We’ve had less than a year to mourn the loss of Dell’s iconic XPS laptop brand, and frankly, I’m still not over it. But time moves on. Engadget has already reviewed the Dell 14 Premium, formerly the XPS 14, and now I’ve finally had a chance to put the larger Dell 16 Premium through its paces. My conclusion? It’s still as beautiful as the last XPS 16, but I also think Dell seriously needs to rethink its ultramodern design strategy.
With its minimalist design (look Ma, no visible trackpad!), smooth metal case and clean lines, the Dell 16 Premium looks like a work of art. It’s the sort of thing I’d imagine someone creating as a prop for a sci-fi movie in the ’90s, when we could barely imagine real notebooks moving beyond chunky grey bricks. But those good looks come at a cost — both in terms of price (it starts at $2,000) and basic functionality.
Dell
Dell’s 16 Premium looks as beautiful as ever, but the company’s usability issues from the XPS lineup remain.
Pros
- Sleek minimalist design
- Fast performance
- Solid keyboard
Cons
- Invisible trackpad isn’t user friendly
- Capacitive function keys disappear in sunlight
- Needs more ports
- Mediocre battery life
If you’ve read my reviews of the XPS 16 and XPS 13 Plus, Dell’s first models to use this aesthetic, you might think I’m just beating a dead horse. But it’s worth pointing out again, more than three years after I first chastised Dell for chasing style over function, that the company seemingly hasn’t learned anything. Sure, it’s a bit faster than before, thanks to Intel’s Core Ultra chips and NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series GPUs, but that’s not saying much.
I still have trouble using the 16 Premium’s borderless trackpad because it’s tough to tell where the clickable zones are. I still hate the capacitive function row, both because it becomes miraculously invisible in bright light and it’s tough to build muscle memory for specific keys (like changing the brightness or volume). And honestly, I still don’t know how Dell can justify offering only USB-C ports and a microSD card slot on a laptop meant for serious work. Even Apple realized that it had to include a wider variety of ports for professionals, and that’s also something other PC makers like ASUS and Acer offer. Did Dell miss the memo?
1 / 6
Dell 16 Premium from the rear.
The Dell 16 Premium from the rear.
Worst of all, the 16 Premium’s 4K OLED screen seriously hampers its battery life. It only lasted six hours and five minutes during a basic video rundown, whereas the previous XPS 16 lasted eight and a half hours in the much more demanding PCMark 10 battery test. (For some reason, that benchmark didn’t run properly on my review 16 Premium review unit.) Larger laptops often stuff in bigger batteries than smaller models, but the 16 Premium can’t even manage that.
At least it’s faster than before. The Dell 16 Premium I reviewed was equipped with Intel’s Core Ultra 7 255H chip and a low-wattage version of NVIDIA’s RTX 5070 GPU. It scored around 10 percent higher than last year’s XPS 16 in PCMark 10, and it was notably faster in the Geekbench AI benchmark thanks to Intel’s revamped NPU. I was even able to play Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K at 84 fps thanks to the 5070, though I had to enable DLSS 4 frame generation to do so. For some reason though, the system would slow to an absolute crawl whenever I enabled ray tracing features. At best, I only saw around 60 fps in 1080p while using the low ray tracing settings.
The Dell 16 Premium from the rear. (Devindra Hardawar for Engadget)
Sure, it’s not a gaming laptop, so I can’t directly compare it to something like the Razer Blade 16. But it’s strange to see one of NVIDIA’s latest GPUs handle ray tracing so poorly. As you’d expect, the Dell 16 Premium also got pretty loud whenever its fans spun up. At least they managed to keep the system relatively cool though: Its CPU and GPU sat at 68C and 70C, respectively, under load.
The more I looked at the Dell 16 Premium’s beautiful facade, the more I wanted something… more. It needs more usable ports, like HDMI and a full-sized SD card reader. It needs more useful function keys that are visible in bright light — and also stay in one place — so I can touch type more easily. And for the love of god, just give up on the invisible trackpad. It’s a parlor trick that just makes it harder to tell left and right mouse clicks apart, despite the impressively large trackpad area.
The 16 Premium’s “invisible” trackpad blends seamlessly into its wrist rest, while the keyboard lays perfectly flat and a row of capacitive function keys sits above. (Devindra Hardawar for Engadget)
Given its premium positioning, I also expected more from the laptop’s speakers. They sound fine compared to most Windows laptops, but they can’t hold a candle to the audio sorcery Apple accomplishes with the 16-inch MacBook Pro. When playing music, the 16 Premium doesn’t have much dynamic range or low-end tone, whereas Apple’s speakers often surprise me with their depth and enveloping sound. During late night writing sessions, I often find myself playing music straight through the 16-inch MacBook Pro, rather than casting it off to my Sonos speakers like the 16 Premium forces me to do.
To avoid being entirely negative, I’ll reiterate that I genuinely enjoy looking at the Dell 16 Premium. I love the way its keyboard and large key caps lay perfectly flat along the notebook’s lower half. And I’ll admit, the 16-inch OLED screen looks lusciously colorful when it needs to. I’m just asking for Dell’s designers to consider a better balance of style and functionality for their next stab at a premium 16-inch laptop.
