Quick review
The good
The not-so-good
Big laptops don’t always mean content-creation or 3D workstations. The Dell 16 Plus clearly sits in that camp, offering a sizeable machine for folks looking for a big screen to go. Is it a big deal?
Design
Dell surprised everyone earlier in the year with an approach that tapered back its names for ease of use, and at the same time, it also tapered back the designs. Gone were the playful edges and names like “Inspiron”, replaced instead by just calling them the “Dell” or the “Dell Pro”, while the designs were a little more normal and generic.
That’s what you get in the Dell 16 Plus, a model that sounds as generic as it gets. As if Dell couldn’t be bothered to come up with a model name and just said “hey, folks will know this is a Dell”.
They sure will when they see the Dell logo on the back, but we still miss Dell’s retired naming scheme and sense of individuality in design.
You might, too, because the Dell 16 Plus has a thoroughly ordinary look to it.
It’s a combination of plastic and aluminium which feels more like the former than the latter and was coloured a light “ice blue” in our review model. Testing it over our review period, the 16 Plus felt reasonably hefty at 1.87kg, but of course, it is a 16 inch laptop. It’s not the sleek slim metal 15 inch MacBook Air, that’s for sure.
Features
Inside, Dell is sticking with a pretty consistent formula for laptops at the moment: lots of processor grunt, plenty of memory, and a decent amount of storage, too.
The base model Dell 16 Plus is actually the model we’re reviewing, and it comes with 16GB RAM, 1TB of storage, Windows 11 Home, and a variation of the Intel Core Ultra 7 we’ve not seen this year: the 256V. It’s a different model to the 258V we’ve seen in other laptops.
Outside of the chip, it’s a fairly standard laptop.
You’ll find three USB ports on the laptop, one of which is the old school rectangular USB-A port, while the other two both work for power. One of these is a Thunderbolt 4, while the other is just a USB 3.2, and there’s also an HDMI 2.1 port plus a 3.5mm headset jack, should you need it. Support for Bluetooth can be found here, as can 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be WiFi 7.
There’s also a fingerprint reader built into the power button, support for Windows Hello facial security in the 1080p camera section, two small speakers and a dual-array mic, plus that obvious 16 inch screen.
Display
A sizeable screen 16 inch screen is a big part of the package, hardly a surprise because it’s right there in the otherwise ordinary name: Dell 16 Plus.
Yep, you get a 16 inch screen, though it’s one that doesn’t exactly inspire.
Don’t expect mini-LED or OLED here in the 16 Plus; rather, it’s a fairly nice looking matte IPS display sporting a 2560×1600 2.5K screen resolution without touch. It’s fairly easy on the eyes and even gets some blue-reduction technology thrown in for good measure, but it lacks the extra brightness or vivid colour you might expect from better screen technologies.
In-use
Using the laptop, you’ll find some pretty conventional approaches to using it: a spacious trackpad and a full-size keyboard.
And by full-size, we mean it: the Dell 16 Plus offers a keyboard complete with a numeric keypad. It’s the sort of layout you’d expect on a larger laptop, such as a 17 inch or higher.
Granted, 16 inch laptops are the new 17 inch machines, and this keyboard certainly shows it. The keyboard is large and spacious, with a lot of keys for you to work any accounting magic should you choose to.
But it’s not a fantastic keyboard either, and unlike the quality we expect out of Dell’s best in the XPS range.
The keys are comfortable enough, and the travel is decent, but the whole thing feels plasticky and you can see the tray flex as you punch in your keys. It just looks like jelly wobbling on the plate, delivering so much flex you’ll wonder if the keyboard frame will survive a few years of life under a punishing 100 to 150 words per minute.
That makes it a “fine” keyboard, but hardly up there as one of Dell’s best.
At least the massive 16cm (roughly 6 inches) trackpad is in the right place: it’s spacious and slick, with a large button and fast responsiveness. Depending on the surface you use, though, the trackpad can feel as cheap as the keyboard, and sometimes difficult to push. There was no touchscreen in the Dell 16 Plus we reviewed, so get used to using this touchpad because it’s all you have.
You’ll also find some AI thrown in for good measure, but it’s mostly just what you can expect from a CoPilot+ machine. That means the obligatory CoPilot key Microsoft introduced last year, with access to OpenAI’s CoPilot integration from your keyboard and Windows, plus whatever else Windows can do with AI, such as image generation in Paint.
It’s not a lot of AI, certainly not ground-breaking, but folks who don’t mind using ther features will like them existing.
Performance
Performance is where things get a little more iffy, and we’re not entirely sure why.
On the whole, the use of a second-gen Intel Core Ultra 7 processor sets the Dell 16 Plus up with more than enough power for work and a bit of play. You’re only getting an Intel-based system here, so no extra graphical grunt or prowess — nothing from Nvidia or AMD onboard — and it seems to handle most of what you’ll throw its way.
Work and productivity were no problem for the Intel 256V in the Dell 16 Plus, and the benchmarks certainly showed performance was more than capable… except in one area.
Our benchmarks are specific: we use Geekbench 6 to test CPU performance across single and multi-core, and we also test graphical capabilities across OpenCL and Vulkan (or Metal on a Mac). Nothing about this approach has changed in the several years Pickr has reviewed computers, and even the most recent laptops have been fine. But not this computer. Not the Dell 16 Plus.
It passed the CPU test. It even passed one of the GPU tests. But it failed every time on the second graphics test, and there was nothing we could do to get it to complete it.
On benchmarks alone, it’s pretty clear that the Intel 256V Dell uses on the 16 Plus is different from the Intel 258V other manufacturers are opting for — the speed alone paints that picture, albeit in a minor way. However, we didn’t expect the graphics tests would fail so spectacularly and just refuse to finish.
And that paints a rather unusual picture on performance here, in that the Dell 16 Plus is capable, but has issues where graphics are concerned.
It means the Dell 16 Plus may only be suitable for productivity, but could struggle for anything the least bit relaxing, such as gaming titles and the like. Your 16 inch screen will be a big display for spreadsheets and writing and web browsing and such.
But will it handle Steam and an assortment of games you’re eager to sink your teeth into? Probably and possibly not.
Battery
Battery is also a little hit and miss, a surprise given the massive size you’d expect to find in a system this big. While the battery should be big, our battery life typically matched closer to the seven hour mark for simply productivity.
That’s fine. Not spectacular or amazing, but just fine.
Armed with similar chips, we’ve seen battery life hit into the teens for competitors, something the 16 Plus just doesn’t manage.
Technically, it will survive a day of use, provided your day is only seven hours of work. Our tests tended to round that point, hitting between 7 and 8, but not much more.
Benchmarking with PCMark 10’s modern office battery test, the Dell 16 Plus fared a lot better, achieving 15 hours from the test. Checking it overnight to the morning, it’s clear the battery had no problem pulling that runtime in real life, though as to whether you’ll actually get it in the real world is anyone’s guess.
Thankfully, there’s a USB-C port to charge from, and actually a grand total of two, all of which appear on the left side. It’s something, but it could be a little better overall. Like one on the right side, as well.
Value
About the only area Dell gets it right is the price.
In Australia, the Dell 16 Plus is a $1500 laptop, priced at $1498.20 at the time of publication. For a 16 inch laptop with recent hardware, that’s not too shabby at all. It’s the sort of price tag that feels more than reasonable, largely because the resolution, keyboard, and battery are all slightly better than the price would suggest.
What needs work?
That’s great. What’s less great are what doesn’t stand out about the machine.
In fact, our concerns about the Dell 16 Plus go a little deeper than the weird graphical performance problem and the way too flexible keyboard. Rather, it goes to the soul of the machine, and a point we made when Dell first announced back at CES this year when it decided to change the name and design of all of its gear.
Simply put, the Dell 16 Plus is a little on the boring side.
There’s nothing wrong with boring. Boring can be totally fine for work. It can be totally fine for play.
But Dell isn’t typically known for boring. The XPS isn’t boring, the Adamo wasn’t boring, and even some of the Latitude and Precision workstation laptops haven’t been boring. Not in the way this is, anyway.
The Dell 16 Plus is boring. It’s a simple laptop that would have previously come with the name “Inspiron” in the past, but these days has been lopped off because of Dell’s new naming scheme, and it’s now more of a boring business laptop. Dell even advertises it as a business laptop, calling it the “Dell 16 Plus Business Laptop“.
Between the meh keyboard, meh mouse, meh port selection, and meh performance, there’s a lot of meh to the Dell 16 Plus. “Meh” isn’t really a great feeling to write a review on, so we’ll just sum it up in another way: the Dell 16 Plus is boring.
Technically, it’s all business, and will do the job. Boring but all business.
Final thoughts (TLDR)
Boring isn’t always a bad thing, but in the case of the Dell 16 Plus, boring could be better. It’s a totally fine business computer that just could be more interesting somehow, or more feature packed.
It’s not. It’s ordinary and that’s fine, but at the same time, you could also probably do better. A huge screen and keyboard married to a decent price just aren’t as tantalising as you might expect.
In fact, about the only things that make the Dell 16 Plus worth its cost are the size and its price. It still needs more ports and more individuality. It craves it.
For some people, individuality is overrated, and that’s totally fine. If this is you, and you don’t need your laptop to echo a sense of style — if you just need a laptop to be a laptop, the Dell 16 Plus could be worth a look. But there are also plenty of laptops out there that nail the brief better, and you might want to keep your options open.
