Dell 16 Premium Review: A Stunning Laptop That Fails on Function We had less than a year to mourn the loss of Dell’s iconic XPS laptop brand, and frankly, I am still not over it. But time moves on. I have finally had a chance to put the larger Dell 16 Premium, formerly the XPS 16, through its paces. My conclusion is that it remains as beautiful as the last model, but I also believe Dell seriously needs to rethink its ultramodern design strategy. With its minimalist design, smooth metal case, and clean lines, the Dell 16 Premium looks like a work of art. It is the sort of thing I would imagine as a prop for a sci-fi movie from the nineties. But those good looks come at a cost, both in terms of its starting price of two thousand dollars and in basic functionality. If you have read my reviews of the previous XPS 16 and the XPS 13 Plus, the first models to use this aesthetic, you might think I am just repeating myself. But it is worth pointing out again, more than three years after I first criticized Dell for chasing style over function, that the company seemingly has not learned anything. Sure, it is a bit faster thanks to Intel Core Ultra chips and NVIDIA RTX 50-series GPUs, but that is not saying much. I still have trouble using the 16 Premiums borderless trackpad because it is tough to tell where the clickable zones are. I still dislike the capacitive function row, which becomes nearly invisible in bright light and makes it difficult to build muscle memory for keys like brightness or volume. And honestly, I still do not 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 it had to include more ports for professionals, and other PC makers like ASUS and Acer offer them too. Did Dell miss the memo? Worst of all, the 16 Premiums 4K OLED screen seriously hampers its battery life. It only lasted six hours and five minutes during a basic video rundown test. The previous XPS 16 lasted eight and a half hours in a more demanding battery benchmark. Larger laptops often have bigger batteries, but the 16 Premium cannot even manage that. At least it is faster than before. The model I reviewed had an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H chip and a low-wattage version of the NVIDIA RTX 5070 GPU. It scored around ten percent higher than last years XPS 16 in one benchmark and was notably faster in the Geekbench AI test thanks to the new NPU. I was even able to play Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K at 84 frames per second with DLSS frame generation enabled. However, the system slowed to a crawl whenever I enabled ray tracing features, which is strange for a new NVIDIA GPU. Sure, it is not a gaming laptop, so I cannot compare it directly to a Razer Blade. But it is odd to see a latest GPU handle ray tracing so poorly. The fans also got pretty loud under load, though they did keep the system relatively cool. The more I looked at the Dell 16 Premiums beautiful facade, the more I wanted something more. It needs more usable ports, like HDMI and a full-sized SD card reader. It needs function keys that are visible and stay in one place. And for the love of all that is good, just give up on the invisible trackpad. It is a parlor trick that makes it harder to tell left and right clicks apart. Given its premium positioning, I also expected more from the speakers. They sound fine compared to most Windows laptops, but they cannot compete with the audio quality of a 16-inch MacBook Pro. The Dell lacks dynamic range and low-end tone, while Apple speakers are surprisingly deep and enveloping. To avoid being entirely negative, I will say I genuinely enjoy looking at the Dell 16 Premium. I love how its keyboard and large key caps lay perfectly flat. And the 16-inch OLED screen is lusciously colorful. I am just asking Dell designers to find a better balance of style and functionality for their next premium laptop.
