A Bold Vision of the Future
The Dell XPS 16 (9640) is perhaps the most visually striking laptop in its category. Borrowing the design language of the XPS 13 Plus, it features a seamless glass haptic trackpad that is invisible to the eye, a capacitive touch function row, and a ‘lattice-less’ keyboard with large, flat keycaps. This is a machine designed for those who want their technology to look like a piece of modern art. However, the design is backed by serious power. Unlike the ultra-slim Zenbook, the XPS 16 is built to house up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, making it a viable machine for heavy 3D rendering and high-end creative work.
Performance and Thermal Headroom
Equipped with Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 1), the XPS 16 focuses on sustained performance. The chassis is thicker than the Zenbook S 16, which allows for a more robust cooling system capable of handling up to 80W of total TDP. The inclusion of an NPU in the Core Ultra chips handles AI tasks, while the discrete NVIDIA GPU takes care of the heavy lifting in applications like Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Blender. This makes the XPS 16 a much more capable machine for professional creators who need more than what integrated graphics can provide.
The InfinityEdge Experience
Dell’s InfinityEdge display remains a marvel of engineering, with nearly non-existent bezels on all four sides. The 16.3-inch display can be configured with a 4K+ OLED touch panel that is incredibly bright and vivid. While the XPS 16 is significantly heavier than the Zenbook S 16 at nearly 2.2kg, it offers a level of structural rigidity and raw power that justifies the weight for ‘desk-bound’ professionals who occasionally need to travel. The quad-speaker design and studio-quality microphones round out a package that is clearly aimed at the high-end executive and creative market.