The 2026 Dell XPS 14 is a stylish investment for aesthetic-forward power users — I’m thinking content creators who might also be occasional gamers. You’re probably wishing the 14-inch MacBook Pro was even sleeker and a little more portable, and you may be getting impatient waiting for Apple’s touchscreen OLED upgrade. You’re definitely open to carrying around dongles.
I tested two configurations of the handsome XPS 14. The one I recommend as the best MacBook Pro alternative is an upper mid-tier model with an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H processor and a dazzling tandem OLED touchscreen. It’s no battery life champ, but it keeps pace with the base Pro in multi-core workloads, and its integrated GPU is excellent for demanding creative software and casual gaming.
The XPS 14 is easily one of the most elegant laptops I’ve ever encountered. Dell trimmed down its all-aluminum design for 2026, making it a touch thinner and nearly half a pound lighter than a 14-inch Pro. It’s available in two MacBook-y finishes: graphite and shimmer (coming later this year). Its lattice keyboard takes some adjusting to if you’re used to regular island-style keyboards, but it translates to a modern, minimalist look. Its seamless glass haptic touchpad looks equally clean. Its speakers are above-average for a Windows laptop — they’re just a little more echoey than a MacBook’s.
The XPS 14’s 2.8K OLED display is a $150 upcharge that I can endorse. It’s not as bright or crisp as a MacBook Pro’s Liquid Retina XDR display, but it’s more vibrant and just as smooth. (The standard IPS version is much duller in comparison.) Keep in mind that OLED won’t be a thing on a Mac until late 2026 at the soonest.
The Core Ultra X7 chip is a close rival of Apple’s M5 chip when you work it hard. It doesn’t feel as snappy in single-core scenarios, but trails the current MacBook Pro by only four percent when used for multi-core tasks. (That’s nothing.) What’s more, the Core Ultra X7’s Intel Arc B390 iGPU is comparable to an entry-level discrete graphics card. It’s perfectly capable of running graphically taxing titles like Cyberpunk 2077 with the help of games’ AI upscaling tech.
The XPS 14’s stamina is lacking compared to the M5 MacBook Pro, though it really depends on what you’re using it for. It held out for 10 hours and 19 minutes in our video rundown test, which is a full workday at least, but not great. (Its Apple counterpart ran for over 21 hours in the same test.) That said, its 120Hz OLED display dips down to just 20Hz when you’re viewing static content, so it should last much longer when it’s not looping a video.
If you want an XPS 14 with MacBook-beating battery life in almost any scenario, look into the $1,999.99 base model with a Core Ultra 5 325 chip. It lasted 22 hours on the dot in our video rundown test, and its refresh rate can drop to a mere 1Hz for static content. Just know that you’ll sacrifice a good chunk of power: It offers 35 percent worse multi-core performance than the Core Ultra X7 version. Speed-wise, it’s most akin to an M2 MacBook Air from 2022. (The cheaper Dell 14S with the Core Ultra 7 355 chip performs slightly better and lasts even longer, FWIW.)
