The best Dell laptops aren’t limited to what exists within the fantastic XPS family of devices. While the runaway success that is the Dell XPS 13 currently takes center stage in our best laptops list, by no means is the American manufacturer a one-trick pony. In fact, Dell’s diversity is one of its key strengths.
While there’s an impressive assortment of business, productivity, and gaming-focused laptops available through their Latitude, Precision and G-Series product lines, Dell hasn’t let quantity impact quality. Never coming across as spread too thin, Dell has made real strides in innovation around design, battery life and implementation.
We’ve pulled together some of our best-reviewed Dell devices to highlight our top picks for a range of computing needs and budgetary allowances. So, whether you’re in the market for a premium laptop, 2-in-1, or workstation, the chances are high that there’s a fantastic Dell product out there that deserves to be on your shortlist.
What are the best Dell laptops?
The Dell XPS 13 is a marvel of both form and function. That makes it our pick for not just the best Dell laptop, but for the best overall laptop available, period. The XPS 13 is a real jack of all trades thanks to its powerful 11th Gen Intel Core i7 Tiger Lake processor and Intel Iris Xe graphics and has a variety of configurations available to suit education, creation, work, and play.
Mobile professionals may find what they’re looking for in the Dell Latitude 9410. This 2-in-1 notebook is one of the best business laptops available, combining style, durability, and power with an incredible battery life of over 16 hours. The Latitude 9410 is a true all-day device that’s perfect for long stretches away from a desk or even keeping up with your workload while racking up some air miles.
For an even more portable option, there’s also the Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable, a hybrid tablet-cum-laptop that features a more powerful 11th Gen Tiger Lake processor and Iris Xe graphics. While it doesn’t have the same level of battery life as the Latitude 9410, it still boasts a reasonable nine-hour lifetime between charges.
Dell’s XPS 13 has been a fantastic choice for a number of years, balancing style with performance while retaining portability. Powered by Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake processor and featuring Iris Xe graphics, the XPS 13 packs a decent punch for its size and is capable of taking on a host of computing tasks.
The XPS’s stunning and lightweight design features a bright, vivid and almost bezel-less display. Newer revisions of the XPS 13 offer OLED and 4K configurations to make the most of the InfinityEdge screen, making the XPS as much of a treat to use as it is to look at. While these options do cause the battery life to take a hit, the XPS 13 remains as Dell’s best offering on the market.
See our full Dell XPS 13 (Late 2020) review.
The Dell Latitude 9410 is a fantastic business laptop that delivers a true all-day lifespan on a single charge. Dell’s notebook lasted an impressive 16 hours and 54 minutes in our battery life tests, placing it second only to the Dell Latitude 9510’s record-setting 18+ hour lifetime. This is great for those who work on the go and means you’ll be able to make the most of the Latitude 9410’s 10th Gen Intel CPU for longer stretches — without having to reach for the charging cable.
However, there’s more to the Latitude 9410 than its impressive battery life and strong performance. A built-in IR camera and fingerprint sensor offer a decent level of protection when paired with Dell’s suite of onboard security options, and a MIL-STD-810G certification means the device itself is protected from shock damage from falls of up to four feet, and exposure to dust and harsh environments.
See our full Dell Latitude 9410 2-in-1 review.
If you can accept nothing less than peak performance (and then some), then the Dell Precision 7550’s pairing of an Intel Xeon W-10885M CPU with an Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 GPU may be the ultimate solution to your workstation needs. If you’re prepared to pay the massive costs for behemoth performance, that is.
This 4K workhorse is capable of lightning-fast processing and performed amazingly well against strong competition in our CPU performance. During the Laptop Mag battery life test, the Precision 7550 flew by the 6 hours and 30 minutes average for workstations with an impressive time of 8:45. If you’re looking to do some serious computing you’ll need a serious machine, and with an impressive amount of configuration options available, the Dell Precision 7550 could become your tailor-made powerhouse.
See our full Dell Precision 7550 review.
The XPS 13 2-in-1 is very much how it sounds. Take as much of the style, quality and power of the XPS 13 and put it into convertible form. What you end up with is a high-performance, ultrathin 2-in-1 with the power of Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake CPUs and Iris Xe graphics at its fingertips. However, such a move isn’t without its compromises. The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 inherits the XPS 13’s lack of legacy ports by offering only two Thunderbolt 4 connections, and its Maglev keyboard doesn’t quite manage to make the same impact as the one found on Dell’s XPS notebook.
In almost all other ways the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is faithful to the XPS name. The latest revision includes an IR camera and an improved battery life that fell just short of 11 hours in our testing (lasting roughly an hour longer than the premium laptop average of 9 hours and 52 minutes). The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 might not be the best convertible on the market, facing stiff competition from the likes of HP and Lenovo, but it is the best convertible available under the Dell brand, taking an already impressive machine and further bolstering its versatility.
See our full Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 (2020) review.
Breaking from Dell’s Intel traditions, the G5 15 SE features both the AMD Ryzen R7 4800H CPU and the AMD Radeon RX 5600M GPU. This gives the Dell G5 15 SE an incredible CPU performance boost and helps to fashion it into one of the best gaming laptops available for its price.
While the graphics performance isn’t the best, the G5 15 SE has an impressive price to performance ratio and was able to stay in the runnings with the likes of the Omen 15, Legion Y545 and Zephyrus G14 during our gaming benchmark tests. On one occasion, even coming out on top with a 46fps average for the Metro: Exodus benchmark running on Ultra at 1080p. The Dell G5 15 SE is a great value budget buy that could be ideal for those looking for an entry-level purchase.
See our full Dell G5 15 SE (2020) review.
The Dell XPS 17 is able to tackle all of your productivity, creativity and multimedia needs and is the ideal workstation for professionals looking to create, edit or publish. We hailed it as a true competitor to the 16-inch MacBook Pro, thanks in part to a 10th Gen Intel i7 processor along with an Nvidia RTX 2060 GPU which allows for some impressive results in both performance and graphics.
The impressively vivid 17-inch, UHD+ display panel has a brightness averaging 505 nits and hits 172% of the sRGB color gamut. If that doesn’t sell you enough on the potential of this device, it all fits into a chassis that is nearly half the size than most 15-inch laptops on the market. Meaning it retains the sleek and slim style that the XPS line is known for.
See our full Dell XPS 17 review.
Not everyone’s office consists of fake ferns and polished wooden furniture. Some offices are no different than a workshop floor, where your devices can be exposed to dust and other particulates, or even be prone to drop or shock damage. When that’s the case, you’re going to need a little more protection than that $2.99 plastic shell case you bought off of Amazon. Unless of course, your laptop is the Dell Latitude 5420 Rugged, which has been designed to have the laptop equivalent of an adamantium skeleton.
With a MIL-SPEC-810G certification, the Dell Latitude 5420 can handle drops of up to four feet, exposure to otherwise damaging temperatures, and harmful particulates all without suffering any internal damage. While it’s not indestructible, that’s enough protection to keep the powerful Intel Core i7-8650U processor and AMD Radeon RX540 GPU running through a wide range of computing worst-case scenarios throughout its impressive 9 hour and 45-minute battery life.
See our full Dell Latitude 5420 Rugged review.
From the Latitude 7320 Detachable’s bright, vivid 13-inch display to its comfortable and springy back-lit detachable keyboard, Dell has once again proven their competence when it comes to delivering a solid entry into a market that has the potential to be built upon for years to come. The Latitude 7320 isn’t reinventing the wheel, but it is ticking a lot of the boxes it needs to in order to compete with hybrid contemporaries from Microsoft and Lenovo.
While a 9 hour and 18 minutes battery life won’t blow away the competition anytime soon, the Latitude 7329 Detachable’s 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1180G7 (with vPro) CPU and Iris Xe graphics afford some impressive performance across a range of tasks. The Latitude 7320’s 5-megapixel webcam also impressed us with its clarity and detail, which easily set it apart from the competition.
See our full Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable review.
There’s nothing wrong with what the XPS 13 or 17 have made available, but there is a noticeable gap between their offerings. One that would make for an interesting middle-ground between lightweight performance and a full 4K creation suite. And so, sitting pretty between those two is the well-rounded XPS 15. Partnering an Intel Core i7-10750H CPU with the discrete graphics of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650 Ti makes the XPS 15 one of the more versatile devices in the XPS line-up. Productivity? Check. Creation? Check. Multimedia? Check. Gaming? Another check.
The 2020 revision brought with it a 5.5% reduction in the main chassis, all while improving upon the size of the keys and touchpad and the position of the webcam. These are minor tweaks that most manufacturers would overlook, but Dell seems almost compulsive in their desire to push and prod at every little aspect of the XPS family in their quest to create the perfect notebook. Is it all worth it? There are many that would say the XPS 15 is the best 15-inch laptop currently available. And we are included.
See our full Dell XPS 15 (2020) review.
