Dell resurrects XPS brand with slick new laptop that's smaller than a MacBook Air, lasts 40 hours and relies on Intel's Panther Lake chip for gaming grunt

Along with teasing some very skinny new Alienware laptops, one of the highlights of Dell's CES keynote was the return of the XPS brand in the form of some very slick new portable PCs. Notably, Dell isn't offering discrete graphics options with the new laptops, the implication being that the iGPU in the new Panther Lake CPU makes that unnecessary.

Putting aside the fact that killing off the XPS brand never seemed like a good idea, Dell's new laptops certainly look like a promising return for the XPS line. Initially, Dell is launching the XPS 14 and XPS 16, with a 13-inch model to follow.

Key attributes for the XPS 14 and 16 models include extremely high quality build quality, the "best battery life in the industry" and optional tandem OLED displays.

Chassis-wise, the laptops have an all-new design that has some similarities with previous XPS laptops, but does away with the capacitive function keys that proved so controversial, returning that top row of buttons to the keyboard proper.

Dell has also added subtle etching on the otherwise seamless glass trackpad panel below the keyboard, again addressing a design issue with the previous XPS design, which left users guessing exactly where the trackpad edges were.

Next up is new battery tech. Dell claims it's the first to implement 900ED (energy density) battery cells. Our understanding is that existing battery tech in commercially available laptops tops out at around 700ED.

That's an increase of over 20% in terms of energy density and it has allowed Dell to make these laptops both extremely compact and very long lasting. Dells says the XPS 14, "is now more compact than the MacBook Air 13, taking up less desk space while giving you more screen space." Both models are just 14.6 mm thick.

Despite being smaller than a MacBook Air, the XPS 14 has much more battery capacity, coming in at 70WHr to the Air's 53.8WHr. In combination with the new Intel Panther Lake chip, the result is incredible claimed battery life of up to 40 hours of local video playback and 27 hours of streaming video.

Slightly oddly, the larger XPS 16 has the same 70WHr battery, perhaps because the battery tech is so new, Dell can only source one capacity size, for now.

Anywho, speaking of that new Intel Panther Lake chip, Dell seems to think it's so good that a discrete GPU option is no longer necessary for these XPS portables. As Andy has reported, Panther Lake is claimed to be up to 77% faster than Intel's previous best iGPU in Lunar Lake, which itself was no slouch. Long story short, we can't wait to see just how good Panther Lake's graphics really is.

Rounding out the new XPS 14 and 16's highlights are optional tandem OLED screens. In this context, "tandem OLED" means just what you'd think, namely two OLED panels stacked atop one another.

This makes for a brighter, more robust OLED panel. Dell quotes full screen brightness at 400 nits, which is better than any desktop OLED monitor. It's worth noting that the OLED screens come with a battery life hit, though Dell isn't quoting specifics for now.

However, Dell has released pricing, pegging entry pricing at $2,049.99 for the 14 and $2,199.99 for the 16. Both laptops are available from today.

Along with the XPS 14 and 16, Dell said that an XPS 13 model will arrive later this year. It gets the same premium build quality, but will be the thinnest and lightest XPS ever, measuring under 13 mm thick.