I tested the Dell14S for a week — and its epic battery life blew me away

The Dell 14S is a welcome addition to Dell’s 2026 lineup, slotting in below the Dell XPS 14 (2026), which, as I write this review, is our best Windows laptop. It’s the direct replacement for the short-lived Dell 14 Plus, but aims to deliver a closer experience to the XPS lineup while retaining a more affordable price. That sounds like a recipe for success, but did Dell pull it off?

The answer is a qualified yes, but the devil is in the details. The Dell 14S looks and feels far more like the XPS 14 than its predecessor, which featured more than a dash of plastic compared to the new three-piece aluminum chassis. It can go toe-to-toe with its pricier sibling’s outstanding battery life and delivers solid performance even in its lower configurations.

However, RAMageddon pricing is muddying the waters as per usual. Starting at $1,269, the 14S is a modest increase on paper from the listed $1,099 that the Dell 14 Plus commanded last year. But the reality is that Dell offered the 14 Plus starting at $699 almost immediately, while the lowest discounted configuration on the 14S is $999. That’s roughly a 43% price increase and changes the value proposition.

Let’s dig in a little deeper and put the Dell 14S on the adjusted value scales for 2026 to see if the upgrades outweigh the price increase and earn it a spot among the best student laptops that you can buy right now.

Dell 14S: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? The Dell 14S is a Dell XPS-Lite that delivers numerous premium features at a mid-range price.
• Who is it for? It’s a dream laptop for students or anyone who needs a long-lasting laptop with solid performance.
• What does it cost? The Dell 14S starts at $1,269 on Dell's website and maxes out at $2,169.
• What do we like? The otherworldly battery life, strong performance, bountiful ports, and premium build quality.
• What don’t we like? The dim display, relatively thick bezels, and the price increase.

Dell 14S: Specs

Dell 14S: The ups

The Dell 14S impresses thanks to its stellar performance, great design, and epic battery life.

Battery life is beyond belief

Intel’s Panther Lake processors have been a revelation for Windows laptop battery life this year, and Dell appears to have taken it to its pinnacle. In our testing, which involved continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi on the laptop with the display set to 150 nits of brightness, the Dell 14S lasted 20 hours and 41 minutes!

That obliterates the MacBook Air 13-inch M5, which called it quits more than 5 hours earlier in the same test. Among the current laptops with the best battery life, only the MacBook Pro 16-inch M5 Pro narrowly outlasts the Dell 14S with 21 hours and 10 minutes. The Dell 16S didn’t come close to its little sibling in this regard, with 11 hours and 59 minutes, but keep in mind our 16S review unit featured a QHD+ display compared to FHD+ on the 14S.

The lone Windows laptop that can keep up is perhaps unsurprisingly the Dell XPS 14, which matched the Dell 14S result exactly. However, it is worth noting that it was the non-OLED XPS 14, whereas the OLED version lasted only 12 hours and 23 minutes.

The Dell 14S achieving this record-setting battery life with an OLED is frankly astounding.

Ports a plenty

In last year’s review of the Dell 14 Plus, Jason England called it “the beige cardigan of laptops — not stylish, not exciting, but somehow always reliable.” Much of this energy carries over to the Dell 14S, but I think Dell made just enough positive changes to the design while also delivering the expected durability that this now falls in the plus column. They put a nice pattern on the beige cardigan if we’re keeping with the analogy.

Everything just has a more premium feel than the 14 Plus offered. The new hinge gives it a cleaner look inside and out, while the three-piece aluminum chassis eliminates any flex in the laptop. The keyboard and trackpad also have an upgraded look and feel from last year, which is typically a dead giveaway for a budget laptop.

The Dell 14S design may be generic, but it blends in with more premium laptops, rather than budget offerings.

Solid performance for the price

My review unit of the Dell 14S came with an Intel Core Ultra 7 355, and while it’s not a powerhouse, it will crush most people's typical workloads. I live most of my computing life drowning in Chrome tabs, which was not a problem for the 14S, even when I l ran a 4K YouTube video in the background. Jumping in and doing some light photo edits in Photoshop and Lightroom was a similarly smooth experience.

If you have more demanding needs, such as consistent work in any of the Adobe Suite or other creative tools, particularly video editing, I would recommend a higher configuration. As you can see in our testing below, the Dell 14S didn’t fare well in our video-editing Handbrake test, but upgrading to the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H configuration, which includes Intel Arc Graphics and 32GB of RAM, would significantly improve those results.

Comfortable keyboard and trackpad

The Dell 14S keyboard is a joy to type on; across multiple tests I was in my typical range of 92 words per minute at about 98% accuracy. It does feature fairly shallow key travel at around 0.8mm, but the keys are bouncy and responsive, so I didn’t come away feeling fatigued after lengthy typing sessions.

The trackpad is far better than I had hoped for a more budget-focused laptop. Dell says it is glass-like, and I’ll grant them that it comes pretty close to that smooth glass trackpad experience. It’s also nice and clicky, avoiding the mushy feel that some cheaper trackpads suffer from, so you can leave your mouse at home.

Dell 14S: The downs

The Dell 14S is great but it has some drawbacks that could make you reconsider, especially given its price.

Dim display is a downer

The OLED panel on the Dell 14S has some ups and some downs, but ultimately it tipped into the disappointing category to me due to the brightness. This is also notably where the Dell 16S outperformed its smaller sibling and even bests the XPS 14 in brightness. If you are using the laptop indoors, this won’t present an issue for you, but if you are trying to work outside or near a large window, the sunlight will overpower this display.

Brightness aside, it is an otherwise solid OLED display that produces a colorful and sharp image. I watched the Dune: Part Three trailer, and the fight between Paul and Hayt looked outstanding with the flecks of color in the halo effect around the two fighters. While the display may not be able to get too bright, the scene with Chani walking across the dunes certainly delivers a suitable feeling of the eye-searing brightness of Arrakis.

I blame the Dell XPS 14 for my feeling that the bezels are slightly large on the Dell 14S, in truth they are at least in line with other laptops in this price range, but the InfinityEdge on the XPS 14 spoiled me.

Pricing problems

I want to be clear on this point: the pricing on the lower configurations of the Dell 14S represents a solid value in today’s admittedly elevated laptop pricing. If you are spending less than around $1,500 on either the Dell 14S or 16S, you are likely landing in this range. You just need to keep a careful eye on your customizations, as you can quickly move into territory where you should just move to the Dell XPS 14 or 16.

Dell has done an admirable job of capturing some of the premium look and feel of the XPS line in the 14S and 16S, but there is no denying that the XPS 14 and XPS 16 represent a higher quality product. This isn’t a unique problem for Dell, but it’s one to be wary of when you are customizing what is meant to be a mid-tier option in any lineup.

Dell 14S: Verdict

The Dell 14S does a solid impression of the XPS 14 at a more affordable price, and that’s no simple feat. Dell made the necessary upgrades to justify its price increase over last year’s 14 Plus, particularly given the general inflation in tech pricing this year.

Largely matching the look and feel of the XPS, while still delivering solid performance and otherworldly battery life at this price point, is what makes this such a compelling laptop for students. The one backslide is the display brightness, which was already a weakness last year, so it’s one that we’ll certainly look for Dell to correct in the next model.

If the display brightness is a dealbreaker for you, the most obvious answer is to consider the Dell 16S. Otherwise, sticking within a similar price range, you could jump to a MacBook Air M5 or spend up a bit and go for the Dell XPS 14.

With that said, this is a laptop that I would have been thrilled to use as a student. Just make sure you look for Dell’s typical deals; you should be able to find a solid configuration of the Dell 14S for around $999-$1,200. If not, then wait for the deals to return.

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