After an ill-fated rebranding, Dell made the smart call to revive the XPS line of premium laptops for 2026. We already reviewed the refreshed 14-inch model; now we're turning to the new XPS 16 (starts at $2,039.99; $3,029.99 as tested). As before—including its brief stint as the Dell 16 Premium—this is a first-class laptop with a high-end metal build, a beautiful OLED screen, fast performance, and advanced extras like a 4K webcam. It’s stuck with just Thunderbolt 4 ports, however, and Intel’s capable Arc B390 integrated graphics processor (IGP) can’t stack up to a discrete GPU for demanding creation tasks. The XPS 16 is not cheap, but remember that it’s a luxury laptop. Consider the Editors’ Choice-award-winning Framework Laptop 16 for the additional power you might expect at this size.

Configurations: Choose Your Chip, So Long As It’s Intel

The XPS 16 starts at $2,039.99. (We've seen it as low as $1,839.99 on sale.) That base price gets you an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 processor, 16GB of DDR5 memory, a 512GB solid-state drive, and a 120Hz 16-inch 1,920-by-1,200-pixel IPS display without touch controls.

Note that these are the base specifications through Dell’s online configurator; the least expensive preconfigured model (which has more visibility on the site) costs $2,379.99 ($2,129.99 on sale). That model kicks up the CPU to a Core Ultra 7 355 chip, and doubles the storage to a 1TB SSD. (To dispel any confusion, we’re sticking with Dell’s “estimated value” pricing, as those larger, bolded prices that you’ll actually pay change frequently. The estimated value represents the theoretical maximum you can expect to pay.)

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Dell sells a pair of pricier preconfigured models after that, and our test unit is the top option. For $3,029.99 ($2,629.99 on sale), it comes with an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 3,200-by-2,000-pixel tandem OLED touch screen.

You can currently order an XPS 16 with the Core Ultra X9 chip option only through Dell’s configurator; none of Dell's preconfigured models includes this top-end processor. This version starts at $3,849.99 with 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. All of the XPS 16’s processor options belong to Intel’s “Panther Lake” Core Ultra Series 3 family, but only our X7 chip and the X9 option include the product’s flagship Arc B390 graphics cores. 

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

This X7 chip contains 16 cores (four Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, and four Low-Power Efficient cores) as well as 12 Xe graphics cores comprising the Arc B390 IGP. These Xe cores are markedly more capable than past IGPs, so Dell didn’t bother with discrete GPU options for the XPS line this year. For many of XPS 16’s intended users, the Arc B390 should be sufficient, but top-end content-creation jobs will still call for a GeForce RTX chip that you can't get this time around.

Design: A Chance to Make Amends

This laptop’s previous iteration is the Dell 16 Premium (DA16250), with the Premium name having temporarily replaced the XPS brand. But Dell did more than just slap the well-established XPS name back on this one: It introduced a redesigned chassis. This one addresses pain points we had with the previous build.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Some background: Dell introduced many of the 16 Premium’s design elements with the XPS 13 Plus back in 2022. The “Plus” brand experimented with the classic XPS style. These hyper-modern additions included a seamless touchpad, a touch-based LED function row instead of keys, and a zero-lattice keyboard with no spacing between the keys.

These features eventually made their way into the mainline laptops, persisting through that Dell 16 Premium model. While the LED function row looked and felt futuristic, it wasn't as easy to use as regular keys. The feedback on the LED touch buttons wasn’t consistent or satisfying, which isn’t ideal for controlling important settings like brightness and volume. The invisible touchpad was neat, but its lack of clear boundaries caused confusion. Less offensively, the zero-lattice keys were clumsy to type on, and the feel is simply different from most laptops.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Now, most of those elements are back in the XPS 16, albeit much improved. Dell solved most of the issues in one swoop, replacing the LED buttons with a traditional function key row and clearly marking the touchpad’s bounds with subtle lines. I miss the media keys’ soft glow above the physical keys, but functionality wins out here, and you’ll forget about them before long. 

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The seamless glass haptic touchpad is pleasant to use, and now you’ll know exactly where it ends. You can disable the haptic feedback, but keeping it activated is basically a must: Without it, all you’re left with is tapping to click.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Otherwise, the keyboard itself is relatively unchanged. The power button shifts up to the function row instead of truncating the backspace key, but Dell didn’t make any other major changes. The edge-to-edge keycaps remain; Dell didn't revert to a more common lattice layout, with space between each key. If you’re coming from a laptop with one of those designs, finding the right finger placement on the XPS 16's layout will take some getting used to. Still, the keyboard is plenty usable. The XPS 16's key tops lack the sculpting I see on some other keyboards, but you’ll feel enough feedback and bounce for a satisfying typing experience.

As for the rest of the laptop, Dell’s build quality is as excellent as ever. The XPS 16’s luxe unibody aluminum chassis is slim and well-built, while the soft-touch material on and around the touchpad is pleasant.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Dell did trim down the XPS 16's frame a bit. It measures 0.6 by 12.2 by 8.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.6 pounds, which is thin and lightweight for a 16-inch laptop. In fact, that’s a pound lighter than the 16 Premium, and it’s thinner, too. Considering the laptop aims for the same performance and features as before, that’s impressive downsizing.

One more design difference: The speakers are no longer visible on either side of the keyboard. The Dell 16 Premium has this arrangement, marring the otherwise sleek single-surface look. Despite being under the keys now, the quad speakers still emit powerful, rich sound through the keyboard and from the front edge.

Display and Connectivity: Lovely OLED, But Just USB-C on a 16-Incher?

You’ll find two display options for this laptop, and the panel on our model is a high point. As mentioned, Dell sells a basic 1200p IPS panel, while our review unit features the upgraded 3,200-by-1,800-pixel OLED touch-screen option.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

I can only speak to the OLED option, but it’s a beautiful panel. The screen’s colors are vibrant, the picture is sharp, and it’s bright enough for most conditions. In settings with especially intense ambient light, you may wish the display were brighter, but it’s luminous enough for most use cases. Dell rates its OLED display at 400 nits of peak brightness, which matches what I saw in testing.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Dell limited the port selection on this system despite the chassis size. I recently praised the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra as a thin, premium, creator-focused laptop that offers more than just USB-C ports. In contrast, many high-end machines these days are USB-C-only, and the XPS 16 is one such offender: Its left edge is home to two Thunderbolt 4 ports, while the right flank holds one more of these, plus an audio jack. You’ll find no additional connections on the laptop, so any video-out support or other needs will have to go through USB-C with an adapter or dongle if necessary.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Considering one of these connections is also needed for charging, you’re down to two ports much of the time. At least Dell made sure the laptop’s wireless suite is as fast as possible, with an Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE211 2x2 + Bluetooth 6 wireless card inside.

Finally, the exceptional webcam, an 8-megapixel 4K camera with HDR support, delivers superior video quality to most out there. It’s hyper-sharp, adjusts well to different lighting conditions, and maintains consistently high image quality as you move and adjust environments. This laptop has me considering getting a 4K webcam for my own desktop, so having one built in here is a major bonus.

Performance Testing: Smooth Sailing Over Scorching Speed

To see what the XPS 16 is capable of, I put it through our usual benchmark suite and compared the results against the following laptops:

I included the Dell 16 Premium ($3,199.99 as tested) to show the generational jump to the XPS 16, both in terms of design and potency. (The 16 Premium we tested has a discrete GPU, which will make things in the graphics section below more interesting.) Next, our $3,198 Framework Laptop 16 configuration checks in here to defend its Editors’ Choice title.

The Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra ($3,799.99 as tested) is a similarly premium laptop, but it’s notably pricier with an RTX 5070 inside. Finally, the 14-inch Apple MacBook Pro is $2,349 as tested. (We're not including the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which includes the ultra-powerful M5 Max chip in the configuration we tested. The configuration we tested, at $6,149, puts it far out of the XPS 16’s power and price range.)

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

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 we rely on 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 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 through a variety of automated operations in the seminal photo editor Adobe Photoshop 25.

The field was competitive across these tests, and the XPS 16 didn’t distinguish itself much from the pack. Considering the matching or similar processors, that’s not too surprising, and the XPS didn’t fall too far behind despite its thin-and-light build. The XPS 16 often couldn’t outpace the Dell 16 Premium and its Core Ultra 200-series chip either, however, and even trailed it in some instances. Perhaps this is the result of the laptop’s serious slim-down year-on-year. The XPS 16 is certainly fast enough for most home and professional use, as are all of these options, but don’t expect standout speed.

Graphics Tests

We challenge all systems’ graphics with a quintet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. The first two, Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K), use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. The next pair, Steel Nomad's regular and Light subtests, focuses on APIs more commonly used for game development to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. Last up, we turn to 3DMark Solar Bay to measure ray-tracing performance.

The XPS system and its Arc B390 graphics produced moderate scores, while the RTX 5070-bearing laptops easily outpaced it. This result is what you’d expect, since we already knew that the Arc B390 is competitive with Apple’s M5 GPU from previous matchups. If you’re a professional with a lot of graphics-centric tasks like media editing, you’ll want a 16-inch laptop with a discrete GPU. Still, for everyone else, this is enough graphics muscle.

Battery Life 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 set to 50% and audio volume set to 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 its 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).

This laptop’s battery life is long, but it doesn’t set any new records. More than 17 hours would’ve rated quite well in the recent past, but we’ve seen battery life results skyrocket in the last year or so on the back of more efficient processors. This time is still long enough to get plenty of work done off the charger, but it just falls short of some alternatives. The super-sharp resolution plays a part here, and you can see that the running time improved, at least, over the Dell 16 Premium.

As for the display, its color coverage was broad, and its peak-brightness scores were on the higher side, slightly exceeding Dell’s own claim of 400 nits. While 500 nits would be ideal for environments flooded with ambient light, scoring more than 400 nits confirms a plenty bright OLED display.