Dell's new XPS 13 is a MacBook Neo rival that costs $599 and retains premium features

['When Dell\'s COO Jeff Clarke announced the new XPS 13 ahead of Computex 2026, he made no attempt to avoid its inevitable comparison to the MacBook Neo. Oh no, he addressed it straight on. "We didn\'t change a single feature when the Neo was launched.

We stayed true to the XPS\' identity ... And I think we\'ve achieved it with the $599 price point."', "It's a bold claim -- refreshingly so -- and the first time a PC maker has so openly positioned a flagship product in opposition to Apple's wildly successful budget laptop that's disrupted the PC market . The XPS 13 will cost $599 for students and $699 for the general market, a very aggressive price point for its feature set, especially with the iconic XPS name.", 'As the cost of memory soars (and consumer laptops with it ), the Dell 2026 XPS 13 comes at just the right time, taking aim at students, young professionals, and budget-conscious consumers looking for a high performance laptop with premium features.

Intel\'s new "Wildcat Lake" Core Series 3 chips, announced earlier this year, trade in raw power for a much more affordable package. They use the same 18A process as Intel\'s "Panther Lake" Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs, with similar battery longevity.', 'This includes the Intel Core 5 (6-core) or Intel Core 7 (8-core) chip, with an integrated Intel GPU with 2xe cores or 4xe cores respectively, offer less horsepower but still achieve up to 17 hours of battery life, according to Dell. However, Clarke made it clear the new XPS is no "budget" PC.

"We\'re not in a race to the bottom," he said. "We\'re not trying to be the cheapest option."', 'The XPS 13 features a 2.5K LCD touch display with a 120Hz variable refresh rate, 500 nits of brightness, and support for 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. It also offers up to 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB of storage, and comes with two USB-C 3.2 ports with support for power delivery and DisplayPort 2.1.

The laptop will be available starting in summer 2026, with higher-end configurations featuring Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors to be released later.']