Dell's new 2023 edition of the XPS 13 Plus is all set to take on the MacBook Air M2 for the title of best premium thin and light creator laptop.
The Dell XPS 13 Plus and the MacBook Air M2 have a lot in common; both are 13-inch laptops packed with power, both have amazing displays, great speakers, and excellent cameras.
However, things might change with the new 2023 edition of the Dell XPS 13 Plus, which Dell claims is their most powerful 13-inch laptop yet. If that wasn't enough, they also claim improved battery life over last year's variant of the Dell XPS 13 Plus, which was already giving the MacBook Air a run for its money.
Let's start things off with the display. The new Dell XPS 13 Plus will come with a UHD+ InfinityEdge touch display.
You won't be seeing a lot of bezel here. While the display is slightly smaller than the MacBook Air M2 – since the laptop itself has slighty smaller dimensions than the MacBook Air M2 – you're getting a much higher resolution screen with the Dell XPS 13 Plus.
The Dell XPS 13 Plus offers a UHD+ 4K+ or 3840 × 2400 resolution display, to the MacBook Air M2's 2560 x 1664 resolution display.
Next, we come to the processor. While the M2 processors are great, Intel's new 13th gen processors are certainly packed with performance as well. The new Dell XPS 13 Plus comes with the 13th gen Intel Core i7-1360P, which has 12 cores, and Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics.
Meanwhile, the Apple MacBook Air M2 comes with the 12-core M2 chip. In terms of purely processor performance, the Intel processor offers better single-core performance thanks to a higher core clock speed, while the M2 offers better multi-core performance. That said, both processors are top-of-the-line and will shred through most tasks you throw at them.
In terms of RAM, you can get up to 32GB of speedy DDR5 RAM clocked at 6000 MTs on the Dell XPS 13 Plus, while the Apple MacBook Air M2 goes up to 24GB of unified memory. Both will offer a seamless user experience as far as RAM is concerned. For storage, both variants offer up to 2TB of NVMe SSD storage.
Coming to the ports, both laptops come with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, however, the MacBook Air M2 also features a 3.5mm headphone jack and the MagSafe 3 charging port. The Dell XPS 13 Plus is a bit lacking in the I/O department especially if you consider the fact that one of the two Type-C ports gets used while you're charging the device.
Coming to the weight, both laptops feature near identical weight, with the new Dell XPS 13 Plus being slightly heavier at 1.26 Kg, and the MacBook Air M2 being 1.24 Kg.
Finally, we come to the price. The MacBook Air M2 will set you back by Rs 1,49,900 while the 2023 edition of the Dell XPS 13 Plus will set you back by Rs 2,13,990 for the configuration we have mentioned. Of course, there's also the fact of the OS, which could be what ultimately determines who wins this battle of the ultraportable behemoths. Apple certainly has a bit of an edge there, but we don't see the Dell XPS 13 Plus lagging too far behind.