The XPS 13 Price Has Fine Print

Dell revived the XPS 13 at $599 to fight Apple's MacBook Neo. But the fine print matters.

The $599 price is a promotional student discount that runs only through September, according to The Verge's Antonio Di Benedetto. After back-to-school season ends, the XPS 13 starts at $699 for everyone else.

Apple's MacBook Neo also starts at $599 — but students can get it for $100 less. So Dell is charging student buyers the same as Apple's full retail price, and charging everyone else $100 more. Dell COO Jeff Clarke called out the MacBook Neo by name in a media briefing. Bold move for a laptop that loses on price the moment summer ends.

The base config is also worth examining. That $599 model gets you a six-core Intel Core 5 320 "Wildcat Lake" chip and just 8GB of RAM. In 2026. Higher-end configs with Intel Panther Lake chips, Thunderbolt 4, and up to 32GB of RAM come later — no pricing announced yet. There's no 3.5mm audio jack on any configuration.

What Dell does deliver: a 13.4-inch anti-glare touchscreen at 2560x1600, 30-120Hz variable refresh, 500 nits of brightness, 100% DCI-P3 color coverage, a backlit keyboard, and claimed 17-hour battery life. The laptop is 0.5 inches thick and weighs 2.2 pounds, lighter than the MacBook Neo. It ships in July.

The XPS 13 is a real product with real strengths. But the headline $599 figure requires asterisks that most initial coverage — including ours — didn't foreground clearly enough.

AMD's Computex Play: Sell You Old Chips Again

AMD came to Computex 2026 with a strategy that sits uncomfortably between savvy and opportunistic.

The company announced it will support its AM5 desktop socket through 2029, meaning buyers can keep upgrading CPUs without replacing their motherboard through the end of the decade. That's a genuine, consumer-friendly commitment.

But the headline chips AMD announced are recycled hardware. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D "10th Anniversary Edition" is a relaunched version of an existing AM4 chip, priced at $349, available June 25th, per The Verge's Sean Hollister. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D is a $330 chip that appears to be a binned-down version of the existing 7800X3D — which itself launched in 2023 and already has a 9000-series successor from late 2024.

The 7700X3D looks marginally slower than the 7800X3D on paper. The 7800X3D currently sells for $380 to $450 but can occasionally be found at $320. So AMD is selling an older, slightly slower chip for $330 as a new product. For budget builders, the math works. Whether calling it a new product announcement is honest marketing is another matter.

On GPUs, AMD is bringing the Radeon RX 9070 GRE — previously exclusive to China — to the US and other markets starting June 1st at $549. The problem: $549 was supposed to be the starting price for the more powerful standard RX 9070, not the cut-down GRE variant. The Verge notes the RX 9070 launched amid a GPU shortage, hit $549 exactly once, and then climbed. AMD's pricing claims have not held up in the real market.

Alienware's OLED Monitors Pack Real Upgrades, But Prices Are Missing

Dell's Alienware brand announced four new gaming monitors at Computex, anchored by two OLED flagships — neither of which has a confirmed price.

The AW3426DW is a 34-inch QD-OLED ultrawide at 3440x1440 with an 1800R curve. According to Videocardz, it upgrades from the previous model's 240Hz to 280Hz, boosts peak brightness from 1,000 nits to 1,300 nits, and moves from DisplayHDR True Black 400 to True Black 500 with Dolby Vision. The new Penta Tandem panel technology also drops anti-reflective coating from 1.0% to 0.7% reflectance and adds a V-stripe RGB subpixel layout meant to sharpen text rendering — a longstanding QD-OLED weakness. Coming July, price TBD.

The flagship is the AW3926QW: a 39-inch 5K2K (5120x2160) curved OLED at 1500R, using LG Display's fourth-gen Primary RGB Tandem panel technology. Per PCGH and Videocardz, it runs 165Hz at native 5K resolution and 330Hz at 2560x1080 in its competitive esports mode. It also includes DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20, 90W USB-C power delivery, built-in KVM switching, and VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification. Pixel density hits 143 pixels per inch — solid for a 39-inch panel.

Availability starts in select Asian markets in late June 2026. North America and Europe get it in fall. Price: still unknown.

Also on the show floor: MSI debuted the MAG OLED 271QPX32, a 26.5-inch QD-OLED at 2560x1440 running up to 320Hz with a 0.03ms response time and VESA ClearMR 15000 certification, according to Arabian Reseller. MSI is targeting this at serious gamers who want QD-OLED without going ultrawide. Pricing also not announced.

Missing Prices, Real Deadlines

Almost nothing announced this week has a confirmed US price. The Alienware OLEDs, AMD's socket commitment, several MSI monitors — all "pricing to be announced closer to launch." Meanwhile, The Verge's own reporting notes the entire industry is navigating what it calls "RAMageddon" — a memory shortage pushing up costs across laptops and desktops.

Buyers should enjoy the announcements. Then wait and see what things actually cost when they hit retail.