There was some concern that Trump’s tariffs would impact the attractive price that Dell announced for its Alienware 27 280Hz QD-OLED gaming monitor earlier this year, but it’s now launched unscathed. A smaller 25-inch 320Hz monitor is also available for $249 if you don’t mind switching the OLED panel for an IPS display.
Dell is putting Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 chips into its high-end Pro Max Plus laptops, capable of up to 350 TOPS. That’s about nine times more TOPS than a consumer-grade Copilot Plus PC, reserved for professionals who need to run hefty AI models locally.
There’s no pricing, availability, or full configuration specs yet, but they’ll have Intel Arrow Lake CPUs, up to 256GB of RAM, and likely very lofty prices.
4
Verge Score
A capable Lunar Lake chipset and great screen would have made this a killer laptop, if it weren’t for several unforced errors on Dell’s part.
Dell just killed off XPS, but its new “Pro” laptops pull a neat trick: most USB-C ports and batteries are now officially user-replaceable.
“This is the first time that we’ve had a screwed-on, non-soldered modular USB-C port,” Dell PM Katie Green tells us. She says Dell also plans to bring this to consumers “when it makes sense.” No word on Framework-like modularity yet.
*While streaming Netflix at 1080p with an FHD+ screen at just 150 nits of brightness.
Still, that’s eight hours more than its last-gen laptop in the same test, even with the same battery size and display. The only thing on the spec sheet that’s changed is the processor — to Intel Lunar Lake.
It now offers a five-year warranty on Intel’s problematic 13th and 14th Gen CPUs, just like its closest competitors.
We also got a vague new statement from Dell/Alienware that suggests it might extend its own parts warranty, but doesn’t promise to do so.
The company’s restructure mostly affects sales and managerial staff. Some outlets have reported, based on sources, that the layoffs will cut more than 10,000 jobs, but an analyst told SiliconAngle a number that high seems unlikely.
Dell isn’t the only tech company handing out pink-slips; Intel announced last week it’s laying off over 15,000 employees.
The new 14-inch XPS has the redesigned chassis, touchbar, and invisible trackpad of the XPS 13 Plus, but better thermals and twice the battery life. And yet.
Dell has confirmed to The Verge that its new Arm-powered XPS 13 features a tandem pOLED display. It’s the first to market with such a display in a laptop, after Apple introduced tandem OLED on its latest iPad Pro. Dell’s new XPS 13 is part of a collection of Copilot Plus PCs that are launching on June 18th with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processors inside.
Dell’s new 27-inch 1440p QD-OLED Alienware gaming monitor costs $899.99 and goes on sale on January 11th as part of a new wave of 360Hz OLED monitors using panels from Samsung Display (MSI and Samsung itself also have versions on the way). For more resolution and less refresh rate, Dell’s also announcing a $1,199.99 32-inch 4K 240Hz version.
At BlackHat EU, Binarly showed how custom boot logo features could be exploited by crashing vulnerable image parsers, report SecurityWeek and ArsTechnica, allowing them to take over Windows and Linux systems. Binarly’s researchers write, “we detected parsers vulnerable to LogoFAIL in hundreds of devices sold by Lenovo, Supermicro, MSI, HP, Acer, Dell, Fujitsu, Samsung, and Intel.”
Not all of those systems are actually exploitable this way, but some vendors, like Lenovo, have issued BIOS updates or advisories in response.
8
Verge Score
The latest Spectre model is a solid competitor to Dell’s high-end XPS, but there’s a big difference in battery life.
