Dell is bringing back the XPS 13 as a MacBook Neo competitor — with a temporary discount to $599

Dell is making good on its tease from CES and finally announcing a new XPS 13. The XPS 13 returns as a budget-friendly option, launching in July at a promotional student price of $599 — though that introductory deal only runs until September for back-to-school shopping; it’ll start at $699 for everyone else. The $599 promo exactly matches up with the MacBook Neo’s starting price, but students can actually get Apple’s budget laptop for $100 less. That means Dell has its work cut out proving that the XPS 13 is worth the extra money.

This will be Dell’s thinnest and lightest XPS to date, measuring 0.5 inches / 12.7mm thick and weighing just 2.2 pounds / 1kg. It’ll have just two USB-C ports and no 3.5mm audio jack, just like the last XPS 13 that cost much more. It sadly won’t even have a dedicated audio jack on higher end configurations set to arrive later with Intel Panther Lake chips and Thunderbolt 4 — which will go up to 32GB of RAM.

The entry-level configuration will get you a six-core Intel Core 5 320 “Wildcat Lake” chip, 512GB of storage, and a lowly 8GB of RAM. (I’m noticing a trend.) But the good news is that every config of the new XPS 13 will have a 13.4-inch anti-glare touchscreen with 2560 x 1600 resolution, 30-120Hz variable refresh rate, 500 nits of brightness, and 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space.

The XPS 13 will also have a backlit keyboard and a claimed “streaming” battery life of up to 17 hours. Dell reps say it should be efficient enough to last a student’s full day of classes. There was no mincing of words about what Dell is targeting with the XPS 13, as COO Jeff Clarke called out the MacBook Neo by name in an early media briefing. But while the XPS 13 is lighter than the Neo and has some extras the MacBook lacks like a backlit keyboard and higher-end configurations, using 8GB of RAM on Windows 11 remains the gorilla in the room.

Dell also teased one more thing it’ll show at Computex this week: The return of an XPS with discrete graphics. It should sport some level of Nvidia RTX GPU, an extra-bright tandem OLED screen, a dedicated HDMI port, and an SD card slot. There are no further details so far, but that sounds like a bigger and beefier XPS to compete with some MacBook Pros while the new XPS 13 guns for the Neo.

The XPS 14 and XPS 16 models Dell reintroduced at CES corrected some of the company’s past mistakes when it killed the XPS brand in 2025. But competing at $599 / $699 with the MacBook Neo will be a tougher test for the revitalized brand.