1. The list in brief
2. Best for most people
3. Best budget
4. Best gaming
5. Best display
6. Best battery life
7. Benchmark comparisons
8. Recently reviewed
9. How to find the right laptop
10. FAQs
11. Why trust Laptop Mag
12. How we test laptops
The best Dell laptops are a testament to the brand's diverse catalog. One that touches upon everything from MacBook rivaling, premium XPS notebooks to budget-friendly gaming laptops designed to strike a balance between price and performance.
Far from being a one-trick pony, Dell has a laptop to suit just about every need and budget imaginable — all of which adhering to the fantastic standards the manufacturer is known and admired for.
So whether you're in the market for a business-focused Latitude, a productivity powerhouse in the Precision, or something to cover all bases through Dell's mighty Inspiron, this is the brand you want to turn to.
From Ultrabooks to 2-in-1s and for education, creation, work, and play, these are the best Dell laptops in 2024.
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Best Dell laptop for most people
Best budget Dell laptop
Best gaming Dell laptop
Best display in a Dell laptop
Best Dell workstation laptop
Joanna Nelius has reviewed laptops and computer hardware since 2018. Her work has appeared in The Verge, USA Today, Gizmodo, PC Gamer, and Maximum PC. She also holds an MFA from Chapman University and works as a creative writing instructor.
Best for most people
See our full Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (7441) review.
Best budget
See our full Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (7440) review.
Best gaming
See our full Dell G16 (7630) review.
Best display
See our full Dell XPS 13 OLED (9350) review.
Best battery life
See our full Dell XPS 13 (9345) review.
Benchmark comparisons
Click to view chart data in table format
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus) | Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (Intel Meteor Lake) | Dell G16 (7630) | Dell XPS 13 OLED (Intel Lunar Lake) | Dell XPS 13 (Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite) |
| Geekbench 6 (Higher is better) | 13,281 | 12,729 | 11,209 | 11,033 | 14,635 |
| Handbrake time ((MM.SS), lower is better) | 6.23 | 5.02 | 4.19 | 8.28 | 4.41 |
| Battery life - Web surfing (HH.MM) | 18.20 | 15.06 | 5.04 | 8.40 | 19.01 |
| SSD transfer speeds (MBps, higher is better) | 1510 | 1618.3 | 1719 | 1513 | 1342 |
| DCI-P3 Color Gamut (Higher is better) | 69.1 | 68.4 | 114 | 144.6 | 66.9 |
| Display Brightness (Nits, higher is better) | 470 | 367 | 310 | 377 | 456 |
| Hottest temperature (95 degree comfort threshold) | 100 | 108 | 107 | 100.4 | 120 |
Recently reviewed
Not every laptop can make the best Dell laptops page. (We wouldn't be doing you that much good if that were the case!) We review new laptops every week and over 100 laptops yearly, so here's a look at our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make this page either due to a fault, battery life, performance, or something else.
How to Find the Right Laptop
When shopping for the best Dell laptop, there's a lot to consider. To help you choose a top-tier system, here are five key points to keep in mind.
Budget: What you get for the money
You can find plenty of Dell laptops for under $1,000. However, more powerful workstations and gaming laptops are often priced between $1,500 and $2,000. Premium systems typically cost more than $2,000 and come stacked with a host of high-powered specs and tricked-out software.
Screen Size: 13 to 17 inches
17-inch desktop replacements are becoming more svelte with every passing year; these big behemoths don't skimp on the specs. However, often weighing upwards of 8 pounds, they're better suited for at-home gaming. If mobility is a prime concern, you'll want to consider Dell's 13- and 15-inch offerings instead.
Screen Resolution: 1080p for high refresh rates, 4K for detail
Laptop displays should strike a balance between capable frame rates and sleek aesthetics. Panel makers are now serving up screens with higher refresh rates, topping out at 360Hz with a 3-millisecond response rate, but we're also starting to see 4K laptop displays with 120Hz refresh rate. Keep in mind that Dell laptops with lower resolutions tend to have longer battery life overall.
A few years ago, the answer to this question would have been undoubtedly Intel. But AMD has made a furious comeback with its Ryzen CPUs, which are delivering great overall performance. Thanks to the architecture in the new Ryzen chips, they're super power-efficient without sacrificing productivity. The Ryzen 5000 series CPUs have consistently impressed with its performance versus battery life.
Still, Intel's 12th and 13th Gen chips are nothing to sneeze at. Dell has started rolling out more systems with Intel's 12th and 13th Gen chips and the performance is astounding.
Battery Life: 4 to 10+ hours
Laptop battery life has gotten increasing longer over the years, often topping off at 8 hours or more. There a handful of gaming laptops that'll last longer than 10 hours, but most Dell laptops can handle at least 6 hours of battery life or more.
FAQs
Q: What is a Copilot+ PC?
A: Microsoft has specific requirements as to what it considers a Copilot+ PC. One of those requirements is that a laptop's processor must have an NPU capable of reaching at least 40 TOPS to run more advanced Windows AI features like Recall, Automatic super resolution, and Live Captions.
Copilot+ PCs have a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite or Plus, an Intel Core Ultra 200V series, or AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processor. However, the advanced AI features are currently only available on Snapdragon laptops. A free update for Intel and AMD laptops should be available to Windows Insiders by December 2024.
Q: How is Windows on ARM laptop different from a regular (x86) Windows laptop?
A: Windows on ARM laptops are configured with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite or Plus processor. Laptops with the x86 version of Windows are powered by either an Intel or AMD processor. Each Windows version uses a different instruction set (ARM or x86), so it needs a processor that can run it.
For most people, using one versions of Windows or the other shouldn't be an issue. But depending on what apps you use day to day, some might not be compatible with Windows on ARM. App compatibly is growing, but it's best to verify what you need will work before buying one of these laptops.
Q: What graphics card do I need in a gaming laptop?
It depends! If you want high frame rates and stunning graphics, then an RTX 4080 or RTX 4090 are your best bet. Those graphics cards make the most out of high refresh rate, OLED displays. If you are willing to compromise on one or the other, look for gaming laptops with either an RTX 4070, 4060, or 4050.
However, an RTX 4070 gaming laptop usually provides the best balance between frame rate and great graphics. Some are pricier than others, so do shop around to find something that fits your budget.
Q: I already have a stylus; will it work with one of these laptops if it has a touchscreen?
A. That depends! Not all touchscreens have stylus support. The ones that do might not support the same type of pens. We recommend checking the manufacture's website of both the laptop and stylus to be absolutely sure.
This will help you determine what pen protocols the stylus and laptop support. The two main ones are Microsoft Pen Protocol (MPP) and Wacom AES. They're not intercompatible, but some pens support both, while others only support one.
Why Trust Laptop Mag
Laptop Mag reviews over a hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.
We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.
Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.
Our editorial trustworthiness is enforced by one of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.
How We Test Laptops
In order to make our best Dell laptop of 2023 list, a system needs to score at least 4 out of 5 stars on our reviews and deliver on the things shoppers care about most. In our evaluations, we focus on design and comfort, display quality, the keyboard and touchpad, performance, battery life, and especially value.
Our expert reviewers also use each product to see how it looks, feels, and performs in everyday situations. Because we see so many different notebooks, we can compare each to its direct competitors and give you an idea of how it stacks up to the average laptop in its price band.
When we bring a laptop into our laboratory, our goal is to see how it would work if you brought it into your home or office. While we use a number of industry standard benchmarks such as Geekbench and 3DMark, we focus heavily on real-world tests that we have developed in-house.
To test endurance, the Laptop Mag Battery test surfs the web at 150 nits of brightness until the system runs out of juice. To judge pure processing power, we use a giant spreadsheet macro that matches 65,000 names with their addresses, a video transcoder that converts a 4K video to 1080p, and the Geekbench 5 synthetic test. We measure graphics prowess with both 3DMark Ice Storm / Fire Strike and a series of games including Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Metro: Exodus, Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption just to name a few.
We use a colorimeter to measure screen brightness and color gamut while other instruments help us determine a laptop's key travel and ambient heat. See this page on how we test laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures.
