Dell’s XPS revival is a welcome reprieve from the “AI PC” fad
Dell moves from pushing "AI PCs" and back to what matters in laptops.
After making the obviously poor decision to kill its XPS laptops and desktops in January 2025, Dell started selling 16- and 14-inch XPS laptops again today.
“It was obvious we needed to change,” Jeff Clarke, vice chairman and COO at Dell Technologies, said at a press event in New York City previewing Dell’s CES 2026 announcements.
A year ago, Dell abandoned XPS branding, as well as its Latitude, Inspiron, and Precision PC lineups. The company replaced the reputable brands with Dell Premium, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max. Each series included a base model, as well as “Plus” and “Premium.” Dell isn’t resurrecting its Latitude, Inspiron, or Precision series, and it will still sell “Dell Pro” models.
This is how Dell breaks down its computer lineup now.
Credit: Dell
This is how Dell breaks down its computer lineup now. Credit: Dell
XPS returns
The revival of XPS means the return of one of the easiest recommendations for consumer ultralight laptops. Before last year’s shunning, XPS laptops had a reputation for thin, lightweight designs with modern features and decent performance for the price. This year, Dell is even doing away with some of the design tweaks that it introduced to the XPS lineup in 2022, which, unfortunately, were shoppers’ sole option last year.
Inheriting traits from the XPS 13 Plus introduced in 2022, the XPS-equivalent laptops that Dell released in 2025 had a capacitive-touch row without physical buttons, a borderless touchpad with haptic feedback, and a flat, lattice-free keyboard. The design was meant to enable more thermal headroom but made using the computers feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar.
The XPS 14 and XPS 16 laptops launching today have physical function rows. They still have a haptic touchpad, but now the touchpad has comforting left and right borders. And although the XPS 14 and XPS 16 have the same lattice-free keyboard of the XPS 13 Plus, Dell will release a cheaper XPS 13 later this year with a more traditional chiclet keyboard, since those types of keyboards are cheaper to make.