If you need another sign that this has been a very strange year for PC hardware, consider Dell’s latest XPS 13, which is equipped with Intel’s just-announced Core Ultra 200V processor. This is the third time in the past year that Dell has refreshed the popular ultra-compact laptop: first with the original Core Ultra chip in April, then in July, Dell released the Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ variant. And, as is often the case with PC hardware, it’s been worth the wait.
The new processor features a 48 TOPS (tera operations per second) NPU (neural processing unit) for AI tasks and dramatically faster performance and efficiency cores. Intel also claims that the new Xe2 GPU built into the chip is 32% faster than the previous Core Ultra, 16% faster than AMD’s HX 360, and a whopping 68% faster than Qualcomm’s 12-core X Elite chip.
And because the Core Ultra 200V is an x86 processor, it won’t suffer from the app compatibility or performance issues that we saw with the Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ XPS 13. The only major drawback compared to the previous Intel XPS 13 is that you can’t upgrade the new system’s memory: Intel’s Core Ultra 200V chip has built-in RAM, which isn’t upgradeable at all.
Besides the new chip, Dell says this latest XPS 13 is also the first laptop to feature a tandem OLED display, a technology that stacks two OLED panels together for increased brightness. The new XPS 13 should also be able to stream video on its 1080p+ screen while still delivering up to 26 hours of battery life.
The XPS 13, powered by Intel’s Core Ultra 200V chip, is available for preorder starting today for $1,400.
