Dell XPS 13 Plus

Beautiful, lightweight and stylish, but usability problems mean we can't recommend the XPS 13 Plus

- ALLISA JAMES

PRICE As reviewed, £1,500 (£1,800 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk

The Dell XPS 13 was one of the few modern day laptops to make our list of iconic PCs, so full credit to Dell for daring to mess with the recipe. Admittedly, there is a 2022 update of the plain XPS 13, but it has minor tweaks; the XPS 13 Plus is a complete departure.

The result is one of the most visually stunning laptops around. From the almost invisible glass touchpad to the ultra-thin bezels, this is refinement and beauty that few other laptops come close to. If choosing a laptop was simply a matter of style, it would be a shoe-in for the A List.

Plus and minus

Take the graphite finish. This would be boring on any other laptop, but the Dell XPS 13 Plus oozes class and sophistication. It doesn’t hurt that the chassis is made from “low-carbon” aluminium, produced using “hydro powered renewable energy sources” that Dell claims reduces emissions by 70%, nor that the model on test features an OLED display.

Dell even uses the keyboard as a design element, with an edge-to-edge design that’s tailor-made for writers. The keys are large with a satisfying, almost mechanical feedback – despite not being mechanical.

But there are two polarising features of the Dell XPS 13 Plus: the trackpad and the new touch bar.

The entire wrist rest is made of Gorilla Glass, including the trackpad itself, which means that the pad uses haptic rather than mechanical feedback to simulate the feel of clicking. You can turn up the intensity of the signals to make it more responsive, but with no well-defined borders indicating the location of the trackpad, it takes a lot of getting used to.