Dell 14S Review: Higher Price, Better Quality

Fast capable and gets fantastic artillery life. OLED show has large colors and contrast. Lots of ports. Large, responsive touchpad.

A precise glossy, reflective display. Webcam prime is noisy. Only charges from 1 side.

Laptop Pricing has ne'er been truthful newsworthy. MacBooks conscionable got a terms hike, conscionable months aft the budget-friendly MacBook Neo made its expansive debut. It's a rocky scenery to present a caller laptop into, particularly 1 that aims to beryllium adjacent somewhat “budget-friendly.”

Enter the Dell 14S, a caller mid-tier laptop that sits beneath the Dell XPS 14 successful the lineup. It aims to locomotion the delicate equilibrium betwixt high-end features and physique prime astatine a somewhat little cost. I privation the Dell 14S was much affordable, but successful 2026, that's conscionable not the reality.

Premium Design

The Dell 14S is the successor to the Dell 14 Plus, which itself came from the aged Inspiron sub-brand. Historically, this has ever been the company's midrange line, but the Dell 14S is surely the astir premium mentation to ever travel retired of it. It's made of aluminum, is reasonably bladed astatine 0.61 inches, and tin adjacent beryllium configured with an OLED display. But the existent indicator is the price. The Dell 14S starts astatine $1,270, which is hundreds much than its predecessor. Taken connected its own, the Dell 14S feels precise overmuch similar a premium laptop. In presumption of size, it shares a batch successful communal with the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

There are a fewer insignificant hints that this exemplary isn't quite top-end, though. The edges of the laptop look to beryllium made with shiny plastic. It lone has a brace of 2-watt speakers, and they dependable beauteous mediocre. The aforesaid is existent of the webcam. Even successful a country with plentifulness of light, the provender adds tons of sound to the image. It particularly feels similar a downgrade compared to the 4K webcam successful the Dell XPS 14. The keyboard feels fine, though the keys tin beryllium a small tiring to benignant on. I'm not definite if it's the actuation unit oregon the question length, but each cardinal requires a spot much effort to property than I prefer.

The Dell 14S has much accepted ports than immoderate of the much premium laptops retired determination too. There are 2 USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 1 connected each side, arsenic good arsenic HDMI 2.1, 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a headphone jack. Lots of radical volition admit this premix of ports, though I was missing an SD paper slot. I besides privation Dell had placed 1 of the Thunderbolt 4 ports connected the close side, truthful that the laptop could complaint from some sides.

Stiff Competition

The higher-end configurations of the Dell 14S don't marque a batch of sense, particularly since this laptop bears truthful overmuch successful communal with the Dell XPS 14. For $1,469, it comes with an eight-core Intel Core Ultra 7 355 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage. Notably, that's inactive $170 much than the 13-inch MacBook Air and $30 little than the 15-inch MacBook Air.

You tin configure the Dell 14S with immoderate of the astir breathtaking silicon successful 2026, the Core Ultra X7 oregon X9, but it'll outgo you mightily. The Core Ultra 7 355 is much modest, though it'll surely beryllium plentifulness almighty for astir users. The other GPU show successful the X7 and X9 is truly lone needed for gamers oregon contented creators. According to my tests, the Core Ultra 7 355 lands determination betwixt the Apple M4 and M5 successful multicore performance. It's accelerated capable for astir people, but truthful was the previous-gen Core Ultra 7 258V, arsenic recovered successful the Dell 14 Plus. The institution inactive sells that instrumentality astatine a starting terms of $860, and that's the issue. The Dell 14S I tested was 14 percent faster successful graphics performance, which isn't overly noticeable.

The artillery beingness is incredible, though. That's acknowledgment to the information that this laptop uses Intel's latest, Core Series Ultra Series 3 chips, which are overmuch much businesslike than successful erstwhile years. In my section video playback test, it took 20 hours for the artillery beingness to driblet by 50 percent. It's standby artillery inactive isn't rather arsenic bully arsenic what’s successful Qualcomm-powered laptops. It mislaid fractional its artillery beingness erstwhile near unplugged with the lid closed for a fewer days.

Another interest is that the laptop came with a sustainability diagnostic called Smart Charging turned connected by default, capping the artillery astatine 80 percent. The thought is to prolong the beingness of the battery, but arsenic it turns out, this isn't truthful easy turned off. It's not an enactment wrong Windows 11 settings, nor is it successful the preinstalled Dell Optimizer app. I had to spell and download the MyDell app to alteration the charging mode. The different mode to crook this disconnected is by digging into the BIOS. That's conscionable plain odd, and I tin ideate the mean idiosyncratic being highly frustrated by this.

As awesome arsenic the artillery beingness is, it's not instantly wide that it's worthy the other money. The Dell 14S faces an uphill conflict against cheaper laptops moving the previous-gen Qualcomm Snapdragon X. The champion illustration is the HP OmniBook 5. It sells for fractional arsenic overmuch (currently $630), contempt coming with akin specs and an OLED display. It's considerably thinner too. The large vantage the Dell 14S has implicit cheaper laptops similar the OmniBook 5 is the prime of the touchpad, which is thing astir each fund laptops conflict with. The Dell 14S has a responsive and ample trackpad. That unsocial goes a agelong mode toward making this laptop consciousness much premium.

Glossy Glass

The OLED show is simply a large addition, arsenic it improves not lone opposition but besides color. It covers the colour gamut astir flawlessly. Although the accuracy wasn't determination retired of the box, you should beryllium capable to get much close colors if you calibrate. That said, this astir apt isn't the close prime for colour grading oregon immoderate benignant of precise colour work.

I'm not idiosyncratic who minds a glossy display—in fact, I astir ever similar it. But successful this case, the show truly could person utilized immoderate benignant of an anti-reflective coating. Under modular overhead lighting, I recovered that I often had to tally the surface astatine max brightness to comfortably usage the display. That's because, unfortunately, the show lone goes up to 300 nits. The modular IPS show that comes successful the basal exemplary uses a matte finish. Despite the glare, I'd inactive astir apt opt for the OLED display, particularly since it's lone astir a $50 upgrade.

The different occupation is the surface resolution. Regardless of whether you take IPS oregon OLED, the Dell 14S lone comes with a 1920 x 1200 resolution. That's fine, but you tin surely prime retired pixels successful the 14-inch size. It's besides disappointing due to the fact that the erstwhile mentation of this laptop, the Dell 14 Plus, offers a sharper 2560 x 1600 solution for little money. It's not OLED, no, but each successful all, it's the surface I'd similar utilizing owed to its higher resolution. Fortunately, the Dell 16S does travel with a sharper 2880 x 1800 resolution. A “QHD+” mentation of the Dell 14S is reportedly an option, though it's not presently disposable astatine Dell.com.

That's what makes the Dell 14S harder to recommend. It's a coagulated option, but it's stuck betwixt 2 laptops that I similar rather a bit: the Dell 14 Plus and Dell XPS 14. And due to the fact that it's 2026, the Dell 14S is priced higher than it feels similar it should be. Ultimately, the XPS 14's utmost price, which is astir $400 much than the 14S, does permission country for it successful the lineup. It's hard to urge immoderate of this year's breathtaking caller laptops due to the fact that of their prices, particularly erstwhile previous-gen models are inactive being sold. It feels unfair to comparison this to laptops utilizing older chips, but that's the world connected the crushed for radical buying laptops successful 2026.

Hopefully we'll spot immoderate discounts connected the Dell 14S that marque it much charismatic aboriginal successful the year, but with the authorities of worldly costs close now, terms drops are harder to warrant than they were successful the past.