Dell XPS 13 (2026) review roundup: gorgeous and light, held back by 8GB RAM

Dell's 2026 XPS 13 is the most affordable model in the new XPS family, and it's aimed squarely at Apple's MacBook Neo. It costs ₹79,990 in India and is just 12.7mm thin and about 1kg, which Dell says makes it the thinnest and lightest XPS ever.

The build is the highlight: the body is carved from a single block of aluminium with no flex or creaks. The 13.4-inch 2.5K touchscreen runs at 30–120Hz, has an anti-reflective matte finish, reaches 500 nits and supports HDR and Dolby Vision. Quad speakers tuned with Dolby Atmos sound bigger than the thin chassis suggests.

Inside the review unit is an Intel Core 5 320, 8GB of LPDDR5X memory, integrated Intel graphics and 512GB of storage; Core Ultra versions are expected later. Everyday work like browsing, Office and 4K streaming runs smoothly, and battery life landed at 10–14+ hours in testing, against Dell's claim of up to 17 hours of streaming.

The catch is the soldered 8GB of RAM. With roughly 24–30 Chrome tabs plus apps like Slack or Spotify, memory use goes above 95% and the laptop starts to stutter. There are also only two USB-C ports, no headphone jack, no fingerprint reader (Windows Hello face login instead) and a trackpad whose top edge doesn't click.

Verdict: a lovely, very portable laptop for light users who value the screen and touch input. Heavy multitaskers should wait for configurations with more memory.