Dell is stretching the XPS 13 brand downmarket for the first time in its decade-plus history, positioning a refreshed 2026 model as a direct answer to Apple's $599 MacBook Neo. Consumer configurations start at $699 (€644), while a student-pricing tier opens at $599 (€552), giving the line a budget entry point that the XPS family has never had before.
Despite the lower starting price, Dell is still pitching this as a premium ultraportable. The aluminum chassis tapers to 12.5 mm (0.5 inches) and the whole laptop weighs 1 kg (2.2 pounds), which Dell says makes it the thinnest and lightest XPS 13 to date. Every configuration ships with a backlit keyboard and a 13.4 inch 2560 x 1600 IPS touchscreen covering 100% of DCI-P3, hitting up to 500 nits, with a variable refresh rate that swings from 30 Hz to 120 Hz. Color choices are limited to "sky" and "storm."
Under the hood, the entry-level model runs Intel's new Core 3 5 320 "Wildcat Lake" chip, a 6-core part with two Performance cores, four Low-Power Efficiency cores, and dual-core integrated graphics, paired with 8 GB of LPDDR5x-7467 memory and a 512 GB SSD. Step up the ladder and Dell will sell configurations with 16 GB or 32 GB of RAM, up to a 1 TB SSD, and up to a Core Ultra 7 355 "Panther Lake" processor. A 256 GB SSD option is planned for later, which opens the door to even cheaper variants.
The trade-off for the slim profile is austere I/O. The notebook has exactly two USB Type-C ports and nothing else, no headphone jack included. Panther Lake configurations upgrade those ports to Thunderbolt 4, while Wildcat Lake models get USB 3.2 Type-C. Linux users eyeing this as a lightweight daily driver will want to wait for community reports on Wildcat Lake and Panther Lake kernel support before committing, since both platforms are fresh enough that mainline drivers are still catching up.
Dell says the new XPS 13 goes on sale later in summer 2026.
