Dell’s redesigned XPS 13 Plus is available now, starting at $1,299

Dell announced the bold XPS 13 Plus it already debuted at CES 2022 is now available for purchase. It starts at $1,299, and while Dell hasn’t detailed the exact specs for this configuration, it’ll likely get the lowest specs listed in a spec sheet shared by the company. These include a 13.4-inch display with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 and an aspect ratio of 16:10 with 500 nits of peak brightness, Intel’s 12th Gen Core i5-1240P processor (28W, 12 cores, 4.4 GHz boost clock) and 8 GB LPDDR5 RAM clocked at 5,200 MHz and a 256 GB SSD.

Each model includes a 60W USB-C power adapter and has two Thunderbolt 4 ports (but no headphone jack), a Windows Hello 720p webcam, and a fingerprint reader built into the power button.

As we already noticed at CES, this new version of the XPS 13 has a more futuristic-looking design than Dell’s standard model. The most notable differences include the Plus’s Touch Bar-like array of backlit function keys, as well as the keyboard that sits flush with the chassis. Finally, there’s the new trackpad, which is invisible to the eye but occupies a similar (if not slightly larger) amount of real estate in the center of the glass-topped palm rest. And instead of physically clicking, the trackpad hardware emulates the click with haptic feedback, like Apple’s recent laptops.

Dell

While Dell doesn’t reveal pricing information for other configurations, you can upgrade the XPS 13 Plus with a 1080p touchscreen (non-touchscreen by default) or a 4K touchscreen at the time of purchase. The high-end display option is a 3.5K (3456 x 2160) Gorilla Glass 7-covered OLED touchscreen with 100 percent DCI-P3 color space coverage.

In terms of processing power, Dell can upgrade to a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1280P with 14 cores, along with up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and up to 2TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD storage. Oh, and the last thing: there will be a developer edition of the XPS 13 Plus that will ship with Ubuntu 20.04 and will cost $1,249.99.

We look forward to testing the XPS 13 Plus soon. As my colleague Monica Chin wrote In their January hands-on, we’re cautiously optimistic that all of these aesthetic changes won’t get in the way of a good machine. But stay tuned for the full review to find out.