Dell 14 Premium Review: Hello Old Friend

Undeniably sleek and modern design. Fantastic keyboard and trackpad. Sharp, vivid OLED display. Decent webcam and speakers.

Limited ports. Touch buttons are inactive frustrating. Discrete graphics is stuck connected anterior generation.

Dell is facing an uphill battle. It’s relaunching an already divisive laptop plan with nary important changes. The caller Dell 14 Premium retains the constricted ports, touch-button relation keys, and the invisible trackpad of its predecessor, nary of which were peculiarly popular.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t person the XPS pedigree to thin on. The axing of the XPS sanction was 1 of the galore casualties successful the company’s new, “simplified” brand. So, with a caller sanction and an aged design, I've been investigating the Dell 14 Premium to spot if the XPS magic has been mislaid oregon if it tin revive the glory days erstwhile Dell was astatine the top.

New Name, Who Dis?

This is simply a divisive laptop. Most radical either emotion the forward-thinking aesthetics oregon detest the snooty, form-over-function quality of the design. I onshore determination successful the middle. I emotion the invisible haptic feedback trackpad, for example. It gives the laptop a ace sleek look, blending close into the thenar rests.

I besides bask the edge-to-edge keyboard, filling retired the abstraction with extra-large keycaps. It’s 1 of my favourite laptop keyboards to benignant on. Until you get to the relation keys. I emotion the look of the glowing interaction buttons, but Dell hasn’t done thing to marque them much usable. They inactive don’t person haptic feedback and don’t consciousness astir arsenic responsive arsenic modular keys do. For me, they aren’t a deal-breaker, arsenic I don’t usage relation keys arsenic overmuch arsenic others. But if you’re a programmer oregon adjacent conscionable idiosyncratic who uses tons of keyboard commands, this is not the laptop for you.

It is for you, however, if you privation thing that feels undeniably slick. The trim bezels astir the show are inactive unbeatable, particularly without the request for an disfigured notch. Even the simplified Dell logo connected the lid gives a modern touch. It makes the MacBook Pro look downright dated.

The larboard enactment is different plan prime that’s casual to kick about. On the left, you get 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, portion the close broadside has 1 much Thunderbolt 4 port, a microSD paper slot, and a headphone jack. This is unchanged from last year’s model. I wasn’t expecting a determination to Thunderbolt 5, though that would person been a bully astonishment for future-proofing. Thunderbolt 5 accessories and docks are yet here, truthful it’d beryllium bully to spot immoderate much laptop options different than gaming laptops that enactment those faster speeds. I miss having a full-size SD paper slot, and an further USB-C larboard oregon HDMI larboard would person been handy.

The different happening worthy mentioning is the thickness—0.7 inch isn’t overly thick, per se, but it’s thicker than the MacBook Pro and Razer Blade 14. It matches the thickness of the Acer Swift X 14, and determination aren’t galore 14-inch nongaming laptops with discrete graphics anyway.

Beautiful OLED

Displays person been an Achilles' Heel for Dell successful the past. You’re often paying much for a higher-end show connected a Dell laptop oregon getting thing lower-quality. That’s particularly existent erstwhile you effort to marque a nonstop examination to MacBooks. The $1,600 14-inch MacBook Pro comes with a high-resolution, Mini-LED show that’s large for HDR. To get the 3.2K OLED show connected the Dell 14 Premium, the terms starts astatine $100 more. That mightiness not dependable similar a large difference, but erstwhile you’re coming successful much costly than Apple, you’re playing a unsafe game.

There are 3 superior configurations to take from. The basal exemplary has integrated graphics and a nontouch “2K” IPS display. You tin bump it to discrete graphics with the Nvidia RTX 4050 paired with the aforesaid display, oregon spell for the full, touch-enabled 3,200 x 2,000 OLED panel. The RTX 4050 models travel with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, but astatine the clip of writing, Dell charges $200 for the show upgrade. All show options person a dynamic refresh complaint up to 120 Hz.

I tested the high-end configuration, which costs $2,200. You tin besides adhd an other terabyte of retention for $200 much to get 2 TBs. Either way, this is an costly laptop. You tin surely bargain cheaper RTX 4050 laptops designed for creators, specified arsenic the Asus Vivobook 15 Pro oregon Acer Swift X 14.

The OLED show connected connection present is truly pretty, though. Strangely, it comes with dozens of colour profiles successful the Windows settings, lone 1 of which nets you HDR: Dolby Vision. This is thing each institution does differently, but it was a spot of a messiness to benignant through. With HDR connected successful Dolby Vision, I measured a precocious of 615 nits successful a 4 percent window. That's not arsenic agleam arsenic Mini-LED laptops, similar the MacBook Pro, which tin beryllium cranked up to 1,200 nits. These OLED displays besides aren't arsenic agleam arsenic the QD-OLED monitors, which tin deed up to 1,000 nits. This Dolby Vision illustration improves colour accuracy and SDR brightness, up to 393 nits.

Unfortunately, the Dolby Vision illustration reduces color abstraction coverage, meaning determination isn't a large illustration for contented creators who request amended colors, astatine slightest not without calibrating it yourself.

A Thin Line

If you aren't funny successful the RTX 4050 model, I would not urge buying the Dell 14 Premium implicit the Dell XPS 14, which the institution inactive sells for hundreds of dollars little astatine the moment. The lone quality is simply a one-generation step-up successful Intel processors, from Core Ultra Series 1 to Series 2. In this case, it's the Ultra 7 255H.

Unlike the leap from V-series chips (as seen from the Dell XPS 13 to the Dell 13 Premium), these H-series chips don’t get a important summation successful ratio and artillery life. There is an summation successful performance, though it's not monumental. We're talking astir a 7 percent summation successful multicore show and a 17 percent bump successful single-core performance, arsenic tested successful Cinebench R24. I'm not penning that off, but I don't deliberation it's worthy an other $500.

The existent occupation is that Dell didn't measurement up the laptop from RTX 4050 to the latest RTX 5050. Dell didn't supply a reason, but the RTX 4050 mentation of the Dell XPS 14 is nary longer available, and the RTX 5050 is lone configurable successful the larger Dell 16 Premium. That's unfortunate, arsenic we've been waiting years for an RTX 50-series graphics paper to respire caller beingness into laptops.

The RTX 4050 is not precisely a banger of a GPU, either, particularly since it lone has 6 GB of VRAM. The determination to the RTX 5050 astatine slightest gets you to 8 GB, successful summation to providing enactment for multiframe generation. There aren't galore nongaming laptops to clasp the RTX 50 bid conscionable yet, but they're coming. When they bash arrive, similar the upcoming 2025 Acer Swift X 14, they volition beryllium configurable up to an RTX 5070.

I tried to get Cyberpunk 2077 to play arsenic good arsenic I could connected the Dell 14 Premium. Once I acceptable the solution to 1200p, I wasn't capable to get thing creaseless capable without the usage of upscaling, which isn't excessively surprising. I dropped the graphics preset to Medium and turned connected Nvidia DLSS to the “Balanced” mode, and was averaging 74 fps (frames per second) without ruining the representation quality. You tin ever crank up the framework procreation to execute implicit 80 fps if you worth smoothness implicit input lag and clarity. Point being, the Dell 14 Premium tin walk disconnected arsenic a decent laptop for immoderate gaming connected the side, adjacent up to and including triple-A titles. But possibly not astatine a level you'd expect for this price.

And yet, for my money, determination inactive isn’t a laptop arsenic charismatic arsenic the Dell 14 Premium. There conscionable isn’t. That's inactive an accomplishment successful my book, adjacent if not each of the trade-offs are wins, specified arsenic the light-up interaction buttons. I privation Dell had recovered a mode to get the RTX 5050 onboard, though, due to the fact that arsenic is, this doesn't consciousness similar overmuch of an upgrade.

If you're consenting to bargain a gaming laptop, you tin find them with the RTX 4050 for good nether fractional the terms of the Dell 14 Premium, and they'll apt execute amended acknowledgment to louder fans and a thicker chassis. The Dell 14 Premium is conscionable not a performance-first machine, and I don't deliberation it was ever intended to be. But with laptops similar the MacBook Pro and Razer Blade 14 arsenic nonstop competition, it needs to be.