The Dell XPS 13 is the first real competitor to the MacBook Neo

Dell’s last XPS 13 was meant to be a farewell before the company sunset the entire XPS brand. But it was a bitter ending, and an overpriced one as well. Earlier this year, Dell resurrected the XPS name with the excellent (and very expensive) XPS 14 and 16. And now, it’s reinvented the XPS 13 as a much more affordable thin-and-light to take on the MacBook Neo. Call it another comeback.The 2026 XPS 13 has the nicest hardware you’ll find in a new $700 laptop outside of Apple’s Neo. The core components — the screen, keyboard, trackpad, and speakers — are all great or excellent. It’s an exquisite package in a sleek and very thin ultra-portable. And unlike other Windows 11 laptops that struggled to get by with 8GB of RAM, the XPS 13 feels competent even with that limited memory allocation. But even though it’s great that there’s an 8GB Windows laptop in 2026 that’s not…