Review: Dell 14 Plus

Dell is in the middle of a transition. It has a new logo, and a new simplified approach to branding. The Dell 14 Plus is among the first laptop to launch to test the waters in this new era, which is seeing the end of subbrands like XPS and Inspiron. While the more exciting XPS replacement is still to come, the Dell 14 Plus has arrived to step into the shoes of the old Inspiron Plus laptops.

While it’s far from the most exciting laptop in the world, it offers a solid balance of quality and value, if only it had more configuration options available to properly classify it as a cheap laptop.

Dell On The Shell

The Dell 14 Plus isn’t what I’d call a pretty laptop. But I don’t think it’s trying to be. Instead, it’s trying to be inoffensive. In the past, that might have meant a plastic, black shell. These days, it means a silver chassis with as few distractions or ornaments as possible. The Dell 14 Plus succeeds at doing that.

More importantly, the laptop feels quite sturdy in the hand. The lid has absolutely zero give, likely because of how tightly wound the hinge is. You can’t open it with one finger though—in fact, there isn’t even a lip on the lid for your finger. That lid is thicker than normal, too, despite the device being just 0.67 inches thick. That’s not thin compared to a MacBook Air, no, but it’s thin enough to feel modern for a laptop of this price. It also allows for enough room to squeeze in some legacy ports, including USB-A and HDMI. That’s in addition to the two USB-C ports and the headphone jack. My only complaint is that both USB-C ports are on the left side, meaning it’s the only side you can charge from.

One of the things that keeps the Dell 14 Plus from feeling like a more premium laptop is the screen. It has some thick plastic bezels, and it uses a heavy-handed matte finish. While that helps for deflecting glare, it cheapens the look of the display, making it appear dimmer and more saturated. That’s too bad too, since the screen itself is a solid one. It’s a surprisingly well-calibrated IPS panel with decent color coverage. According to my testing, it tops out at 332 nits of brightness, which won’t blow your socks off, but won’t detract too much from the experience.

I should mention that Dell offers a better display option on its 2-in-1 models. It’s a glossy Mini-LED display, though it’s not currently available from what I can see.

The Dell 14 Plus has a serviceable keyboard and touchpad. Upon receiving the unit, I was concerned about the quality of the touchpad, as its an aspect of mid-tier laptops that tends to get compromised. The touchpad isn't perfect—the surface isn't as smooth as I'd like. But I'm happy to report that this touchpad feels responsive, and the click mechanism isn't overly loud.

Limited Options

The Dell 14 Plus has just single processor options, the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V. This is Intel’s modern, efficient CPU that delivers a solid jump in battery life over previous generations. I’ve tested this chip a number of times already, and the Dell 14 Plus handles it just fine. The Dell 14 Plus even does a job of staying relatively cool and quiet. This isn't the kind of laptop you buy for running heavy applications or games, but for the school, office work, or light content creation, the Dell 14 Plus has plenty of muscle.

It lasted for around 18 hours of battery life in my testing too, which is almost guaranteed to last you through the majority of a day, even under a heavier workload. In the past, a laptop like this would have limped by compared to a MacBook Air, but thanks to the Core Ultra 7 256V, it stands its ground.

One of my biggest problems with the Dell 14 Plus, though, is the lack of configurations. I think it really hurts the value proposition of this otherwise well-priced laptop. Dell only says a model that comes with 1 TB, meaning the starting price is $1,099. Maybe a 512GB model will be introduced at some point, but I have a feeling the high starting price is to leave room for the Dell 14 Base that's inevitably coming at some point. But to me, it cuts the legs out from underneath what could have been an affordable laptop.

Because let’s be straight up: this isn’t a premium-enough feeling laptop to start at $1,099. It’s no MacBook Air, Surface Laptop, or even Dell XPS 14. It’s the quality-of-life features that feel lacking by comparison. The design flourishes. The premium materials. The thickness of the chassis and bezels. It's not just aesthetics, either—the Dell 14 Plus has a pretty shoddy 1080p webcam and some atrocious speakers.

But higher-end laptops also don’t come with 1 TB of storage at that price—meaning the Dell 14 Plus is at least a few hundred dollars cheaper when similarly configured. That's its calling card.

The good news is that I’ve seen the Dell 14 Plus and Dell 14 Plus 2-in-1 drop in price at Dell for certain discounts. Sometimes, those price cuts have even been as much as four hundred dollars. $700 for a decent laptop with 1 TB of storage is a great value. But even at its retail price, it’s not a bad deal if you know you want this much storage. A MacBook Air will cost you $1,399 to include that much storage onboard.

For everyone else, wait until it goes on discount before buying it. When it does, the Dell 14 Plus is worth a purchase for the value alone.