Dell stuffed an enterprise-grade NPU into its new Pro Max Plus laptop
The Pro Max Plus features the Qualcomm AI 100 PC Inference Card, making it the "world's first mobile workstation with an enterprise-grade discrete NPU." This NPU offers 32 AI-cores and 64GB of memory. This is enough to directly handle the type of large AI models that typically require the cloud to run.
We don't know anything else regarding traditional specs, but we do know that this will be one of many Pro Max Plus designs . The other models won't be quite as focused on advanced AI applications.
Dell says this laptop is primarily intended for "AI engineers and data scientists," and so it's held off on announcing pricing. Given the specs, it's likely to be way too expensive for traditional consumers. It's coming out later this year.
The company also revealed new server designs and a new cooling system for these servers. Dell's PowerCool Enclosed Rear Door Heat Exchanger (eRDHx) is an alternative to standard rear door heat exchangers. Dell says it captures 100 percent of heat generated via a "self-contained airflow system." It also suggests it can reduce cooling energy costs by up to 60 percent when compared to current alternatives.
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I spent a week with the Dell 14 Premium. Here's why you should get a different laptop
The Dell 14 Premium, the new name for the most recent iteration of Dell's XPS 14, was once a consistent front-runner among the best laptops for the last decade that I've been reviewing computers and electronics. Things changed in the last few years, as the 2024 XPS 14 saw a new design that aimed for futuristic style with divisive results. Then, earlier this year, Dell discarded its naming conventions, throwing XPS away for the simpler (but longer) Premium branding. With that in mind, Windows laptop shoppers are probably curious if anything's changed under this new name and if this laptop merits its $1,500 starting price. To that end, I've spent the last week with the Dell 14 Premium, trying to adjust to its oddities and eccentricities. Here's what I think. Dell 14 Premium Laptop This sturdy and sleek laptop is pretty fast and should be customized with an OLED display and discreet graphics if you're considering purchasing it. A gorgeous (and optional) OLED display The Dell 14 Premium never looks better than when you're drinking in views from its 3.2K OLED display, which costs $200 extra and is a must-buy addition if you're sure you want this laptop. Yes, that also means you're probably going to get less battery life than you would with the 2K, non-touchscreen version, but I'd personally make that trade-off if you're going to be watching movies and TV on this laptop and you want them to look their best. To test out this OLED panel, I turned on Denis Villeneuve's exceptional film 'Dune: Part Two' and marveled at the stark, perfect contrast. Not only did amber flames and sand look perfect against the black letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the screen but the black-and-white fight scenes in the brutalist arena looked as good as I've ever seen them on any screen. Just remember to keep your microfiber cleaning cloth on you. (You have one, right? I love these if you don't.) Why? The one small issue I have with this panel is that it's so reflective that my lingering fingerprint smudges were distracting when I brought the Dell 14 Premium to the park on an overcast afternoon. Fast (but not the fastest) performance The Dell 14 Premium I tested was speedy in everyday performance, thanks to its Intel Core Ultra 7 255H processor and 32GB of memory. That meant I had no trouble multitasking as I wrote this review, juggled dozens of tabs in both the Brave and Chrome web browsers, talked to friends and colleagues in Discord and Slack, and managed passwords and projects with 1Password and Todoist. I was also happy to see that this laptop features Wi-Fi 7 support, which is great for future-proofing. This basically matches what we saw in synthetic testing, as the Dell 14 Premium bested the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x by slight margins on the Geekbench single-core test, which measures performance on modestly demanding applications and tasks. For those comparing Apples and Windows, note that the latest MacBooks did far better on the single-core test. Fortunately, the Dell 14 Premium beat the Slim 7x and stood toe-to-toe with the MacBook Pro 14 on the multi-core version, which measures how well a laptop can handle more-intense applications. I appreciated how quickly the Dell 14 Premium's Windows Hello facial recognition login activates too, and that it has this feature at all. That's because the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x always takes a little longer to do this than I'd like, and Apple's still yet to put its Face ID tech in its MacBooks to make them more secure. Relatedly, the Dell 14 Premium's Full HD webcam provided decent-enough video quality on conference calls with my manager, but his MacBook Pro had him looking a bit clearer than I appeared. One potentially important warning: don't buy the Dell 14 Premium with integrated Intel Arc graphics for any gaming or graphics work. It only managed to run the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (set to 1080p resolution and the highest graphics) at 30 frames per second (fps), which is the lowest score we'd classify as playable for that 2018 action-adventure game. Look for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics when customizing your specs if you want to prepare yourself for modest, modern gaming on the go. Frankly disappointing battery life The Dell 14 Premium recorded terribly short battery life on our in-house test. When our battery test drained its full charge after eight hours and 20 minutes of looping 4K video at 50% brightness, I started to wonder what there was to truly love about this laptop beyond its screen. This isn't a shocking time, but it falls down under comparison to the field. The 14-inch MacBook Pro M4, for example, ran for more than four hours longer on the same test, and the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x lasted over twice as long on a similar version of the same test. Why did the Dell 14 Premium go kaput so much sooner? Well, we expect less battery life on laptops running on x86-based processors, such as the Intel Core Ultra 7 255H in this notebook, than we do on ones with the Arm-based processor that powers MacBooks and the Yoga Slim 7x. But that's not the full story, as the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (admittedly a 2024 model) lasted two more hours than the Dell 14 Premium, and it runs on an x86 chip. Refueling the Dell 14 Premium with the included charger worked fast enough, with more than half of its battery refilled after an hour of charging. This futuristic design disposes of functionality The Dell 14 Premium's design isn't all bad, as it inherits a sleek and durable chassis from its days as the Dell XPS 14, which is sold in two colors: Platinum (think white or silver) and Graphite (dark gray). Plus, its InfinityEdge display bezels are fantastically slim. Speaking of size, its slender design and modest weight makes it pretty portable, though it's not the smallest or lightest I've ever seen. The positives about this design stop there. My first big gripe is how Dell decided not to prioritize making this laptop easy to open. My 'can I open it with a single finger' test — at which Apple and Lenovo thrive — fails on the Dell 14 Premium, unless I shimmy my thumbnail into the space between the lid and keyboard deck. A small divot that adds space to easily lift the screen would do wonders here. Taking the Dell 14 Premium out at the office, and tapping the mute button above its keyboard to avoid blasting music at colleagues, I muttered to myself, 'I hate this so much' the second my finger silenced the laptop. Why? Tapping this laptop's function row means pressing your finger against its glowing 'touch function row' screen, which is made of Gorilla Glass 3. Unlike any other laptop sold today, the Dell 14 Premium features a row of capacitive (i.e., touch-based) sensors where its regular Function keys should be. This isn't exactly new, as Dell killed off its physical function keys when it launched the XPS 2024. So now you tap glass instead of clicking buttons, and while I got used to this on a phone, it still breaks my muscle memory on a laptop. These aren't unimportant functions either, as the touch function row is used to adjust the volume and brightness, and houses the home, end, escape, insert and delete keys. Where did the function keys (F1 through F12) go? Well, you have to hold the function (Fn) key to reveal them, and you can lock those 'keys' in by tapping Esc while holding Fn. If that sounds terrible to you, then we agree on this user experience. Dell's not alone in sacrificing user experience for the sake of something that sounds or looks cool. Apple tried this with the (failed) Touch Bar, and automobile manufacturers such as Hyundai and Volkswagen have already realized that customers don't want to trade physical buttons for a touchscreen. One more flaw: Dell doesn't even let you customize the touch function row, just allows you to switch between the numbered 'F' keys and the controls you're already used to. So, not only does it not feel futuristic at all to hurt your fingers as you try to click glass but you're also potentially still stuck with fake keys you don't need. Personally, I would love to do away with the insert, microphone mute, and play/pause buttons, and replace them with commands to open frequently used applications such as the Brave web browser and Todoist. Then again, I still wouldn't use those because I dislike the feeling of tapping on glass. The actual keyboard keys, though, feel good to type on, with a comfortable click. I just wish there were more space between the keys, as they're set in an edge-to-edge style with barely any gaps, which led to more typos. The all-glass, no lines touchpad is still a bad idea Sometimes, on rare occasions, it's great to break from tradition. Just because something is normal doesn't mean it's good. The Dell 14 Premium's all-glass touchpad, though, is not that kind of revolution. Here, just as with the function row, Dell eschews the traditional touchpad design, erasing any indicators that visually identify the space you're supposed to tap. In its promotional materials, Dell referred to this design as 'friendlier,' and I must disagree. The lack of any indication as to where the touchpad is makes you feel like you shouldn't touch anywhere. Additionally, there's barely any feedback when you click on the surface, so I did not feel all that confident using it at first. After repeated attempts to define the touchpad, I learned it stretches from the left Alt key to the new CoPilot button (Microsoft's generative AI app taking up a key is, unfortunately, normal on Windows laptops these days). This space could be great for some, because that's a large canvas to occupy. Personally, I found that the mix of no visual indicators and a large touchpad made it too easy for me to activate the touchpad surface accidentally. At $1,700 — the cheapest price you can get the Dell 14 Premium with an OLED display — this laptop costs slightly more than it should. That price is $101 more than Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro M4, and both laptops pack 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a great screen. The MacBook Pro, however, boasts better battery life and a much better design with regular function row keys and a traditional touchpad. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x also packs a high-res OLED screen, and the same amount of memory and storage, and it's $400 less (you can currently get one for $1,300 at Best Buy.) That laptop does carry the quirks of an Arm-based processor, which include lackluster support for legacy devices, as well as only running beta versions of some Adobe applications. It's the best Windows laptop, but it's still not without caveats. Why is the Dell 14 Premium's conclusion so much about other laptops? Because I can't recommend it, which is sad. The Dell XPS laptops used to be the PC laptops worth your time, but the last few years haven't just erased the XPS brand. What ports does the Dell 14 Premium laptop come with? What ports does the Dell 14 Premium laptop come with? The Dell 14 Premium includes three USB-C ports that support the Thunderbolt 4 spec, a microSD memory reader and a headphone jack. Dell no longer includes a USB-C hub to add the USB-A port. What sizes does the Dell 14 Premium laptop come in? What sizes does the Dell 14 Premium laptop come in? While the Dell 14 Premium is 14 inches, the company does sell this laptop in one other size. The Dell 16 Premium is, as you'd guess, 16 inches. How long does the battery last on the Dell 14 Premium laptop? How long does the battery last on the Dell 14 Premium laptop? The Dell 14 Premium died after eight hours and 20 minutes on our looping 4K video test. CNN Underscored thoroughly tests the products we review and provides full transparency about our testing methodology. We're made up of skilled writers and editors who have many years of experience testing, researching and recommending products, and they ensure each article is carefully edited and products are properly vetted. Electronics writer Henry T. Casey has written tech product reviews for more than decade, during which he's seen more laptops than most folks who haven't worked at a Best Buy. Casey truly misses the XPS 14 that had physical function buttons and a traditional touchpad.
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