Back at CES 2025, Dell shook things up by retiring long-running series like XPS and Vostro in favour of a cleaner, more straightforward lineup, namely the Dell Pro and Pro Max series. While Dell’s new AI-powered laptops have already made their way to India, we’ve only recently gotten the chance to go hands-on with one of them. Here, we have the Dell Pro 14, a machine that, at least on paper, appears tailor-made for the modern professional.
It’s powered by AMD’s new Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 processor, bringing together solid multi-core performance, a surprisingly capable integrated GPU, and a dedicated NPU designed for local AI tasks. Add to that a clean, business-ready design, a well-rounded port selection, dependable battery life, and Dell’s tried-and-tested support network, and this laptop checks a lot of the right boxes. But does all of that translate into a truly great everyday machine for remote workers, office users, and road warriors alike? Let’s find out.
Note: Our review unit of the Dell Pro 14 was seeded to us by Dell India. This specific configuration isn’t available in India yet. However, the same laptop is available with Ryzen 5 220 for ₹69,890.
Table of Contents
Design and Display
Starting off with the design, at first glance, the Dell Pro 14 looks exactly like what a business laptop is supposed to look like. Instead of flashy branding and RGB lights, what you get is a minimal, all-business exterior that leans into simplicity. It’s clean, durable, and surprisingly compact. Dell has gone with a premium plastic build here with a metallic finish on top, which feels sturdy without adding unnecessary bulk.
The laptop comes in a platinum silver colourway, with the Dell branding at the back, and that’s about it. It tips the scale at 1.3kg, fits snugly into a work backpack and doesn’t scream for attention in meetings, making it a portable package that appeals to most users. The laptop also meets MIL-STD-810H certification, meaning it can handle the usual knocks, bumps, and hot-desking chaos of modern work life.
As the name suggests, the laptop features a 14-inch display, but it uses a modern 16:10 aspect ratio, which most professionals would admire. The extra vertical space makes reading emails and working on Excel sheets just a little more bearable.
Brightness peaks at 300 nits, which is fine indoors and in shaded outdoor areas. It’s not the most colour-accurate display out there with just 45% of NTSC coverage, so designers and video editors might want to plug in an external monitor. But for general productivity, office work, and light media use, it’s crisp enough.
The same thing goes for content consumption as well. The display is decent enough, provided you’re in a dim/dark environment. Audio-wise, you get dual 2W stereo speakers that are perfectly serviceable. They’re tuned for clarity rather than bass, so vocals and Zoom calls come through clearly.
Ports, IO, and Connectivity
At around 19mm thick, the Dell Pro 14 isn’t winning any awards for being ultra-slim. However, that chunkier profile pays off in the port department. On the left side, you’ll find a 4.5mm barrel charging port, an HDMI 2.1 output, two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. That’s a solid selection already, but there’s more.
Flip to the right, and you get an RJ45 Ethernet jack along with two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports. Dell could’ve squeezed in an SD or microSD card slot here, especially for creative professionals, but honestly, it’s not a dealbreaker.
What really stands out is that despite being an AMD-powered machine, the Pro 14 features dual Thunderbolt ports, which is a rare and welcome addition. This means faster data transfers, external display support, and better overall versatility. Add to that, the charging setup is flexible, too. While it supports USB Power Delivery, Dell includes a barrel charger in the box, so both Type-C ports remain free when the laptop’s plugged in. This makes it extremely handy for dockers as well as dongle-haters like me.
As for the webcam, it’s a 1080p shooter capped at 30fps. It’s not ultra-sharp, but it handles HDR well and holds up fine for meetings or classes. There’s also a physical privacy shutter and IR sensors for Windows Hello face unlock. However, if you wish to keep the camera shut, there’s a fast and reliable scanner built into the power button, giving you two solid biometric options to choose from.
Keyboard and Touchpad
Moving on to the keyboard, the Dell Pro 14 features a nice and comfortable deck that is well spaced out, considering the 14-inch chassis. They offer decent travel and feel tactile enough for those long work sessions, as well as short bursts of typing. Whether it’s drafting documents or hammering out emails during a layover, the typing experience is smooth and reliable.
There’s a cool-tone white backlight underneath, which is quite bright, and comes in clutch during those late-night grind sessions. Add to that, it’s a modern AI PC, so as expected, there’s a dedicated Copilot key as well.
As for the touchpad, it’s wide, responsive, and has support for Windows Precision gestures. It’s not the tallest touchpad out there, which means folks with large hands like mine might struggle at first. Thankfully, it’s not a deal breaker. The surface is smooth, which means that scrolling is smooth too, multi-touch works as expected, and there’s a satisfying clickiness to the buttons. No complaints here.
Performance and Battery Life
Now, let’s talk performance, because this is where the Dell Pro 14 really shines. At the heart of this machine is AMD’s Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 processor, an 8-core, 16-thread chip that can turbo up to 5.0 GHz. It’s built on a combination of Zen 5 and Zen 5c architecture and, crucially, includes an NPU capable of 50 TOPS. In plain English? This chip is ready for local AI workloads, no cloud needed.
Before I talk numbers, a quick word about upgradability, since I feel it’s important to highlight that about the Dell Pro 14. The laptop comes with a single stick of 32GB of DDR5 RAM, with the option to easily upgrade up to 64 GB. There’s also a Micron 2500 SSD with 512GB capacity that delivers excellent Gen4 performance. The capacity, however, is a bit on the lower end, as you’d expect at least 1TB at this price point. You can easily upgrade it, but since there’s no additional slot, you will have to let go of this existing SSD.
Now, back to performance. In our synthetic benchmark suite of Cinebench, Geekbench, and PCMark, the laptop performs exceptionally well. For instance, a Cinebench R24 Multi-core score of 741 points and a Geekbench Multi-core score of 10,678 points is similar to most gaming laptops under Rs. 1L, showcasing the processor’s power. Even in GPU benchmarks, the Radeon 860M iGPU performs very well, with decent scores across 3DMark’s benchmark suite.
To give this performance more context, we tested it alongside the ASUS Vivobook 16 (review). Now, while the ASUS model uses the same CPU, minus the “PRO” badge, it actually runs at a higher TDP of 45W, compared to the 28W TDP of the Dell Pro 14. And here’s the catch: despite the “PRO” branding, the Dell doesn’t outperform the Vivobook. In fact, the Vivobook performs slightly better due to the increased power headroom. This might be confusing to buyers, but the “PRO” name here is more about enterprise-level features and power efficiency, not raw performance.
Instead, what the “PRO” branding actually offers is similar performance at a lower TDP. So, unlike the ASUS Vivobook 16, which runs at 45W, the Dell Pro 14 runs at just 28W of TDP. This directly translates to better battery backup. In our testing, the Pro 14 easily lasted an entire workday with decent power to spare. To give you some numbers, in the PCMark 10 Battery Video loop test, the laptop lasted 12 hours and 35 minutes. That’s noticeably higher as opposed to the Vivoboo,k that barely managed 8 hours.
Charging is equally convenient. The 65W adapter can charge the laptop from 0 to 80% in under an hour, and you get the flexibility of using either the USB-C port or the barrel-style charger. So, if you’re already carrying a Type-C charger for your phone, you won’t be stuck hunting for a proprietary plug.
Verdict
The Dell Pro 14 isn’t here to turn heads—and honestly, that’s what makes it such a solid pick. It focuses on the fundamentals: a sturdy build, reliable battery life, a generous port selection, and dependable day-to-day performance. You also get the latest Ryzen AI chipset with local AI processing, plus enterprise-grade security features, making it a great fit for both work-from-home users and office warriors. It’s not built for content creators as it skips the OLED panel and high refresh rates, and the integrated GPU can only do so much. But if you’re after a reliable, no-nonsense machine that’s future-ready for AI workloads and productivity, the Dell Pro 14 absolutely delivers.
That said, the $1,359 (~₹1,20,000) price tag places it in a competitive zone. For around the same amount, buyers in India should also look at the ASUS Vivobook S 14 OLED, which features the more powerful Ryzen 9 HX 370, along with similar battery life, a sleek chassis, and a stunning 1800p OLED display. There’s also the HP Omnibook X, which runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite. It offers comparable performance and even better battery life, though, being ARM-based, there are a few compatibility considerations to keep in mind.
Editor’s Rating: 7.5 / 10
Pros:
- Strong CPU and GPU performance
- Excellent port selection with Thunderbolt 4
- Long battery life for professionals
- Modern design with secure face & fingerprint login options
Cons:
- Display could be brighter and more colour-accurate
- Slightly expensive
