Dell’s XPS 16 (9640) is one of our favorite AI PCs on the market today. We tested and reviewed this laptop firsthand, and editor Rebecca Spear loved it so much that she gave it a Windows Central Best Award along with a near-perfect score.
The XPS 16 is the successor to the discontinued XPS 17 model and despite the new design it’s still Dell’s flagship for power users looking for top performance and a large OLED display.
Prices for the XPS 16 usually start at about $1,700 before any discounts, going up to over $4,000 for the most powerful configurations. Even mid-range models like the ones shown here normally cost over $3,000, but that’s why this discount is so impressive.
An XPS 16 with Intel’s Core Ultra 9 185H processor (CPU), Windows 11 Pro, NVIDIA RTX 4060 discrete laptop graphics card (GPU), 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM, 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid-state drive (SSD), and a 16.3-inch UHD+ OLED touch display is currently $645 cheaper than its regular price. That brings the total to up to $2,500.
That’s roughly the equivalent of a model with an FHD+ IPS display, half the storage, and a Core Ultra 7 CPU. Speaking of other configurations, Dell is offering smaller discounts on nearly all hardware combinations. These are the best prices we’ve seen in the XPS 16’s lifetime.
Why We Love the Dell XPS 16 (9640): Review Highlights
The entire XPS line got a more futuristic look for 2024, adopting the design first seen in the experimental XPS 13 Plus. The changes help the XPS 16 stand out in a sea of 16-inch notebooks.
It’s a great alternative to the MacBook Pro, but like Apple’s laptops, it usually doesn’t come cheap. That’s certainly remedied with this discount. The only other drawbacks that Contributor Rebecca Spear noted in her XPS 16 (9640) review were the lack of a privacy shutter for the webcam, no HDMI or USB-A ports, and the fact that the new design could be divisive.
The keys have minimal spacing, but the keycaps are larger for easier pressing. The touchpad, which now uses haptic feedback instead of moving parts, blends into the glass palm rests for a seamless look. And above the keyboard, capacitive touch buttons replace physical keys. It may take a little getting used to, but Dell has ultimately created a premium setup that’s unlike any other high-end Windows laptop.
The XPS 16’s OLED display is undoubtedly one of its best features, and it’s included in this mega deal. Spear tested the OLED panel and saw 100% sRGB and DCI-P3 color reproduction, as well as over 400 nits of brightness. It has a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, an anti-reflective finish to reduce glare without a matte look, and touch functionality for added versatility. Here’s what Spear had to say about the OLED display:
“I also wasn’t surprised to see that the OLED screen offered fantastic contrast in the brightness and contrast tests. This result is because OLED screens produce true blacks by turning off pixels when they should be at their darkest, making the colors around them really pop in comparison. As you can imagine, this makes for a beautiful viewing experience when playing games, watching shows, or working with creative software.”
The XPS 16 model featured here packs an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU with a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), making it an AI-enabled PC. The addition of an NVIDIA RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM, and a 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD means you can crush design, development, and editing work, with some gaming thrown in for good measure. I’d still recommend looking at a proper gaming laptop if you primarily want to have fun, but the XPS 16 will handle many titles well.
The Currently $645 off at Dell brings the high-end model to the best price we’ve ever seen, but it looks like all configurations are on sale. Prices start at $1,400, so there’s plenty of room to experiment.