If you're shopping for a laptop in 2024, you have almost too many options to choose from, be it a thin mobile companion or a hefty, rugged notebook, with a vast range of options in between. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to narrow down your options based on what you know. Sometimes, that's a brand you've long used and trusted.

If you're familiar with Dell, you probably have some opinion regarding how reliable the company's products are, how its customer service works, and the general quality of the user experience that those products and services deliver. If you're brand-loyal, it's a reasonable way to whittle down your options, while still helping you zero in on an excellent product. Picking a brand you trust does half the deciding for you.

Whether you're after a fast laptop for crunching numbers at work or a laptop for staying productive at home or on the go, Dell likely has a model you've considered buying. The company has reliable machines at all levels of the market. Read on for a breakdown of our picks for the best Dell laptops for 2024 for a variety of users, followed by a guide to Dell's various laptop lines.

What Are the Differences Among Dell's Laptop Lines?

When you're looking at Dell's laptop product line, you'll want to concentrate on which of its six main families of laptop best meets your needs. The ones to familiarize yourself with are Inspiron, XPS, Alienware, G Series, Latitude, and Precision. You'll find both clamshell and 2-in-1 convertible entries in all of these families apart from the two gaming-oriented ones.

Inspiron: The Mainstream Choice

For use in the home or school, Dell's Inspiron brand comprises consumer laptops of every stripe: power machines, inexpensive "just enough" machines, big displays, and ultra-compacts. Whether you're editing photos or managing your home finances, Inspiron's copious options fit both screen-size and budget needs for most buyers. These machines are mostly Windows models; if you want something a little less expensive for simple tasks and browsing online, consider Dell's Chromebooks, which put basic functionality into an affordable package that works great for kids and students.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Dell used to break its Inspiron line into three gradations or levels: 3000, 5000, and 7000 series. As you went up that stack, you tended to see more premium features and higher relative pricing. The number between the word "Inspiron" and the series number was typically the screen size of the laptop; an Inspiron 13 5000, for example, would be a 13-inch-screened laptop with middle-field characteristics.

However, today Dell names its Inspiron systems according to their rough screen sizes, which now include 14-inch and 16-inch Inspiron laptop varieties. This creates greater ambiguity around what each laptop is capable of; you'll want to look at detailed reviews with testing results to get an idea of relative potency.

Want to make sure you're saving the most cash possible, even on a Dell laptop? Check out our article with 15 money-saving tips for buying laptops.

XPS: The Power-User Class

Successive guises of the Dell XPS 13 were our "near-perfect" mainstream and power laptops for several years. Refresh after refresh, Dell keeps tuning to keep this hardy machine on top. XPS signifies, on both the desktop and laptop side of the fence, a premium-design, fully decked-out machine that bridges demanding consumers and business users. It's Dell's line of power tools that are equally at home in a home office, a coffee shop, a conference room, or a high-stakes business meeting.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

XPS-class laptops also sometimes serve as guinea pigs for introducing futuristic features, such as in the XPS 13 Plus, which ditched a physical touchpad in favor of a haptic feedback mechanism integrated into the palm rest. Traditionally, you didn't find a lot of variety in the XPS laptop line in terms of screen size or stratification, just configurable versions of the 13-inch-screened XPS 13 and 15-inch XPS 15 as both clamshells and swiveling-screen 2-in-1s. The XPS 17, the biggest model, has a 17-inch screen and is only available in a clamshell form factor.

This changed with the 2024 introduction of 14-inch and 16-inch Dell XPS laptop models featuring Intel's new Core Ultra AI-equipped processors. All of the existing odd-number screen sizes (13, 15, 17) are currently sold alongside these new even-number sizes (14 and 16 inches) for the time being, but some may be phased out in the future.

Alienware and G Series: Full-Spectrum Gaming

If gaming is more your style, Dell's Alienware brand delivers, if you're on the market for a serious, blinged-out gaming cruiser. The latest components combine with premium construction and design, earning Alienware a well-deserved reputation as an aspirational brand among PC gamers. The Alienware machines tend to be big, brawny models with heavy graphics firepower and prices to match, though the brand known for its classic Area-51m bruiser has made forays into some leaner machines with its m16 and m18 series models and the even leaner Alienware X series.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Dell also sells gaming laptops under its G Series brand, introduced in 2018. Before this new sub-brand's introduction, this aggressively priced, lower-end line was part of the Inspiron family. Dell split it out as its own animal, and now the G Series is aimed at mainstream and budget-constrained gamers, with more modest designs than the Alienware models and component loadouts that are humbler but still workable for the latest games.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

The G Series models hover above and below the $1,000 mark, while the Alienware models start north of that. Models in the G Series are gradated into G3, G5, and G7 classes, with the higher numbers indicating higher-grade builds and feature sets.

Latitude: The Umbrella for Business Machines

Then we have the business machines. Dell's Latitude brand is the mainstay for its business laptops, competing with options from Lenovo (the ThinkPad T series) and HP (the various EliteBook lines). Latitude offers options for workers in the office or out in the field, with a mix of thin-yet-powerful laptops and durable systems that can take a beating.

Like the Inspirons used to, the Latitudes make use of a 3000, 5000, and 7000 nomenclature, plus a top-of-the-line 9000 series. The second number in the four-digit model number signifies the screen size. So a Dell Latitude 7390 is in second from the top of the four lines, with a 13.3-inch screen; a Latitude 9500 would be a top-grade machine with a 15.6-inch screen.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Beyond the "simply" durable units, the Latitude line is also home to a few costly, highly ruggedized models that are designed to be used in hostile environments: doused in water, clipped onto an ATV, exposed to cold and wind, and the like. These are branded under the Latitude Rugged Extreme moniker.

Precision: Workstation Laptops for Demanding Professionals

Mobile workstations are a breed of machines that share some traits with business models, but they stand apart for their Independent Software Vendor (ISV) certifications and, in some cases, specialized CPU and GPU options and support for precise error-correcting-code (ECC) memory. ISV certifications give users of demanding professional business apps (in areas such as scientific computing, architecture, and engineering) assurances that the workstation will run up to snuff with a given application. Companies such as Adobe, Autodesk, Avid, Dassault Systemés, and Siemens tend to be the ISVs involved.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Dell's line of mobile workstations is its Precision line, which comprises both laptop and desktop models. On the laptop side, Precision makes use of the same 3000, 5000, and 7000 series lingo as the Latitudes, with the screen size indicated within the model number.

A workstation might make use of consumer- or business-grade Intel CPUs. Still, the mark of a high-end workstation is the presence of a mobile Intel Xeon CPU and a dedicated workstation-grade graphics processor from Nvidia (RTX A-series, formerly Quadro) or AMD (Radeon Pro, much less common). The latter contrasts consumer-GPU counterparts (GeForce RTX and Radeon RX, respectively) and are designed specifically for the kind of heavy-duty calculations that ISV-class applications require.

So, What Is the Best Dell Laptop to Buy?

You'll find plenty of solid Dell systems to choose from but don't be overwhelmed by the options. We've combed through our many reviews and singled out the best Dell systems in multiple categories. For more (Dell and non-Dell) options, check out our favorite laptops overall (updated constantly), as well as our lists of the best Chromebooks, the best budget laptops, and the best gaming laptops.