"Dell's XPS 13 Drops Below the MacBook Neo — and Undoes a Quiet Price Hike"

Best Buy is selling the Dell XPS 13 for $600 — $200 off its $800 list price — which now puts it a full $100 below Apple's MacBook Neo. That's a genuine inversion, because the Neo, which arrived this spring at $700, quickly became the reference point for what a well-made budget laptop should be, and Windows makers have been scrambling to answer it ever since.

The deal is more interesting than a simple discount because of how Dell got here. When the XPS 13 launched it matched the Neo at $700, pairing an Intel Core 5 Processor 320 with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Dell later raised that 512GB model to $800 and introduced a $700 version with a smaller 256GB drive — a cramped amount of storage once Windows 11 takes its share. The $600 sale effectively resets the comparison back in the buyer's favor: you get the roomier 512GB config for $100 less than the Neo rather than $100 more. (If you'd prefer more memory for media editing and heavier multitasking, the 16GB version is also $200 off, landing at $800.)

That 256GB swap is a textbook bit of spec laddering — hold the headline price, shrink the specs, and quietly nudge buyers toward the higher-margin configuration. It's a common and mostly invisible move across the industry, which is exactly why a short-lived retailer discount that undoes it is worth flagging. A $600 price on the 512GB model isn't just a good deal; it temporarily neutralizes the upsell math the price change was designed to create.

Zoom out and the bigger story is what the MacBook Neo did to the category. Its success proved there is real demand for sub-$800 laptops that don't feel like compromises, and it pushed Windows manufacturers to compete on design and build quality rather than spec sheets alone. The XPS 13 — with its slightly larger 13.4-inch screen, more speakers, better Wi-Fi, keyboard backlighting and lighter all-metal body — is one answer, and HP's OmniBook 5 and Lenovo's IdeaPad Vibe are close behind. Whoever wins this round, buyers come away with better-built budget laptops than existed a year ago.

Further reading: CNET's report on the deal and the Dell XPS line.