Dell XPS 13 targets MacBook Neo with Intel’s Wildcat Lake — $699 starting price, $599 for students

Dell has finally brought back the XPS 13, its famed system that introduced the InfinityEdge display and was once widely considered the best Windows laptop on the market. This time, though, the device is facing a very different market, and Dell is using it to target Apple’s MacBook Neo and the newfound battle for the entry-level PC market.

The XPS 13 will start at $699, with a $599 deal for students 16 years and older, “for the back to school season.” That’s competitive for the specs, but $100 more than Apple’s pricing on the Neo (and Apple’s student pricing is year-round).

For that, you get Dell’s thinnest and lightest XPS laptop to date, starting at 2.2 pounds and 0.5 inches thin, lighter than the Neo (2.7 pounds). The system has a CNC aluminum shell. Unlike the Neo, Dell is offering a backlit keyboard, albeit with a shallow 0.8 mm of travel (Dell is moving back to chiclet keys on this machine, which I appreciate). The company is also using a standard mechanical trackpad, like Apple has opted for. There will be just two color options, “sky” and “storm,” with the latter coming sometime after launch.

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But Dell is offering far more performance options here. The base models will use Intel’s new “Wildcat Lake” processors, specifically the Core 5 320, but it will also offer the Panther Lake-based Core Ultra 7 355 sometime after launch.

While the XPS 13 will start with 8GB of RAM like the Neo, Dell will offer options up to 32GB. The Wildcat Lake options will be single-channel and go up to 16GB, while the Core Ultra configurations will have 16 and 32GB options in a dual-channel configuration. Meanwhile, storage will range from 256GB up to 1TB. As of this writing, we don’t have pricing for the additional configuration options, but they’ll likely push pricing far higher than Apple.

The XPS 13 boasts a 13.4-inch, 2560 x 1600 touchscreen display, making it larger than the Neo’s 13 inches with the addition of touch, which Apple isn’t currently offering. Dell’s screen also offers a variable refresh rate panel between 30 Hz and 120 Hz.

The new XPS 13 is limited on port selection. While a pair of USB-C 3.2 Gen-2 ports will be fine for most people, a headphone jack would be a nice addition. Dell boosted these ports to Thunderbolt 4 on the Core Ultra versions.