Dell XPS 15 (9500) - 2020

The Dell XPS 15 9500 is finally the MacBook Pro killer it's always wanted to be, with a gorgeous display, better keyboard and trackpad components, and strong productivity performance. We miss USB-A, though.

The new XPS 15 9500 is an excellent laptop with way more hits than misses. The build quality continues to be best in class, it's faster and more fully featured than previous iterations, and is an easy recommendation. It's just not cheap, at least as configured.

The new design for the XPS 15 acquits itself well, and Dell didn't make any major mistakes with it (along the lines of the now-retired XPS 13 bottom-dwelling webcam). But as a general-purpose work laptop, it's not super light, doesn't have a super long battery life, isn't super thin, super-fast or super cheap. It's not a work laptop superhero, just a premium workhorse.

The primary features that have always made the XPS line a compelling buy — the exceptional keyboard and touchpad, the premium build quality, and the gorgeous screen — remain. And the various design tweaks, including the spacious bezel-less display, the wider keycaps, the slim form factor, and the expanded speakers conspire to give the XPS a modern, chic look and an upgraded user experience. If you’ve wanted to buy an XPS 15, but have been waiting for Dell to ditch the dated design, this model is what you’ve been waiting for. It’s just not perfect yet.

The 2020 Dell XPS 15 is a near-ideal 15.6-inch desktop-replacement laptop. Its sleek design, fast performance, and robust feature set make it our top pick among premium Windows options at its size.

The Dell XPS 15 is the best 15-inch laptop you can buy. The design is gorgeous, the screen is out of this world, and the performance is impressive. The eight-core Intel Core i7 model I reviewed isn’t the most powerful version of this laptop, but with the Core i9 on the way, the XPS 15 will likely be one of the most powerful video-editing laptops you can buy too.

Dell’s premium 15-inch notebook finally has a design refresh to match the excellent XPS 13. It’s fast, sleek and has one of the best screens we’ve seen in a workhorse PC. The only downside is that it loses legacy ports.

The Dell XPS 15 is easily the best 15-inch laptop on the market, and in a lot of ways it's the best laptop period. It's extremely powerful, stylish and light enough to carry around town. We seriously can't find anything that holds it back.