Simply put, the HP Specter x360 13.5 and the Dell XPS 13 Plus are two of the best laptops you can buy at any price and any size. These flagships are at the top of the heap when it comes to premium design and components.
Price and configuration
The Specter x360 13.5 starts at $1,250 for a Core i5-1235U, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 13.5-inch 3:2 WUXGA+ (1920 x 1280) IPS display. At the higher end, you'll pay $1,830 for a Core i7-1255U, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD. The OLED display has a maximum capacity of 16GB of RAM and costs the same $1,830.
The base XPS 13 Plus configuration is slightly cheaper at $1,150 for a Core i5-1240P, 8GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and a 13.4-inch 16:10 Full HD+ (1920 x 1200) IPS non-touch display. . Max it out and it's $2,199 for a Core i7-1260P, 32GB of RAM, 2TB SSD, and a 3.5K (3,456 x 2,160) OLED display.
Both are premium laptops, and the XPS 13 Plus has a wider price range. Dell has a slight advantage here in that you can get maximum RAM with the OLED display, even if you pay more for it.
Design
Front view of the HP Specter x360 13.5 showing the display and keyboard.
Tag Coppock/Digital Trends
The most important design difference between the two laptops is in their form factor. The Specter x360 13.5 is a 2-in-1 convertible, while the XPS 13 Plus is a traditional clamshell. This means the HP is slightly thicker and heavier and has a larger bottom chin on the display to accommodate more complex hinges. This also makes the HP more flexible and potentially more useful with the ability to convert to media, tent, and tablet mode and allow for the use of a quality active pen. If you don't care about those things, then it's not much of an advantage. But if so, then the Specter is a better laptop.
The Specter x360 13.5 and XPS 13 Plus are similar in that they are both CNC machined aluminum and solidly built. You won't find any bending, bending, or twisting on either machine. The Specter has a more extravagant aesthetic with rounded, jeweled, and colored edges and notches cut into the bottom of the display and the back of the chassis. One notch contains a USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 port and the other a 3.5mm audio jack.
The XPS 13 Plus has a more streamlined design with simple lines accentuated from edge to edge of the keyboard and in that, you can get maximum RAM with the OLED display, even if you pay more thanks to the integrated haptic touchpad. an intact palm rest The Dell also has functional LED buttons instead of physical keys, which adds a touch of modernity.
HP has been doing a great job with Specter keyboards for several years now. They have plenty of key spacing and large keycaps, with a switching mechanism that is quick and light with precise actuation. It's one of the best keyboards on a Windows laptop, rivaled only by the excellent Apple Magic Keyboard on the latest MacBooks. The XPS 13 Plus keyboard is completely different, with an edge-to-edge design and very little space between the keys. The mechanism is also accurate and nimble, and while it's quite different from the Spectres, it's pretty good.
The side of the keyboard on the Dell XPS 13 Plus.
The biggest difference is in the touchpads. While the Specter x360 13.5's touchpad is large enough and very good as a mechanical version, the XPS 13 Plus's haptic touchpad is excellent. It is more accurate and offers the ability to click anywhere. The HP also benefits from pen and touch support on every display compared to the optional touch on the Dell.
The Specter x360 13.5 has a much better 5MP webcam with great low-light performance and some nice HP Presence features like auto-framing and an appearance filter that smooths out blemishes. The XPS 13 Plus's webcam is much more pedestrian, coming in at just 720p and offering a poorer image.
Finally, the Specter x360 13.5 offers better connectivity, including a USB-A port for legacy support, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a microSD card reader. The XPS 13 Plus has the same two USB-C ports as Thunderbolt 4. The lack of an audio jack is questionable, and while Dell does offer a USB-C headphone jack, it's pretty limiting. Since power is also provided by USB-C, you'll need some kind of dock or adapter to use the headphones while charging.
Performance
Dell XPS 13 Plus chassis edge.
We reviewed the Specter x360 13.5 with a 15-watt 10-core/12-thread Intel 12th Gen Core i7-1255U, a lower-power variant of Intel's Alder Lake chips for thin and light notebooks. Our XPS 13 Plus review unit was equipped with a 28-watt 14-core/20-thread Core i7-1280P, a faster CPU on paper. Both laptops offer tools that allow for some thermal adjustment, and both were effective at quieter, cooler operation in Balanced mode versus faster, louder, and hotter operation in Performance mode.
However, our benchmarks didn't show nearly the difference that might be expected. The Dell was faster in multi-core GeekBench 5 and Cinebench R23 (except for performance mode), as well as in our Handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video as H.265. By contrast, the Specter x360 was faster in Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R23 with a single core. HP managed to win in the PCMark 10 Complete benchmark, which passes several productivities, multimedia and creativity tests.
These results are surprising, but the XPS 13 Plus is thinner, so it probably couldn't keep its processor as cool. The laptops will provide similarly excellent productivity in real-world use, while both will underperform for all but nominal creatives.
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