Best by the numbers
Best Dell laptops
The top 12 of 22 non-discontinued Dell models we track, ranked by our hand-scored average across the six categories. Not by what Dell pushes, and not by commission.
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- Dell XPS 13 9345 (Snapdragon X Elite)
A 13.4 inch ultraportable with the Snapdragon X Elite that posts long battery on Windows, but on Linux it sits in the same work-in-progress bucket as the other X Elite laptops with no speakers, no webcam, and firmware you have to pull off Windows first.
€ 1.499 7.7/10 Linux not supported - Dell XPS 16 9640
A 4K OLED 16 inch with a 60W RTX 4070, priced like a workstation.
€ 3.699 7.3/10 Linux not supported - Dell XPS 13 9350
Great 11-hour battery and build, but the IPU7 webcam is dead on Linux because of a Dell BIOS bug, and the capacitive function row still annoys nearly every reviewer.
€ 1.599 7.2/10 Linux not supported - Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7440
A 999 dollar Meteor Lake all-rounder with a 2.5K 16:10 panel and a genuine 11-hour battery, which is rare at the price.
€ 1.099 7.0/10 Linux, minor tweaks - Dell Pro 14 Premium (PA14250, Core Ultra 7 268V)
A 1.17 kg Lunar Lake business 14 with a real 12-hour battery and tank build, but the MIPI webcam is the usual Intel mess on Linux and you live without it or carry a USB cam.
€ 1.699 7.0/10 Linux, minor tweaks - Dell Latitude 7450 (Core Ultra 7 165H)
An Ubuntu-certified 1.06 kg fleet ultralight with 12 hours real battery and a solid keyboard.
€ 1.799 7.0/10 Linux, minor tweaks - Dell XPS 14 9440
Sharp build and a good 14.5 inch panel, but on Linux the IPU6 webcam stays dark and the cs35l56 speakers need firmware and a UCM patch before they make a sound.
€ 2.099 7.0/10 Linux not supported - Dell Alienware 16 Area-51 (2025)
A 3.3 kg RTX 5080 with a Cherry mechanical keyboard, slotted DDR5 and a 240 Hz QHD+ IPS panel for about 3200 dollars, but the GPU only hits 175W in the loudest Turbo mode and the 96 Wh battery lasts about 4 hours.
€ 2.976 7.0/10 Linux unverified - Dell Pro Max 16 Premium (MA16250, Core Ultra 9 285H)
The 2025 rebrand of the XPS 16 line as a mobile workstation: 2.19 kg, Arrow Lake H, an OLED 4K 120 Hz option, RTX PRO Blackwell GPUs and a 96 Wh battery, but RAM is soldered LPDDR5X and Linux on this exact SKU with the new RTX PRO Blackwell stack is not verified.
€ 2.990 7.0/10 Linux unverified - Dell 16 Plus (DB16250)
A 16-inch Lunar Lake laptop with a clean keyboard deck and roughly 14 hours of video playback for about 1149 dollars, held back by a plain 300-nit non-touch panel, soldered RAM, and an unverified Linux story on the IPU6 camera platform.
€ 1.069 6.8/10 Linux unverified - Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 (Core Ultra 7 165U)
A 500-nit QHD+ convertible on Meteor Lake-U with 13 real hours of battery in a 1.53 kg shell.
€ 3.199 6.8/10 Linux, minor tweaks - Dell Precision 5690 (Core Ultra 7 165H, RTX 5000 Ada)
The slim 16-inch Precision that replaced the 5680 and shares the XPS chassis: 2.31 kg, 99.5Wh, OLED 4K, Ubuntu cert on the RTX 5000 Ada SKU.
€ 4.899 6.8/10 Linux, minor tweaks
