A beautiful laptop that excels at almost everything… except typing

There’s so much to love about Dell’s new XPS 14 that it’s hard for me to talk about it without sounding like a total fan. Its new design makes it incredibly thin and light. And Intel’s Panther Lake chips give it a ton of power, even when it comes to gaming. Having relaunched the

Unfortunately, a shallow, unresponsive, and hilariously error-prone keyboard kept me from really liking the XPS 14. Simply put, it has trouble recognizing keys if you press them too quickly in succession. And for fast, demanding typists like me, this leads to countless errors that disrupt your flow. In the last sentence alone, I counted ten times where I had to go back and make sure the commas appeared Before a space, or correct simple spelling mistakes. What good is a fast, light and beautiful machine if I can’t type a sentence in peace?

Dell

Dell’s revamped XPS 14 is lighter and more powerful than ever, but it’s hampered by a boring keyboard.

Benefits

• Beautiful and lightweight design
• Powerful Intel chips
• Beautiful OLED screen
• Fixes previous design errors

Disadvantages

• Confusing keyboard issues
• Expensive for beefy configurations
• Poor battery life

It’s not uncommon for laptop keyboards to require a bit of user training. But my problems with the XPS 14 aren’t due to a lack of practice: it simply doesn’t recognize key presses as quickly as every other laptop I’ve tested. As you can see in the video below, rapid key presses are almost always recognized backwards, or sometimes not recognized at all. These issues mostly go away if you type more slowly and deliberately, but that seems like a ridiculous compromise for a high-end machine in 2026.

Dell engineers are currently testing one of two review samples I received, both of which had the exact same keyboard issue. Other reviewers also noted that they had to type more slowly for the keyboard to work better. Gizmodo Kyle Barr seems to be just as frustrated with the keyboard as I am, but he thinks that’s due to Dell’s transparent key design, which has no gaps between the keys. My brother, who is an IT professional, also noticed some input issues when typing on the XPS 14.

I’m not crazy, I swear!

According to Dell, its engineers say that “a small batch of older XPS units” have the fast typing problem I experienced. They also say that the issue is currently resolved and does not affect the delivery of XPS units at this time. The company plans to release a firmware patch later this month, and I’ll be sure to update this review once I get my hands on it. But given that these laptops have been out in the wild for weeks, I decided to review the XPS 14 as is. TL;DR, it’s the prettiest machine I’ve ever used and hate typing on.

Seriously, this thing is beautiful. Dell’s designers outdid themselves with the machine’s smooth metal casing, which looks more MacBook-like than its boxy predecessors. Amazingly, this system only weighs three pounds, putting it between the 14-inch MacBook Pro at 3.4 pounds and the 13.6-inch MacBook Air at 2.7 pounds. It also weighs only a third of a pound more than the MacBook Neo, Apple’s attempt at an underpowered entry-level laptop.

I’m also happy to see that Dell has heard my complaints about the excessive design of the latest XPS line. For example, the company has kept its “invisible” trackpad, which sits flush with the laptop’s wrist rest. But now there are two faint lines that designate exactly where the trackpad begins and ends. It’s a solution reminiscent of Apple’s MacBooks, which all have large glass trackpads separated by a slight border from their metal casing. Thanks to these two small lines, which do not detract from the minimalist aesthetic of the XPS 14, I feel more confident when sliding.

Dell also reversed course on the row of wonky capacitive features from previous models – which, again, looked cool, but had serious usability issues. They were difficult to type with, as they didn’t feel as tactile as normal keys. And above all, the row of capacitive functions completely disappeared in direct sunlight. God forbid you were outside and wanted to change the volume level! This XPS 14 brings back a normal button row, which is easier to touch and actually works in direct sunlight. (I sometimes wonder if Dell’s designers are out with the latest XPS 14 yet.)

The 14-inch 2.8K OLED touchscreen on our tester was spectacular, with vibrant colors and wonderfully deep black levels. But that’s about what I expect from OLED at this point. I can’t get enough of the extra fun that OLED adds to photos and videos, and it makes a huge difference with games, too. But note that OLED is only available for the most expensive XPS 14, all other models have a standard non-touch 2K LCD screen.

As for connectivity, three USB-C ports and a headphone jack are all you get with the new XPS 14. The previous model’s microSD card slot is gone, and there are also no HDMI or USB Type A connections like you’d find on similar systems from ASUS and Acer. Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro, notably, has three USB-C ports, a full-size HDMI slot, a large SD card reader, and a headphone jack.

Beyond Dell’s redesign, the main star of the XPS 14 is the new Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra X7 358H chip, which offers serious graphics improvements over the last generation. Our review unit, featuring 32GB of RAM and Intel’s integrated Arc B390 GPU, was able to achieve 130fps in Arc Raiders while playing at 1080p at medium graphics settings, as well as XeSS scaling and frame generation. I was able to play a few rounds without lag – my only distraction was the lingering realization that I was playing so easily on an ultraportable’s integrated graphics.

I definitely wouldn’t recommend the XPS 14 to heavy gamers. But if you’re forced to pick up a new non-gaming system for work or school, it’s certainly nice that it can play some modern titles well. I also saw 63 frames per second while gaming Cyberpunk 2077 in 1080p with medium graphics settings and active XeSS technology. Not bad for one of the most demanding PC games in recent memory!

The benchmarks also indicate plenty of power under the hood: the XPS 14 scored similarly to the MSI Prestige 14 AI+, which also has the Ultra and a powerful AMD Ryzen AI Max+. 395 chip. The

Clearly, it was a year of growth for Intel hardware. Just keep in mind that all of our numbers come from Dell’s highest-end XPS 14 configuration, which currently starts at $2,250 with 64GB of RAM on the company’s site. The lowest configuration, which starts at $1,450, comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 355 chip, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. When I briefly tested this system (it had to be sent back to Dell for that keyboard issue), it scored 2,000 points lower than the Ultra

I was also surprised to see that the I tested the XPS 14 and MSI Prestige 14 in Windows’ “Balanced” battery profile, so you can extend your battery life with more battery-saving features enabled.

If I had to judge the XPS 14 based on its specs and design alone, it would be my favorite Windows laptop available today. But I swear, I can’t live with his keyboard issues. I had to seriously slow down my typing just to write this review, and even then, I still had to save and make more corrections than usual. Dell is so close to creating a PC that’s a true competitor to the MacBook Pro, it’s a shame that a simple keyboard issue is preventing the XPS 14 from reaching its true greatness.

Updated 3/6/26 at 2:20 p.m. ET: Added additional information on the XPS 14 keyboard issue and a potential firmware fix.