midrange version tested in this review is a step-up model with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor, Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics, 32GB of memory, 1TB of SSD storage, and a better display. It's still 16 inches but has a sharper 2,560-by-1,600-pixel resolution, a faster 90Hz refresh rate, and superior mini-LED technology (more on that later). This model sells for $1,449.99.

The top model moves up to the best CPU option, an Intel Core Ultra 9 288V with Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics. The other upgrades stay the same, but the price bumps up to $1,699.98.

Design: More Laptop Than Tablet

While 16-inch convertible 2-in-1 laptops are pretty rare, they do exist. The larger format and convertible design usually focus less on portability and more on creating different ways to interact with the system, such as digital illustration for hobbyists or professionals, and handwritten note-taking. It's unclear which use cases Dell had in mind, but the lack of portability is certainly evident.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Tipping the scales at 4.52 pounds, this is no featherweight. While that weight is fine for a desktop replacement laptop, picking it up in tablet mode is like hefting an anchor. You might have the option of using this as a tablet, but that doesn't make it as portable as most 2-in-1 laptops. In fact, it's more than a pound heavier than the LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16, and you'll feel every ounce of it.

The aluminum chassis is available in shades of blue: Ice Blue, which is more of a silvery color, and Midnight Blue, the darker, blue-gray finish used on our review model. If it didn't have blue in the name of the color, I would simply call this a dark gray or even a near black, but it is ever so slightly tinted blue, so I'll go with it. Regardless of your chosen color, the laptop features a color-matched touchpad and color-coordinated keycaps. The result is quite slick-looking, if not particularly exciting.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Dell's aluminum construction is also sturdy, though you'll feel some noticeable flexing when you lift the open laptop by one corner, which I'd expect from any slim 16-inch machine. The dual axle hinge, which lets you use the laptop in display, tent, and tablet modes, is also fairly sturdy and will hold its position well when you use the touch screen in laptop mode.

Touchpad, Keyboard, and Display: Comfy and Crisp

Throughout my time with this laptop, I found its large touchpad comfortably spacious, giving me plenty of room to tap and swipe. Likewise, the larger keyboard benefits from a numeric pad alongside the standard keys. Thanks to the 16-inch design, the keyboard never feels cramped or crowded, even with the extra keys. 

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Dell's step-up display option is a 16-inch touch screen with a 1600p resolution, a 90Hz refresh rate, and mini-LED backlighting. Mini-LED provides better HDR support, giving it near-OLED levels of contrast, while still providing excellent brightness and vibrant color.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

In actual use, the Dell 16 Plus is a comfortable desktop replacement, with a spacious keyboard, a wide and responsive touchpad, and a fast and vibrant touch screen. As a clamshell laptop, I'd have no complaints. The difficulty comes with the 2-in-1 capability, where the laptop's large screen becomes a downright unwieldy tablet. The sturdy aluminum construction translates into a slim but heavy design to carry.

On the left side of the laptop, you'll find two USB-C ports (one DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery, the other with Thunderbolt 4 support) and an HDMI output.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

On the right is a USB-A port and a 3.5mm headset jack. It's a capable collection of ports, but on the larger 16-inch frame, it still feels like other connections, like an Ethernet port or an SD card slot, should be available.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Performance Testing: Capable, But Not Class-Leading

For this review, we've compared the Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1 against top competitors like the Acer Swift 16 AI ($1,199.99 as tested), an excellent desktop replacement with similar processing and graphics, the Lenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 ($799.99 as tested), a similar convertible, and the Editors' Choice-winning LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16 (2025) ($2,549.99 as tested), which earns top marks as a 16-inch convertible with a genuinely ultraportable design.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests 

We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, puts a system through its paces in productivity apps ranging from web browsing to word processing and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput. 

Three more tests are CPU-centric or processor-intensive. Maxon's Cinebench 2024 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the freeware video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution. 

Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's image editing prowess using various automated operations in Adobe Photoshop 25.

Right from the start, the Dell 16 Plus scored well in our PCMark 10 productivity test, easily surpassing the 4,000-point baseline for day-to-day productivity and in line with the Acer Swift 16 AI and the Lenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9. Only the LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16 produced better results. 

That general pattern held across most of our productivity and content creation tests, where the Dell laptop was competitive with the Acer and Lenovo but usually beaten by the LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16. 

The one outlier in our testing is Adobe Photoshop (executed via the PugetBench for Creators utility), which did not run properly on either the Lenovo Yoga 7 or the LG Gram Pro, leaving only the Acer Swift 16 AI to compare against. The Dell laptop again pulled ahead in this test. For a system that relies on integrated graphics, that's an impressive result, suggesting the Dell 16 Plus should lend itself well to photo editing and graphics work, provided you don't need the extra horsepower of a dedicated GPU.

Graphics Tests

We challenge all systems’ graphics with a quartet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K) use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. Steel Nomad's regular and Light subtests focus on APIs more commonly used for game development, like Metal and DirectX 12, to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. We also turn to 3DMark's Solar Bay to measure ray tracing performance in a synthetic environment. This benchmark works with native APIs, subjecting 3D scenes to increasingly intense ray-traced workloads at 1440p.

In 3DMark Wild Life, the Dell 16 Plus showed potent performance, significantly outpacing the Lenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 and coming close to the LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16, though the Acer Swift 16 AI's implementation of the Arc graphics solution remained the top performer. When pushed to Wild Life Extreme, the Dell 16 Plus maintained a considerable lead over the Lenovo Yoga 7. Still, it fell behind the LG Gram Pro and the Acer Swift, which performed exceptionally well.

We couldn't include the Lenovo Yoga 7 in our comparisons for the Steel Nomad tests, as it could not run that benchmark during testing. In the more demanding Steel Nomad benchmark, the Dell 16 Plus trailed both the Acer Swift 16 AI and LG Gram Pro. However, in the less intensive Steel Nomad Light, the Dell 16 Plus proved competitive, delivering results comparable to the Acer Swift 16 AI. Finally, in the 3DMark Solar Bay ray-tracing benchmark, the Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1 truly shone, surging ahead to lead the pack, outperforming both the Acer Swift 16 AI and the LG Gram Pro.

Since this system doesn't have a dedicated GPU, we didn't run our gaming tests. This isn't a machine built for AAA titles, so gaming on this system will be limited to less demanding games.

Battery and Display Tests 

We test each laptop's battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. 

To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

In battery testing, the Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1 disappointed us, lasting less than 10 hours while competitors lasted 17 hours or more. The shorter battery life and the heavy, bulky design limit the portability of this oversized 2-in-1. 

However, Dell's display quality is superb. Color reproduction is at or near 100% in all major color gamuts, putting it slightly ahead of even the best competitors. It also led the pack in brightness, brighter than all three competitors. That brighter display panel is likely thanks to the mini-LED tech behind it. (It looks even better when displaying HDR content.)