I tried Dell's "MacBook Neo killer", and the verdict is in one word: price

The launch of Apple's MacBook Neo was like an explosion for the world of Windows PCs. Computex 2026, the largest exhibition dedicated to IT in the world, is an excellent representation of this.

Each manufacturer tries to give its answer to the MacBook Neo with terrible constraints: no brand has the shoulders of Apple to negotiate the prices of RAM and storage which would make it possible to attack the Neo on its fatal price of 699 euros.

At Dell, the answer is the new Dell XPS 13. Since its presentation, the PC has made a lot of noise on social networks and attracted a lot of attention.

And if you think that journalists are overdoing it by comparing everything with Apple, know that Dell actually installed a MacBook Neo on its stand so that journalists could compare it to the XPS 13. I have very rarely seen brands go so far as to exhibit competing products like this.

The good arguments of the Dell XPS 13

You just have to have it in your hand to be impressed. The Dell XPS 13 is a magnificent machine. The brand has clearly not made any concessions on the exterior design with an entirely metal chassis. It also has a more “serious” appearance than its rival.

Apple has opted for a rounded, slightly more youthful design for the MacBook Neo. The Dell XPS 13 appears to be a professional ultraportable, to take everywhere and which will easily slip into any bag.

We are also entitled to a screen with particularly thin borders, despite the integration of a Windows Hello compatible RGB+IR camera for facial recognition. Remember that the MacBook Neo does not offer Touch ID on the 256 GB model.

All this contributes to the feeling of a very compact and light ultraportable. Dell announces a weight of only one kilogram.

Among its other strong arguments, the Dell

In terms of connectivity, Dell also does better than Apple with two USB-C ports, one on each side, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0.

An impossible equation

If Dell offers so many small advantages over the MacBook Neo, it's because the brand knows that it cannot compete with Apple on price.

The new Dell XPS 13 is announced at 799 euros, or 100 euros more than the MacBook Neo, while this price, although higher, is reserved for students only. This is more of a configuration with 256 GB of storage and 8 GB of RAM. Dell has not revealed the general public price, but we can imagine a price around 850 or 899 euros, or 200 euros more than the Apple proposal.

This is the entire impossible equation with which Apple has placed the traditional PC market, by striking with a particularly good and particularly inexpensive MacBook Neo, at a time when brands no longer have any room for maneuver.

The complete tests will tell what this XPS 13 is really worth in terms of autonomy and performance. After a few minutes, we are seduced by the machine, but the price unfortunately does not really seem in line with its ambitions as a “MacBook Neo killer”.