The radically designed XPS 13 Plus starts at $1,299 and is now shipping

On January 4, 2022, Dell announced its new XPS 13 Plus, an all-new take on its popular Windows Ultrabook. With a radically minimalist design and “seamless” touchpad, quad speakers, and one of the best edge-to-edge displays around, the laptop looked like something from 2025 instead of 2022.

Of course, the anticipation of when you could get one was building, especially since the original estimate was sometime in March, which was later pushed back to the end of April. Luckily, this time, Dell kept its word as the XPS 13 Plus is now available (at least in the US and Canada, we haven’t checked other markets just yet).

To recap what we said back in January, the XPS 13 Plus does a lot of new stuff with heavy attention on its pure design:

Everything about the XPS 13 Plus focuses on design. It has a 4-sided InfinityEdge 13.4-inch display with up to 4K resolution and OLED options available, two hidden upward-firing speakers underneath the keyboard deck, and two down-firing speakers for an excellent audio experience. It’s available in both Platinum and Graphite color options too.

Even the webcam is improved (though still 720P). Dell has two cameras (one RGB, one IR), which get better quality/resolution. Previously, the IR/RGB was combined into one camera resulting in about 20% loss of the pixels used for the IR portion and Windows Hello.

On the inside, we have Intel 12th-Gen i5 or i7 chips at 28W, making the XPS 13 Plus the most powerful XPS 13 ever. It also has up to 32GB RAM, 2TB PCIe storage, 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports, and ships with Windows 11 Home, Pro, or Ubuntu if you opt for the XPS 13 Plus “Developer Edition.”

One of the most contentious new features is the hidden (or “seamless”) glass trackpad, which blends into the keyboard deck. While the trackpad only takes up the middle portion, there are no visible markers to tell you where it begins and ends. However, in our short time with the XPS 13 Plus, we didn’t have any trouble using it as the touch area is relatively large and intuitively where you expect it.

Another unique choice is capacitive function keys, which light up with LEDs instead of depressible. Dell wasn’t trying to be gimmicky, however. With the saved space from not having the keys pushed down, Dell was able to gain some more thermal room allowing the 12th Gen 28-watt P-series processor (14-cores and 20-threads) to have adequate ventilation and heat dissipation. Users can toggle between Function and Media keys in Dell’s software.

Overall, the new XPS 13 Plus looks like a fascinating PC. Will Dell take our top award for best Windows laptop? We’ll find out soon enough, but, for now, if you want to order one go right ahead.