Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Dell is hiding something about the new XPS 13

The Dell XPS 13 in front of a window.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

Someone needs to give Dell a lesson in marketing, because it hid the most impressive part of the new XPS 13. The upcoming laptop is the first to feature a Tandem OLED display, as Dell confirmed to The Verge

Tandem OLED is all the rage right now, with Apple introducing the display tech first with the iPad Pro M4. The concept behind Tandem OLED is simple. In order to increase the historically low brightness of OLED, you stack multiple OLED panels on top of each other. We haven’t heard of any other shipping device using this display tech, outside of the upcoming XPS 13.

Recommended Videos

Dell didn’t confirm specs behind the display, though we’ve already seen bold claims about what Tandem OLED is capable of. Last week, TCL demoed a slideable Tandem OLED display that it claims can reach up to 2,500 nits of brightness. For context, even the best OLED laptops only get up to about 700 nits right now.

In addition to being the first Tandem OLED laptop, the XPS 13 is the first time Dell has included a Snapdragon chip in its XPS line. The laptop features the Snapdragon X Elite CPU, and it’s one of the few new Copilot+ laptops that’s releasing on June 18. The XPS 13 with the Tandem OLED touch display, 512GB of storage, and 16GB of RAM is for $1,500.

A tandem OLED display shown off at Display Week.
Guillaume Chansin / X/Twitter

Although Tandem OLED is an exciting step in display tech, it’s not free of issues. Users have already noted a grainy effect on the iPad Pro, for example. In addition, iMore discovered that a bug with HDR content on the iPad Pro would blow out highlights, particularly for shades of blue. As with any cutting-edge tech, we expect some growing pains with Tandem OLED as companies like Dell and Apple work through display bugs.

Still, the Dell XPS 13 is the first laptop to sport the tech, and it might be the only one for quite some time. We’ve seen an influx of OLED laptops over the past few years like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, but we haven’t seen any Tandem OLED models yet. It’s possible we could see more in a few weeks at Computex.

Tandem OLED Explained | The New iPad Pro's REAL Magic
Jacob Roach
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jacob Roach is the lead reporter for PC hardware at Digital Trends. In addition to covering the latest PC components, from…
OLED laptops are about to get brighter, thinner, and more expensive
A woman holds a laptop with the LG Tandem OLED logo on it.

LG's new Tandem OLED panel is entering mass production, which is good news for upcoming AI laptops. Today, LG announced that it's the first manufacturer to produce the Tandem OLED panel in a 13-inch variant, and the displays are said to be much thinner and lighter while delivering better performance. The catch? This screen upgrade, which is already available in the latest Dell XPS 13 Copilot+ PC, is going to cost you a pretty penny.

Tandem OLED is a display panel design that has mostly been used in cars up until now, and LG is breaking new ground by producing it for laptops. However, it's not the first time we've seen this design applied to consumer electronics, as Apple's M4 iPad Pros utilize Tandem OLED displays.

Read more
These new chips could be good news for Copilot+ PCs
The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus

The first Copilot+ laptops are already out, powered by Qualcomm's impressive new Snapdragon X chip. The first batch of reviews were delayed, and early impressions have observed the hits and misses of the current chips. But a new leak tells us that Qualcomm might have another ace up its sleeve, and there may be hope for these Arm-based Copilot+ PCs yet. What's new? There might be more models of the chip than what we've been privy to so far.

So far, we've seen reviews of the Asus Vivobook S 15, but that's just one of several chips that fall under the Snapdragon X Elite umbrella. According to files for the Adreno GPU driver, there may be not just six, but 10 different models of the Snapdragon X -- and three of those are Plus chips, which we've previously only seen one of.

Read more
The best Copilot+ laptops that you can buy now
The two sizes of the Galaxy Book4 Edge on a table.

Copilot+ PCs represent a new era for Windows. Microsoft's implementation of AI is key to these new devices, of course, but so is the transition to Arm. Although Copilot+ isn't limited to Qualcomm's Arm chips, right now they have exclusivity because of the required 40 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS) performance of the neutral processing unit (NPU) in these devices.

That means these new laptops are thin, powerful, and have fantastic battery life -- a fantastic antidote to the MacBook Air. Though we haven't reviewed any in-depth yet, here are our favorites from among the ones we've seen in person so far.
Microsoft Surface Laptop

Read more