Dell 16 Premium Review: Taking On The Best

The Dell 16 Premium is Dell's flagship laptop, at least in the world of productivity-focused machines. It's the bigger sibling of the Dell 14 Premium that I reviewed on its own — but it's also a little different in the specs and options, enough to where it warrants its own review.

While there are some serious differences between the Dell 14 Premium and Dell 16 Premium, one thing that's not all that different is price. The end result? If you want a big-screen premium laptop, you might actually be getting a good deal by going for the Dell. How good is it? Very good. Here's why.

The Dell 16 Premium keeps the same ultra-stylish design as the XPS before it. That's to say, it has a flush keyboard, an unmarked, minimalistic-looking touchpad, and the capacitive buttons above the keyboard for things like display brightness, volume, and so on. This is one of the more controversial aspects of the design, but I don't mind it at all, and you'll get used to it.

I really like the overall look of it. A few years after the general look was first debuted, it's still pretty uncommon to see a laptop that looks like this. It's sleek and stylish, and while you might think that the unmarked touchpad is a pain to use, you'd be surprised how little you actually look at your touchpad. Even if you do look at it a lot, you'll get used to the change.

The rest of the design is premium, too. The materials feel strong and well-built, and the display is edge-to-edge, with a little more space in the top bezel for the webcam.

Christian de Looper for BGR

The port selection on the 16 Premium is the same as on the 14-inch model. There are two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left edge, along with a third on the right edge. The right edge also houses an audio jack and a microSD card slot. I would have preferred to see a standard-size SD card slot, and it feels like Dell could have added another port or two in the 16-inch model — but, generally, the port selection should be enough for most.

The laptop isn't as thin or as light as the smaller model, obviously. At 0.75 inches thick and 4.56lbs, it's not necessarily for those who want the most portable laptop out there. It's thicker than the 16-inch MacBook Pro, though the MacBook Pro is a little heavier.

Overall, I really like the design of the Dell 16 Premium. It looks and feels premium, and while you may or may not like aspects of the design — like the unmarked touchpad and the capacitive function buttons — they'll all become familiar before long.

I also quite like the keyboard and touchpad on the laptop. The keys on the keyboard are well-spaced and offer a good amount of travel, and while they're not quite as tactile and clicky as I like on a keyboard, that's more personal preference than anything else. You'll find it easy to get used to the feel of the keyboard on the laptop.

The touchpad feels responsive and accurate. There are no touchpads that are as good as Apple's on the MacBook Pro, but the touchpad on the Dell 16 Premium is about as good as it gets in the Windows world.

The speakers built into the Dell 16 Premium are solid. They offer a decent amount of crispness with more bass than you would expect from a laptop. But they're nowhere near as good as what you can get on a MacBook. I didn't have a 16-inch MacBook Pro on hand to test with, but have reviewed one before and know the speakers to be better than on the 14-inch model. That said, even the speakers on the 14-inch MacBook Pro sounded better than those on the Dell 16 Premium.

Again, that's not to say the speakers on the laptop are bad, though. Apple's may offer more depth and detail, but the speakers on the Dell 16 Premium are sufficient and get quite loud. If you want high-end audio, you should still expect to use a pair of headphones or external speakers.

There are two display options on the Dell 16 Premium. The base option is a 16.3-inch 2K IPS display with a 500-nit brightness. Pay a little extra, and you'll get a 16.3-inch 4K OLED display with a 400-nit brightness. That's what our review model has, and it looks stunning.

The display is vibrant and bright, with vivid colors and smooth animations thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate. It's not a Tandem OLED display, which might have been nice for increased brightness — the screen gets plenty bright enough for most environments, but you might find it doesn't quite reach the brightness you need in direct sunlight. The touch performance was good, too. It was accurate and responsive.

The webcam on the laptop is 1080p, and it looks good. It's detailed and colorful, and it can handle challenging lighting well. It's more than good enough for Zoom calls and other video chats.

The Dell 16 Premium is available in a few different variants. You can get it with either the Intel Core Ultra 7 255H or Core Ultra 9285H, and with 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of RAM. Additionally, you can stick to Intel Arc integrated graphics, or you can get it with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050, 5060, or 5070. Our review unit has a Core Ultra 7 255H, 32GB of RAM, and an RTX 5070 GPU. It's the most expensive model you can get, as you can't configure the laptop to offer both the Core Ultra 9 and GeForce RTX 5070 right now. As reviewed, this configuration costs $3,200 (including the OLED display and 1TB of storage).

The performance, as expected, is top-tier. The laptop handles productivity-type tasks easily. Don't expect to have issues with lots of browser tabs, emails, documents, spreadsheets, and so on. It'll handle all of that just fine.

More important, of course, is how it handles more demanding tasks, like video processing and gaming. Here, the laptop continues to perform well. The RTX 5070 ensures the laptop is excellent for creatives who want something that can keep up with their workflows. Really, the laptop is aimed at essentially being the MacBook Pro for Windows users.

But the base MacBook Pro 16 costs less than the review model we tested. For $3,200 or less, you can get a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro (14-core CPU, 20-core GPU). If you pay a little extra, you can get an M4 Max (14-core CPU and 32-core GPU). If you're only willing to pay $3,200 but can stomach a smaller laptop, then you can still get the M4 Max by buying the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

In CPU performance, both Apple's M4 Pro and M4 Max are better than the Intel Core Ultra 7 255H, in both single-core and multi-core tests. They also happen to be more power-efficient. Of course, GPU performance is the more interesting thing here — and for the most part, you should expect the RTX 5070 to perform better than the M4 Pro, but not as well as the M4 Max. In other words, if raw performance is what you're looking for, the M4 Max MacBook Pro is the winner.

At this price point, however, raw performance is perhaps a little less important than other elements. Even the M4 Pro is still very capable when it comes to graphics performance, and it's worth remembering that it's much more power-efficient than the Dell 16 Premium.

The combination of a bright display, x86 CPU, and RTX 5070 doesn't exactly make for a machine that's light on power usage. In fact, quite the opposite. The Dell 16 Premium that I tested eats up battery quickly, and I actually wasn't able to get through a full day of usage. That's a full day of medium usage, and it did include some video editing, though that video editing wasn't exactly super complex.

That's in stark contrast to the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which will easily get you through a full work day, and beyond. I've stopped worrying much about bringing a charger for my MacBook Pro, even for long-haul travel. I would be much more concerned with the Dell 16 Premium. ARM-based chips that compete with the likes of the M4 Pro and M4 Max can't come soon enough.

The Dell 16 Premium is a high-end machine, and as far as Windows laptops go, it's perhaps my favorite option. It's stylish and well-designed, has a stunning display, and boasts top-tier performance. Its battery life certainly leaves a little to be desired though — and it's definitely not cheap. But if you want a laptop with a 16-inch display, and aren't looking for a thicker, heavier gaming laptop, the Dell 16 Premium is the way to go.

The competition

I compare the Dell 16 Premium to the MacBook Pro a lot because, simply put, Apple is ahead of the game. The M4 Pro may not perform quite as well as this model of the Dell 16 Premium in GPU performance, but it still wins in CPU performance, plus it has a much better battery life. The M4 Max steps things up with better GPU performance, too.

But if you're looking at the Dell 16 Premium, chances are you're not interested in a MacBook. If you want a top-performing Windows laptop at this price point, the Dell 16 Premium is the way to go.

Should I buy the Dell 16 Premium?

Yes. It's an excellent-performing laptop.