Dell XPS 13 9350 + Lunar Lake Review: Intel’s Back With A Vengeance

Beginning today, Intel’s Lunar Lake starts splashing down in the real world. No more cherry-picked internal benchmarks. No more carefully constructed marketing slides. It’s time to cut through the hype and bring our expectations back down to earth. The preceding is what I would say if the hype wasn’t warranted. But this time, Intel is not messing around. The jump from Core Ultra Series 1 to Core Ultra Series 2 brings substantially more than barebones, baseline upgrades. The phrase “generational leap” feels truly earned.

Dell extended a unique opportunity for this particular launch. I’ve been evaluating Intel’s Meteor Lake, Lunar Lake, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite side-by-side in the exact same XPS 13 chassis. It’s a level playing field, with systems sporting the same dimensions, same thermal solution, same battery, same power delivery, and same display panels. Here is the hardware that informs this review:

• Dell XPS 13 9340 w/ Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (Meteor Lake)
• Dell XPS 13 9345 w/ Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E80100
• Dell XPS 13 9350 w/ Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (Lunar Lake)

Additionally, each model was shipped in both LCD (1920 x 1200) and tandem OLED (2880 x 1800) flavors to convey the battery life story across the spectrum of devices. And it’s one hell of a compelling story. (Spoiler: Qualcomm’s brief reign as undisputed battery life king is over).

XPS 13: The Song Remains The Same

…but it’s a song you enjoy hearing on repeat.

So, before we dive into what will predominantly be benchmarks and analysis focused on Intel’s new Core Ultra 7 258V processor and how it stacks up against the last-gen Core Ultra 7 155H and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite, let’s chat about the XPS 13 laptop itself.

The core XPS 13 hardware has remained largely unchanged for several years, and I find that refreshing. There’s a level of confidence that gets conveyed when a PC maker as large as Dell can’t find a reason to endlessly tweak some element of the hardware in pursuit of a slightly updated elevator pitch, or to satisfy some marketing requirements.

I’ll be the first to admit I had reservations about almost every aspect of the minimalist design. An “invisible” touchpad? No thanks! Except that after a few days I grew comfortable with it, intuitively understanding where the invisible borders were. I even started admiring how clean that unobstructed flat slate below the keyboard looks. It’s satisfyingly symmetrical.

Speaking of the keyboard, I wasn’t a fan at first glance. But after I started using it, I happily discovered I was making fewer errors than on my daily driver Keychron K2 (a wireless mechanical keyboard), and still maintaining my average 90 to 95 words-per-minute!

One point of contention related to the keyboard, however, is the capacitive function row. I appreciate that removing this top-most physical row of keys allowed for improvements to the thermal solution, but it still irks me. There’s an odd disconnect after typing for a bit, then hitting one of the capacitive keys and not feeling any feedback. Is it a dealbreaker? Absolutely not.

Praise must be given to the speakers, though. I’m seriously impressed at the clarity, richness, and volume these are capable of in spite of the diminutive form factor. That’s partially thanks to a combination of up and down-firing speakers. This isn’t a MacBook-tier audio experience — and if I want to truly enjoy some music, I’ll put on my trusty Sennheiser HD 450BT headphones — but it rises far, far above your average low-effort laptop speaker experience.

Very few laptops out there are built like a tank, while also exuding such a sleekness and thinness to their design. The lid has almost no perceptible wobble, the hinge is nice and firm, and there’s a pleasing, soft click when closing the lid. I really never found myself worrying about the fragility of the XPS 13.

All told, the XPS 13 is a deceptively appealing laptop. At first blush, I assumed I’d dislike it, but it won me over after a couple days of normal use. The only potential dealbreakers for you might be the omission of a standard headphone jack, and the inclusion of only 2 USB-C ports — although they are both Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort and power delivery.

One last note: if you’re willing to sacrifice some battery life (see below for the average rundown times) for a stunning display, I strongly recommend splurging for the tandem OLED version. Especially if you’re a content creator or an avid content consumer.

Lunar Lake: Intel Is Back With A Vengeance

The Lunar Lake story is one that feels razor-focused on efficiency, but with a sense of urgency. With both AMD and Qualcomm breathing down its neck, Intel went back to the drawing board and made some pretty radical changes for its Core Ultra Series 2 processors. This won’t be a deep dive into the overhauled architecture, but there are some noteworthy details to point out.

First up is the fact that Lunar Lake integrates LPDDR5X memory right on the chip, currently in 16GB or 32GB quantities. The downside is we’ve quickly gone from RAM that’s user-upgradeable to RAM soldered onto the motherboard to RAM being baked right onto the package. Choose wisely! However, what you gain for that compromise is a fairly impactful 40% reduction in the power that’s needed to move data through the system, according to Intel’s Robert Hallock. And that change is noticeable when comparing Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake side-by-side on these XPS 13 systems.

Secondly, there are major changes to Intel’s Efficiency and Performance Cores. The last-gen Core Ultra 7 155H evaluated for this review has 16 total cores — 6 Performance Cores, 8 Efficient Cores, and 2 Low Power Efficient Cores. Lunar Lake’s Core Ultra 7 258V in this new XPS 13 has only half the cores — 4 Performance Cores and 4 Low Power Efficient Cores.

Wait until you see what Lunar Lake accomplishes with half the cores.

Intel Vs Intel vs Qualcomm

The narrative of this review is primarily focused on Intel and the noteworthy differences between Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite has its strengths — namely battery life and efficiency — but those strengths are frequently overshadowed by software and game incompatibilities. At this point in its lifecycle, ARM on Windows is still a tough sell for any but the most niche of use-cases. Few content creators want a premium device that can’t run the majority of Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps natively, and many popular games capable of running on a thin-and-light notebook (Valorant and Roblox among them) aren’t yet compatible.

I suspect the app ecosystem needs at least 6 months to catch up. I’ll keep an eye on things across both Windows and Linux as it matures, however, so check back soon.

If you don’t read any further, the core takeaway is this: Intel has swiftly stolen Qualcomm’s thunder. Lunar Lake confidently lands within spitting distance of the Snapdragon X Elite’s marathon battery life, matches its single-core performance, and utterly embarrasses it in graphics performance. Equally important are the significant performance and efficiency gains Intel has achieved over its last outing with Meteor Lake. Let’s explore that!

Benchmarks: XPS 13 with Intel Core Ultra 7 258V

We kick things off with Geekbench, a tried-and-true benchmark that measures a device’s single-core and multi-core capabilities for everyday stuff like email, media playback, file compression, object detection, web browsing, and more advanced tasks like Machine Learning.

The result shows the Core Ultra 7 258V with 20% faster single-core performance than the Core Ultra 7 155H, and nearly identical multi-core performance. Quite a feat, considering this Lunar Lake processor has 8 cores compared to the Meteor Lake processor’s 16. We also see Lunar Lake matching the Snapdragon X Elite’s single-core performance, even if Qualcomm’s multi-core score pulls away considerably.

In Cinebench 2024, we see the same scenario play out. There’s no questioning Qualcomm’s multi-core dominance here, but the generational improvement we’re seeing with Intel is impressive.

Office Productivity + Video Editing Performance

The story changes slightly when we ditch synthetic benchmarks and start testing real-world applications.

I’ve started using the UL Procyon benchmarking suite because it measures a system’s performance using real-world applications. The Office Productivity test is designed to emulate a typical workflow for Office 365 users. It runs Microsoft Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel simultaneously, switching between them frequently while executing tasks common to each app. It not only measures overall speed, but also the smoothness of various interactions.

The Intel versus Intel result sticks to the ~20% uplift pattern, but here we see the Core Ultra 7 258V outperforming the Snapdragon X Elite by about 15%.

The Procyon suite also has a benchmark which utilizes Adobe Premiere Pro to run through a typical video editing workflow including final rendering. A useful tool for creative professionals to gauge relative performance. Sadly, this is where the ARM-powered XPS 13 stumbles. Even though Adobe recommends installing the x86 version until it develops a native ARM version, the benchmark — and Premiere Pro itself — errored out and refused to run.

For Intel, however, Lunar Lake absolutely shines and powers through the Premiere Pro workload with a 52% higher score than its predecessor. In my experience, this comes mostly down to render times; the Core Ultra 7 258 chewed through that task significantly faster.

Marathon Battery Life For Everyone

This is where the Lunar Lake story begins drifting toward a very satisfying climax. Check out what happens when running that very same Premiere Pro benchmark while monitoring CPU temperatures and total system power:

In the chart above, you can see that not only does the newest Lunar Lake-equipped XPS 13 accomplish that job significantly faster, but it does so with 30% less system power and cooler CPU temps. That means less heat, less fan noise, and extended battery life.

Let’s dig into battery life, since this is a crucial consideration and a very contested battleground. I have to preface this with a bittersweet observation: I didn’t conduct nearly as many of these battery rundown tests as I wanted to, because we now live in a world where it can take literally an entire day to run a single test. That’s remarkable, but also time-consuming in the best way!

The following tests were conducted across all 6 laptops under the following conditions:

• Windows Power Mode: Balanced
• 50% brightness, keyboard backlight off
• All Presence Sensing settings disabled
• WiFi and Bluetooth On
• Battery Saver function triggers at 20% remaining
• Dark Mode On

For this first real-world battery test, the same UL Procyon Office Productivity routine runs until the system powers off (typically at ~1% battery remaining). The results emphasize why people prioritizing marathon battery life above all else should opt for the non-OLED, FHD variants of the XPS 13. That being said, 9+ hours of constant, real-world usage with office software at comfortable brightness settings is nothing to frown about. That’s what each of the OLED models turn in.

The LCD models, however, turn in astounding battery runtimes. The Lunar Lake XPS 13 gives up after 18 hours and 2 minutes — 4.5 hours longer than its Meteor Lake predecessor. Outlasting it by more than 90 minutes is the Snapdragon X Elite model. The Qualcomm Snapdragon and Intel Lunar Lake options both provide more than 2 work days’ worth of battery life, and that’s downright exceptional.

This next result left me gobsmacked. The Procyon video playback test loops a full HD video until the PC shuts down. Here, the XPS 13 with Intel’s Core Ultra 7 258V just dominates everything else on the field, lasting a full 24 hours. And remember, I’m not compromising things in the pursuit of the longest result possible. I believe you shouldn’t be squinting to enjoy your entertainment, and the 50% brightness level is quite comfortable. For what it’s worth, I’d wager you could push this iteration of Lunar Lake to 25 or 26 hours by tweaking the power settings with the MyDell utility (Best Power Efficiency plus the “Quiet” thermal profile) and dialing the brightness down to 40%, or 150 nits.

Seriously though, what an astounding achievement. It’s a milestone seldom enjoyed by anyone but a few ARM laptop owners and a fraction of macOS users. Marathon battery life for the masses? Let’s make that the new normal.

Lunar Lake Graphics: Intel Arc 140V GPU Soars

In the interest of keeping this review somewhat digestible, I’ll skip the feeds and speeds for Lunar Lake’s integrated X^e2 graphics. Worth knowing, however, is that all Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 9 SKUs will include the Intel Arc 140V, while Core Ultra 5 SKUs include Intel Arc 140V. The primary difference between these solutions is a slight bump in maximum frequencies.

Let’s focus on what Intel promised: a 30% average performance uplift versus the Core Ultra 7 155H, and 68% higher average performance versus Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite. If delivered, that also represents a pretty beefy generational upgrade.

Like Geekbench, 3DMark’s extensive suite of graphics benchmarks are a reasonable estimate of a GPU’s relative power. Synthetic tests, however, don’t always represent actual performance. The straightforward takeaway here is that Lunar Lake’s Arc 140V mops the floor with Qualcomm’s Adreno GPU, and turns in up to 16% higher performance than Meteor Lake.

With Wild Life, a more lightweight and cross-platform graphics test, Intel’s claims start to materialize. Here, Lunar Lake outclasses both Meteor Lake and the Snapdragon X Elite by more than 65%!

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider running with DirectX 12, the Lunar Lake-powered XPS 13 exhibits a 44% higher average framerate than Meteor Lake, and a ridiculous 113% higher average framerate than the sluggish Snapdragon X Elite result.

OK, we’re getting warmer.

Finally, running the demanding Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark at native resolution with the Low quality preset — and without any image upscaling — Lunar Lake hits a home run. Not only is it the only playable result, but that 45FPS average represents 76% higher performance than its older Meteor Lake sibling. And again, it wipes the floor with Snapdragon X Elite. Qualcomm needs to put considerable effort into its next Snapdragon graphics solution.

Granted, I didn’t test all 50 games that fueled Intel’s leadership claims, but I plan to test many more in the coming weeks, on both Windows 11 and Fedora Workstation. Still, a clear pattern has emerged in the above benchmarks and lends credibility to Intel’s confident claims.

A Simple Conclusion

It’s easy to enthusiastically recommend the XPS 13 in general, especially for the sleek form factor and premium, durable build quality. But it’s difficult to recommend the last-gen Meteor Lake option, and plain irresponsible to recommend the Snapdragon X Elite model. While I appreciate what Qualcomm is doing for the advancement of ARM, there’s no justification for purchasing it when Intel’s Lunar Lake delivers roughly the same marathon battery life, comparable everyday performance, and vastly superior gaming results.

We should revisit this conclusion in about 6 months, when the app ecosystem catches up, and there are a wider range of useful AI tools for Copilot+ PC owners to utilize. For now, though, the XPS 13 9350 is a winner, and it’s encouraging to see Intel rising to the challenge of competition.

In a future piece, we’ll take a deep dive into gaming on Lunar Lake, and also compare its integrated graphics solution to AMD’s best integrated GPU — the Radeon 890M.

You can explore all the XPS 13 options at Dell.com.