13th October, 2024
Redesigned XPS 13 has lots of potential but finds itself hamstrung by iffy design decisions and Intel’s underachieving Meteor Lake
2024 marks yet another cosmetic surgery for the XPS 13. This new vision for the premium XPS range isn’t strictly new – it debuted with the XPS 13 Plus in 2023 – but, despite the lukewarm critical reception for that particular portable, Dell made the bold decision to remold the whole range in its image.
the aesthetics were one of the Plus’ strong points and the XPS 13 has emerged resplendent. The chassis is elegant; the touchpad has disappeared behind an all-glass wristrest, and the new keyboard has gained a gleaming new touchbar. At a glance, the XPS 13 looks ready to reprise its role of providing premium-class Windows computing in a supremely baggable form.Having missed the chance to review this generation of the XPS 13 when it was first released back at the beginning of 2024, we’re now in the unusual situation of having not one, not two, but three XPS 13 models to consider: the Meteor Lake-powered XPS 13 9340 we have here, its Snapdragon-powered doppelganger and the newly launched Lunar Lake XPS 13 9350.
Whichever processor you choose, however, the physical design for all three remains the same and, spoiler alert, we’re not convinced that it’s a resounding success.
First, though, the good news. The XPS 13 remains a handsome, petite laptop. Leave the lid closed, and you won’t notice radical differences between this and last year’s model. The slanted, wedge-style shape and expanse of brushed metal stretching across the lid and base is winsomely familiar.
The lid is similarly tough and flex-free, and this bodes well for a laptop that’s destined to spend most of its life being unceremoniously carted around in a bag. If you’ve cursed laptops that develop a perfect crisscross imprint of the keyboard pressed onto the display, then overly flexible lids are the likely culprit – it’s fair to say that the XPS 13 (probably) won’t be joining their ranks.While admiring the XPS 13’s looks, however, you might reasonably ask where all the ports have gone. There are now only two USB-C ports, one on each flank, both of which support Thunderbolt 4. Aesthetically, the minimalism is appealing, but in practical terms, it’s unhelpful.A simple 3.5mm headset port would be a huge boon for work use – or even just listening to music or movies with wired headphones – and a third USB-C port would be equally welcome. There are no USB-C adapters in the box, either, so you’ll have to treat yourself to a portable USB-C hub if you want to connect a standard USB-A cable or any device that doesn’t natively support USB-C, for that matter.
Dell XPS 13 9340: Keyboard and touchpadOpen the lid, and it’s all change. Last year’s island (or chiclet, depending on your preference) keyboard has been replaced. In its place, you’ll find a fancy-looking gapless design, with backlighting, big square keys, annoyingly small up and down cursor keys, and a touchbar which we’ll moan about shortly. In the keyboard’s favor, it does feel good: there’s a lovely dig of feedback to each keystroke, and this makes it easy to get up to a good typing speed. We do rather miss the gaps between the keys, however, as it’s easier to find your way around with your fingertips. Which leads neatly to the next point of contention: the touchbar.Dell has replaced the top row of physical function buttons with a backlit touchbar that flicks between function keys and shortcut buttons with a dab of the Fn key. Why Dell has decided this was an improvement on simple physical keys is anyone’s guess: we suspect because it looks fancy. Reasoning aside, it’s a retrograde step: users have to put up with touch-sensitive controls for both the Esc and Delete buttons, which is annoying as they’re impossible to locate by touch alone. What’s more, there doesn’t seem to be a way to manually turn the touchbar backlight off, so you have to put up with a glowing row of buttons until such a time as it deigns to go dark.There are other dubious design choices. The power button (with its integrated fingerprint reader) has slid down from the top row and is now wedged alongside the backspace button. Dab that backspace button a little too enthusiastically, and you’ll find yourself sending the laptop to sleep or shutting it down completely, depending on your settings. This only needs to happen occasionally to be very, very annoying. Insert expletive here.
maximum Delta E of 4.05 is only due to the panel not being able to reproduce certain shades of blue – we recorded an sRGB coverage of 96% with the panel only falling short in the furthest corners of the blue spectrum.What’s more, the potent backlight allows the panel to hit a maximum luminance of 503cd/m2, and the contrast ratio of 2,120:1 is very respectable, too. This goes hand in hand with a semi-gloss anti-glare coating which does a reasonable job of minimising reflections both inside and out. Our only moan here is that it’s not as good at combating reflections as the fully matte coatings found on more business-focused laptops, so it’s not as forgiving of bright overhead lighting.
Dell XPS 13 9340
