Intel Panther Lake shines: New Dell XPS 14 (2026) battery life is 55% longer vs 2025 Dell 14 Premium

After being on the receiving end of fan backlash for the controversial XPS redesign in 2024 and for a complete rebrand to “Dell Premium” in 2025, it looks like Dell has found its footing again. The new Dell XPS 14 for 2026 is a marked improvement over the 2025 Dell 14 Premium and the 2024 XPS 14. The Dell XPS 14 (2026) boasts plenty of upgrades, but it is the presence of an Intel Panther Lake APU that makes the biggest difference.

In our full review of the Dell XPS 14 2026 with the Core Ultra X7 358H, we gave the laptop a rating of 87%, which is much higher than the 83% rating we awarded to the Dell 14 Premium last year. One of the biggest contributors to this high rating is the battery life. We are happy to report that the Dell XPS 14 for 2026 lasted for 16 hours and 45 minutes in our WLAN test performed at 150 nits at the Balanced performance profile.

To put this into perspective, the Dell 14 Premium with a similarly sized 69.5 Wh cell lasted just 10 hours and 48 minutes in the same battery life test. Things look even more impressive when we compare the latest Dell XPS 14 to the 2024 Dell XPS 14, as the 2024 model could only manage a runtime of 7 hours and 45 minutes with the same 69.5 Wh battery.

In other words, the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H Panther Lake APU and its incredible power efficiency have granted the 2026 Dell XPS 16 55% longer battery life vs the Dell 14 Premium. The battery life delta is a phenomenal 216% when we compare the new Dell XPS 14 with Intel Panther Lake to the 2024 Dell XPS 14 with Intel Meteor Lake.

As we’ve seen with other Intel Panther Lake-based laptops, the new Dell XPS 14 (2026) shows that Intel has hit a home run with the Core Ultra 300 series APUs, at least when it comes to GPU performance and battery life. Now, let’s hope that the Intel Panther Lake laptops don’t turn out to be as expensive as leaks have claimed.

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