Dell Pro 14 Premium review (PA14250) – Pickr

Quick review

Dell Pro 14 Premium

The good

Minimalist and professional

More durable than other laptops with MIL-STD rating

Decent assortment of ports

Nice keyboard

The not-so-good

Battery life could be longer

Laptop has little in the way of personality

Expensive for what it is

For over $3K, the Dell Pro 14 Premium is a difficult argument to make, unless you need durability in spades, which it seems to have.

Everyone has different needs, and when it comes to buying a notebook, some decisions stand out more seriously than others. There are lots of laptop options, and knowing your needs can be really important.

For instance, if you need a basic machine, there are heaps of options, while folks looking for high-performance laptops typically need to consider something with more power again, often commanding meaty graphics hardware and capable CPUs. Creative folks can look to these workstation-grade machines, as can gamers, and both types of laptop really point out that a lot of decision making goes into comparing breeds of PC these days.

So what do you need to consider when you’re buying a laptop for work? Are you looking at size, power, battery life, or something more?

With Dell’s latest range, the “something more” could be in the design, offering a system spec designed to keep going, and a case designed to survive.

While the model names aren’t always easy to get behind this year, the Dell Pro 14 Premium focuses on building a work machine meant to keep going past the year or two year mark. Is it just what business needs?

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Design

As part of Dell’s shift to new model names and ranges earlier this year, so too came a different approach for design. Gone were the playful angles, the carbon fibre, and the difference in aesthetics we’ve seen from the company prior.

Now in its place is a bit of same-sameness, and it’s pretty evident in the Dell Pro 14 Premium.

A rather simple-looking PC made for business (a “commercial PC” is how Dell would likely describe it), the style in the Dell Pro 14 Premium kind of resembles a MacBook Pro, but made out of magnesium and built to a slightly more rugged approach.

Officially, the Dell Pro 14 Premium is rated for MIL-STD-810H, meaning you can drop water on it and take it out to more extremes than say every other computer. In short, the resistance rating and slight durability give this laptop a little more rugged wear cred than most other laptops have, largely because most laptops offer nothing in this category. Laptop ruggedness is rare.

Dell’s approach comes from that magnesium alloy encasing the laptop, which gives a thin and light design, but that can also feel a touch plasticky.

If Surface’s use of magnesium in the early days with “VaporMg” managed to feel like a strong pressed metal, Dell’s use of magnesium on the Pro 14 Premium goes in another direction, feeling almost too light and too thin at times. Flick the casing and you’ll be confused whether you’re holding plastic or metal.

As such, it doesn’t quite feel how you’d expect a premium machine to feel, though the 1.14kg weight is certainly comfy enough to carry.

Features

Inside, you’ll find an option of one of Intel’s latest from the second-gen Core Ultra, either the Core Ultra 5 238V or the Core Ultra 7 268V, depending on how much you want to spend.

Memory ranges between 16GB and 32GB (again based on price), and storage seems set to 512GB across the range, though we suspect you could tweak that if you wanted, as well.

In terms of operating systems, because this is technically a commercial PC made for work, you’ll find the more professional version of Windows onboard, Windows 11 Pro. This makes it a Copilot+ PC complete with that little Copilot key Microsoft added last year.

Connections are fairly varied, offering two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4, one USB-A, one HDMI, and a 3.5mm headset jack, offering a little more than just the typical one or two Type C ports.

There’s also the offering of Bluetooth 5 and WiFi 7, the latter of which provided support for 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be WiFi, which is also backwards compatible with the likes of WiFi 6E, 6, and WiFi 5.

There’s an 8 megapixel camera above the screen with an infrared camera and support for facial recognition using Windows Hello, plus stereo speakers capped at 2 watts each, with a microphone found in that camera component, as well.

Display

Below the webcam, the 14 inch screen Dell has equipped won’t exactly set the world on fire with new technology, but it’s easy on the eyes and offers a fairly slim set of bezels.

The 14 inch Quad HD+ screen running 2880×1800 didn’t seem like it was super bright or as vivid as OLED, but it’s still definitely pretty, and surprisingly offered touch, a surprising aspect as the Australian models don’t seem to offer that.

In-use

Of course, the inclusion of touch gives you one way to use the Dell Pro Premium — what we assume will be the 2025 edition of the Dell Pro 14 Premium, given there will likely be yearly models — but it’s a touchscreen without niceties like a pen or stylus.

You may not need to worry about pushing or prodding, but when it comes time to using the laptop, you’ll also find a solid little keyboard with a decent amount of traction, as Dell does one of the things it is well known for: nice keyboards.

Sized a little wider than the spacebar, the trackpad underneath this is fine, though can sometimes fire the right click a little more frequently than expected.

But when it comes to securing your Pro 14 Premium, it’s Windows Hello’s facial security and/or a password, though at least with the former, you can cover the webcam should you want to keep that locked down.

Ports are a little more useful than other 14 inch laptops, that said. Dell has provided two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 compatibility, plus a rectangular USB-A port, single HDMI, and the trusty headphone jack, should you have a wired pair of headphones.

Given how few devices include that anymore, you can see just how Dell is focusing this laptop for work and productivity, where that sort of plug still matters.

Performance

Work may matter, but so does performance, and that’s an area that delivers, albeit with a bit of an asterisk.

On the one hand, the second-gen Intel Core Ultra 7 268V is a pretty solid piece of kit, and paired with the 32GB RAM Dell has equipped here, your apps shouldn’t be affected by too many slowdowns. In short, you can run as many tabs as your little heart dreams of.

However, when you compare the Dell Pro 14 Premium to last year’s premium model in the XPS range, things get a little confusing.

Take the Dell XPS 14, a fantastic little laptop with more performance than you might expect, or in this case, more performance than Dell manages from its 14 inch commercial Pro Premium.

Despite there being a whole generation difference between Intel models, the 2024 XPS 14 delivers better CPU performance overall. We expect the graphics to be better on the XPS — it had a discrete Nvidia chip under the hood, while the Pro 14 Premium sticks with Intel inside — but it’s a little weird to see last year’s Dell in front of this year’s.

It’s a similar vibe when you compare a handful of computers from this year and the previous year.

Take last year’s Acer Swift Go 14 and this year’s Asus Zenbook S 14, two more 14 inch laptops that both deliver better performance from the CPU, with this year’s Zenbook getting close in graphics performance. The Dell commercial laptop just doesn’t seem to have an edge anywhere, and it’s the same when you compare it against a Mac.

Granted, a comparison of Apple and Windows PCs is never fair — it’s an almost literal case of apples and oranges, and it just doesn’t work — but the Dell appears outflanked by most, including the 2024 M3 MacBook Air. It’s just confusing.

This year’s Dell Pro 14 laptop is no slouch and the performance difference isn’t staggering, but it’s certainly not ahead of the game, not in a way you’d expect a machine priced as high as this one to be.

Battery

It’s a similar picture with battery life, which feels like it could be better, but will handle a day with relative ease.

Throughout our time with the Dell Pro 14 Premium, we saw a battery life roughly between 7 and 9 hours, which isn’t bad, though our usage was on the lighter side of everything.

As far as basic productivity machines go, we expect the battery life would fall faster if you decided to flex some of the muscle afforded by the Intel Core Ultra inside.

There is a maximum, though, and it says a lot about where the battery life needs to improve. In our tests, we found the Dell Pro 14 Premium could only hit a little over 11 hours, which is below where we expect a strong battery to be these days. Even the Asus Zenbook S from this year could manage 12 hours at times, outlasting Dell’s option seemingly, too.

Yes, the Dell Pro 14 Premium should survive a regular work day, provided you’re not doing all that much, but with laptops reaching past 12 hours, Dell could also improve things further, as well.

Value

The price does have us a little stumped, though, with Dell’s suggestion that this laptop is remotely worth over $3000 in Australia, a decision we’re not sure we agree with. Interestingly, we couldn’t find the exact model we reviewed on Dell’s website, but the closest model without the touchscreen hits the $3K price point, while this one is $2364 USD, suggesting closer to $3600 locally.

Sure, the keyboard is nice and offers great travel, and the laptop is nice enough to look at, if not a little ordinary. But it’s difficult to justify over $2300 for what is for all intents and purposes a fairly simplistic laptop made for everyday work with just a bit more durability.

With credit to Dell where it’s needed, there’s also technically nothing majorly wrong with the Dell Pro 14 Premium. If you needed a relatively light 14 inch machine with performance and some professional ruggedisation, the Pro 14 Premium makes sense.

It’s just way over the price it should be. There are better machines for the price Dell’s charging, that’s for sure.

It says “Pro” on the bottom, so it must be a pro laptop.

What needs work?

The problem judging value with the Dell Pro 14 Premium may come partly down to Dell’s new naming system.

Introduced at CES 2025, it is still one of the most confusing own goals Dell could have kicked, confusing buyers and reviewers alike. It’s certainly not as easy to work out as it once was.

Previously, there was a range name. The XPS was premium, while Precision was for workstation, Latitude for business, and Inspiron focused on consumers. Now, it’s about “Dell”, “Dell Pro”, and “Dell Pro Max”, a difference which is basically “everyone”, “professionals”, and “power users”, with some extra deviations in the last past of the name.

As it is, the Dell Pro 14 Premium is a business-grade 14 inch laptop with a little more “premium”-ness to it, though we’re not sure what makes it so different from the standard Dell Pro 14, which comes with one of last year’s chips and is about half the price.

It’s not a very swanky laptop. It’s just slim and minimalist. And that might be fine.

If you’re confused, then you’re not far from where we are, and the price is just as confusing.

Sorry Dell, but $3K for a 14 inch laptop without any extra oomph or special features? It doesn’t seem likely that the massive price tag is just from the added durability. We’re a little confused, and not just because of that.

There’s no personality in this laptop whatsoever.

This isn’t like the Dell XPS that attempted to look different and vibrant, even blending the trackpad with the wrist pad, nor is it the carbon fibre slick look of the Precision machines we’ve seen prior.

No, the Dell Pro 14 Premium arrives with magnesium, but it just looks like an utterly boring MacBook Pro clone.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

Boring a design as it may be, the Dell Pro 14 Premium has one thing going for it that other laptops don’t: it’s built to be more durable, potentially giving it a longer lease on life than many other machines come with.

While the system performance isn’t quite the best and neither is the battery life, the hardware should keep going for several years, which may well be the point of that overly high price. It’s a simple survivor, even if that simplicity carries a higher cost than it should.

We’re not sure we’d pay top dollar the way Dell expects it, but if you need a computer to survive the day job, there’s a decent machine in the Dell Pro 14 Premium, even if it costs a little too much for the privilege.