Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 to compete against iPad Pro and Surface Pro 8

14/6/2022

The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 has long been one of the most popular and enduring PC laptops on the market, so it’s somewhat surprising to see the company completely revamp it.

The brand new Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 (2022) is now more akin to the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 and iPad Pro than a traditional Dell laptop, and the change is almost total.

Instead of having a reversible folding hinge, it now boasts a magnetic folio keyboard case, with a 1mm travel, that attaches to the foot and rear of the tablet when in landscape mode.

That also means the ports – a pair of Type-C Thunderbolt 4 inputs – have been moved to the body of the display. However, there’s no USB-A, microSD, or headphone jack within the body. You’ll have to make do with adapters to connect those accessories.

Dell is making up for that by bundling in an eSIM for 5G connectivity, along with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. The super-slim keyboard case is also accompanied by a magnetic XPS Stylus that connects to the body, as Dell continues its convergence towards the tablet-style notebooks.

Thankfully, some things are familiar. There’s 12th-Gen Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, up to 16GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. As for the display, there’s a 13-inch display with a 2880 x 1920 resolution with 500-nits of brightness and Dolby Vision HDR support.

In terms of the cameras, users will get a 1080p webcam and, continuing the tablet theme, there’s an 11-megapixel rear camera that’s capable of capturing 4K video.

Dell says it’ll be out this summer at a price to be determined.

What do you make of the new Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 laptop slash tablet with a keyboard? Will you be sticking with the regular thin-and-light XPS 13?