At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros An all-around capable laptop Lunar Lake on a budget Solid value Cons Battery life could be better Worse multithreaded performance than last year’s model Touch screen isn’t standard Our Verdict The Dell 16 Plus is a solid laptop with great real-world performance at a good price — especially if you can catch it on sale. But Intel’s Lunar Lake chip drags down multithreaded performance. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Dell 16 Plus Retailer Price $1,119.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket The Dell 16 Plus is a 16-inch laptop that delivers good performance and a solid all-around experience at a reasonable price. The Dell 16 Plus is a laptop designed for the real world — it’s well-designed, but it clearly won’t turn any heads or win any awards for expensive high-end touches. If you’re looking for a 16-inch workhorse, it’s a good choice. That’s especially true because you’re getting Intel’s latest Lunar Lake processors here, while other laptops at this price range will often have previous-generation CPUs. In 2025, Dell axed its XPS, Inspiron, and Latitude brands. Now, it’s all consolidated everything under a single brand. The Dell 16 Plus seems like it’s the spiritual successor to last year’s Dell Inspiron 16 Plus. Dell 16 Plus: Specs The Dell 16 Plus is a 16-inch laptop with an Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) processor — Intel’s Lunar Lake hardware, in other words. Our review model had an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V processor along with 16 GB of RAM and Intel Arc 140V graphics. Since this is Lunar Lake, you get a neural processing unit (NPU) for AI tasks and Copilot+ PC features in Windows. Dell says this model retails for $1149, but the Dell online store is selling it for $799 as I’m wrapping up this review. Dell has also pointed out this PC has been on deeper sales recently, going for as low as $699 on Dell’s online store. That’s a serious value considering this machine has a modern Intel Lunar Lake processor, while other laptops in that budget range will usually have previous-generation hardware. This machine is also available with a variety of other CPU configurations — from an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V processor up through an Intel Core Ultra 9 288V processor. You also have different RAM, storage, and display options. While our review model didn’t have a touch screen, this machine is also available with a touch screen. Model number: DB16250 CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 256V Memory: 16GB LPDDR5x RAM Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc 140V NPU: Intel AI Boost (up to 48 TOPS) Display: 2560×1600 IPS display Storage: 1 TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD Webcam: 1080p webcam with physical privacy shutter Connectivity: 2x USB Type-C (One Thunderbolt 4, and one USB 3.2 Gen 2), 1x USB Type-A (USB 3.2 Gen 1), 1x HDMI 2.1 out, and 1x combo audio jack Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Biometrics: Fingerprint reader and IR camera for Windows Hello Battery capacity: 64 Watt-hours Dimensions: 14.05 x 9.87 x 0.67 inches Weight: 4.12 pounds MSRP: $1,149 as tested The Dell 16 Plus is a laptop designed for the real world — it’s well-designed, but it clearly won’t turn any heads or win any awards for expensive high-end touches. Dell 16 Plus: Design and build quality IDG / Chris Hoffman The Dell 16 Plus is well designed and solid. It’s a little on the heavy side at 4.12 pounds, but it’s also a little on the larger side at 16 inches, so that makes sense. The 0.67-inch thickness is very reasonable, and the laptop doesn’t feel particularly thick. The chassis is made from a combination of materials — aluminum on the lid and base and plastic on the palm rest and bezel. The plastic feels nice — it has a slightly matte texture. The hinge works well, and it opens to 180 degrees so you can lie this machine flat. As you rotate the hinge open, the back of the laptop (the part near the hinge) tilts up, and that angle helps you type comfortably. The “Ice Blue” color scheme here looks a lot like silver to me — with a bit of a blue sheen in the right lighting. This machine has good build quality — there’s nothing bad about it. But it doesn’t have the high-end touches (all metal, or super lightweight carbon fiber or ceramic-based “ceraluminum“) that high-end, more expensive machines deliver. Dell 16 Plus: Keyboard and trackpad IDG / Chris Hoffman The Dell 16 Plus has a good keyboard. The key travel feels good and there’s a crisp “clicky” action when I press down on them. It’s responsive and nothing feels mushy. There’s also a white keyboard backlight you can use. The inclusion of a full-size number pad at the right side of this 16-inch laptop keyboard always feels a little divisive. On the one hand, many people choose 16-inch laptops so they can have a full-size keyboard with a number pad, and that input method is particularly useful for certain workflows — if you spend a lot of time using spreadsheets or otherwise entering numbers. On the other hand, some people aren’t fans of the number pad and may prefer a laptop without one. Personally, I like to see a number pad on a 16-inch laptop where there’s room for one. The touchpad is nice and large, and it feels responsive. I do think a nice glass-surface touchpad feels smoother to glide your finger over — this is a plastic surface — but it’s a large and responsive touchpad. The model we received doesn’t have a touchscreen, so keep that in mind — if you want that, you’ll have to hunt down a Dell 16 Plus model that does have one or choose a different laptop. I do prefer having a touch screen — just as an option — but I know many people don’t care. Dell 16 Plus: Display and speakers IDG / Chris Hoffman The Dell 16 Plus we reviewed has a 16-inch 2560×1600 IPS display with an anti-glare coating and up to 300 nits of brightness along with a 120Hz refresh rate. That’s a good resolution and I was pleased to see a higher-than-60Hz refresh rate here. The anti-glare coating works pretty well, and it helps make up for the slightly dim display. But it’s perfectly readable inside. Even with harsh sunlight, the anti-glare coating does a good job and ensures you don’t need to crank up the brightness just to see the screen. The display looks fine — it’s a perfectly serviceable display. But it’s an entry-level display. For this review, Dell also provided me with a Dell 16 Plus model with a higher-end display so I could compare the options. Specifically, they loaned me a model with a touchscreen and a mini-LED display with 600 nits of minimum brightness — model number DB16250. This model looks great: The colors were noticeably more vivid, and it was noticeable even on the default desktop background. However, that’s a pricier display, and it also has a glossy coating that produces more reflections. The Dell 16 Plus has a dual-speaker setup that produces clean, clear audio with a fairly loud maximum volume. I don’t hear any distortion at the maximum volume, so this is a good speaker setup. It isn’t a high-end speaker configuration, naturally: I test all the laptops I review with both Steely Dan’s Aja and Daft Punk’s Get Lucky. The instrument separation in Aja wasn’t as crisp as you’d hear on the kind of speakers audiophiles love, and the punchy bass in Get Lucky was lacking. But that’s standard for laptop speakers, and these are solid speakers for the price range. I always want to pair a good pair of headphones or external speakers with my laptops. Dell 16 Plus: Webcam, microphone, biometrics IDG / Chris Hoffman The Dell 16 Plus has a 1080p webcam with a physical webcam shutter, and that’s always a great privacy feature to see! The webcam itself is clear enough — there’s more visual noise than I’d expect to see on the kind of high-end webcam you often see on business laptops, but it’s more than good enough for online meetings and video calls. Dell says the dual-array microphone setup here has AI noise reduction. In practice, the microphone sounds unexpectedly good, with clear audio and solid noise cancellation of PC fans whirring away in my office. The Dell 16 Plus model we reviewed has both a fingerprint reader at the top-right corner of the keyboard and an IR camera for facial recognition. Having access to both types of biometrics is particularly impressive at this price range. Dell 16 Plus: Connectivity IDG / Chris Hoffman The Dell 16 Plus’s connectivity is decent but a little lacking. On the right side, this machine has a combo audio jack along with a USB Type-A (USB 3.2 Gen 1) port. On the left side, it has an HDMI 2.1 out port along with two USB Type-C ports — one of them supports Thunderbolt 4 and one supports USB 3.2 Gen 2speeds. While the ports are clearly labeled and it’s nice to have Thunderbolt 4 as an option, it would be nice if they were both Thunderbolt 4 ports. This machine charges via USB-C. Since that’s the case, you’ll always have to plug the charger into a port on the left side. That’s a little annoying. You’d have more flexibility if Dell had put a USB Type-C port on each side. All in all, this is a limited port selection for a 16-inch laptop. It’s not hard to imagine that many people would want more ports — for example, a second USB Type-A port or even a microSD card reader. You can always get a dongle or dock, but be aware that you may have to if you need a lot of peripherals. Thanks to Lunar Lake, this machine is future-proof with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support, which is great to see. Dell 16 Plus: Performance The Dell 16 Plus provided good performance in desktop productivity apps — Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Word, Slack, and all the usual apps I find myself using all day. Lunar Lake systems deliver good performance in real-world desktop usage. As always, though we ran the Dell 16 Plus through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs. IDG / Chris Hoffman First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With an overall PCMark 10 score of 7,229, the Dell 16 Plus delivered solid performance — lower only than systems with faster CPUs. IDG / Chris Hoffman Next, we run Cinebench R20. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. Since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage. That’s what we saw here — systems with Lunar Lake CPUs come in behind. Unfortunately, this is substantially lower multithreaded performance than last year’s Dell Inspiron 16 Plus with its Meteor Lake CPU. IDG / Chris Hoffman We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load. That may be what happened here — the encode process took 1,773 seconds (nearly 30 minutes) to complete the encode process. It lags behind other Lunar Lake-powered systems we’ve tested. IDG / Chris Hoffman Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t a gaming laptop, but it’s still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3Dmark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance. With a score of 3,978, the Intel Arc 140V graphics here delivered excellent graphics performance for integrated graphics. Overall, the Dell 16 Plus delivered perfectly usable desktop productivity performance thanks to Lunar Lake. But Lunar Lake’s big downside — low multithreaded performance in heavy multithreaded workloads — is on full display here. This machine seems to be a bit behind other Lunar Lake-powered systems, and it’s far behind last year’s model on this benchmark. Dell 16 Plus: Battery life The Dell 16 Plus has a 64 Watt-hour battery, which is on the smaller side for a 16-inch laptop. Still, since this machine packs power-efficient Lunar Lake hardware, we’d expect to see it deliver some serious battery life. IDG / Chris Hoffman To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this. The Dell 16 Plus lasted 856 minutes, or just over 14 hours. That’s on the lower side for a Lunar Lake-powered machine, but it’s likely that the combination of a smaller battery and perhaps a display that is sucking more power is contributing to that — it’s tough to say. While you’ll get lower battery life than this in the real world, I don’t think this is a serious issue — a 16-inch laptop that’s over four pounds feels designed to be used at a desk a lot of the time. You can get plenty of time away from an outlet. Dell 16 Plus: Conclusion I like the Dell 16 Plus a lot. But when it comes to value, the price is a big factor: At $1,149 retail, I’m a lot less excited than the $799 or less price I see right now! It’s not just about the internals: Decisions like including both a fingerprint reader and an IR camera show Dell going above and beyond what it needs to at this price range. Looking over the benchmarks, I wasn’t as thrilled as I expected to be: Lunar Lake is all about battery life improvements, but the base Dell 16 Plus uses that efficiency upgrade to drop the battery size. I reviewed last year’s Dell Inspiron 16 Plus with Meteor Lake, which was packing a larger 90 Watt-hour battery, and that machine delivered longer battery life along with stronger multithreaded performance. (Of course, last year’s model is heavier and this new Lunar Lake-powered system has better graphics performance.) It’s true that this system does have an NPU for Copilot+ PC AI features, but Microsoft hasn’t made those a must-have upgrade yet. I wish Intel’s Lunar Lake was more of a no-brainer upgrade. Still, this is a solid PC. At a sale price of $799 or so, none of these concerns feel like they matter. Read...

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Vibe coding is programming by gut feel. You have an idea for a tool, a website, or a repetitive task you want to automate… but instead of enrolling in a coding boot camp or slogging through YouTube tutorials, you fire up an AI chatbot and have it write the code for you. This AI-driven approach to creative coding has exploded in popularity over the past year or two—chiefly because it works. People are building genuinely useful stuff without even knowing what a variable is. I’ve been vibe coding my own apps with AI and I’m absolutely loving it, despite being a relative newbie to coding. But most advice about AI-assisted programming still assumes you want to become a “real” programmer eventually. Because of that, the advice tends to steer you towards professional tools that are overkill for simple projects. You need a different—easier—approach. PROMOTIONLaunch in minutes by vibe coding Turn your ideas into reality with Hostinger Horizons. Build web apps, websites, and custom tools by chatting with the AI – no coding required. Get everything you need to launch and grow including web hosting, domain management and email. Start now Here’s what you really need to start vibe coding your own stuff right now, without any of the BS that only complicates matters. Use an AI chatbot, not an AI-assisted IDE Your first instinct might be to use an AI-assisted integrated development environment (IDE), one that you’ve heard is good for vibe coding, like Windsurf, Cursor, or even Claude Code (which technically isn’t an IDE, but that’s besides the point). All of these tools are built for AI coding, so they’re the best place to start, right? Well… no. These tools are designed to make highly productive programmers even more productive, and that means they assume a level of knowledge that amateur coders—like you and me—lack. Diving into these programs straight away is likely to leave you confused and discouraged. An AI-driven code editor can be powerful, but it’s overkill for an amateur vibe coder. This one starts at $15 per month after a two-week trial.Windsurf Not to mention that AI-powered IDEs are pretty darn expensive, too. While most offer a bit of free use, it’s easy for even uber-casual vibe coders to find themselves in need of a paid plan. Many such IDEs charge based on usage instead of a flat monthly rate, too. As an amateur vibe coder, you’re better off using an AI chatbot. The downside here is that you’ll need to copy-paste code back and forth between the chatbot and your code editor. It’s a bit of a nuisance, but it’s not too bad if your project is small. Choose your AI chatbot carefully When it comes to AI chatbots with programming proficiency, there are several you can choose from. All of the popular ones are good enough to get started, but even so, I have a couple recommendations. Don’t want to spend a dime? Try Google’s AI Studio. This chronically under-appreciated AI tool provides free and effectively unlimited access to Google’s latest Gemini Pro models, which many consider the best in the business without paying a cent. Google AI Studio does have a few downsides. Google will train on your data (most paid services promise they don’t), the interface isn’t the best, and there’s no desktop or mobile version. None of these are serious obstacles for amateur vibe coding, though. A screenshot of a quick data visualization tool I created using Claude.Matt Smith / Foundry But if you’re willing to pay a bit and want an attractive interface with desktop and mobile apps, I recommend Anthropic’s Claude Opus. I like Claude’s Artifacts feature, which breaks code out in a separate interface pane. It can even execute some code (like HTML or JavaScript) to provide a preview in Claude itself, and you can download code to your PC from this pane. Competitors have emulated it with similar features, but I think Anthropic’s implementation remains the best. Stick to popular programming languages Choosing a programming language is a major obstacle for both amateur and experienced programmers. There are hundreds to choose from, dozens of them are mature, and promoters of each tend to have strong opinions, so it’s easy to fall into analysis paralysis. When it comes to vibe coding, though, I recommend that you stick with languages that are both popular and forgiving. That means the usual suspects of JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, HTML, and perhaps C# if you’re feeling saucy. AI does best with these languages because AI models are trained on data from across the web. The more popular the language, the more examples there are to train on—and the more source data to work with, the better the generative results. As for how forgiving a particular language is, it’s an important aspect to consider because you’ll be quicker to get a program up and running even when it has bugs. Some languages, like Rust and C++, have strict syntax and architectural demands that can be a nightmare to debug. Veteran coders are likely to recoil at the idea of willingly accepting bugs in a program, but for beginners, it’s better to have a buggy-yet-functional program than a program that was abandoned because it never worked. Alternatively, you could let the AI choose your language for you. Describe the program you want to create and ask the chatbot to make it in whatever language seems most appropriate. Choose a simple code editor Once you have a chatbot and coding language picked, you’ll need to choose the software you use to edit code. You may feel pushed towards a full-blown programming IDE like Visual Studio, which is admittedly powerful but, again, designed for people who have some knowledge of programming. For casual vibe coding, I recommend a simpler code editor like Notepad++, Sublime Text, or UltraEdit. (My bias is towards Notepad++.) A screenshot of my vibe coded personal website in Notepad++.Matt Smith / Foundry Code editors lack the comprehensive terminal, debugging, and remote development features found in many IDEs. However, code editors still provide a fast, functional, and approachable interface that looks more like the barebones text editors you’ve likely used (e.g., Notepad), and they still provide handy features like code auto-completion. Think small (and reinvent the wheel) Scope creep is a common problem that all programmers face, and it can stop you cold. Big projects are more difficult than small projects, and vibe coding grows more difficult as the size of a project increases. So while it might be tempting to try vibe coding your way to a full-blown 3D game or world-class accounting software, you might want to hold your horses and start small. Very small.  A screenshot of me asking Claude about some enhancements to my tabletop game web app, which is relatively simple and small in scope.Matt Smith / Foundry Here are some great entry-level project examples for vibe coding: Python scripts that automate specific tasks, like scraping web pages for data or filtering documents by various criteria. A single-page personal website or app in HTML and JavaScript. A single-feature app programmed in Python or C#. My first vibe-coded project was a dice-rolling tool with text-to-speech capability for the tabletop strategy game Battletech. It can roll dice and announce the results of a roll, speeding up play. I also vibe-coded my own personal website, a single page of HTML with some JavaScript. Use AI to troubleshoot issues, answer questions, and generate documentation You might be surprised by how quickly AI can help you vibe code basic tools and programs. It’s so easy to pop out a quick Python script, you may find yourself doing it several times a day at one point. However, heavy reliance on vibe-coded projects can lead to another problem: losing track of how each script and program works, and becoming confused by dependencies. For example, Python programs typically don’t work right out of the box. You’ll need to install Python as well as the various libraries that are used to accomplish different things in a script. Not only do you have to figure that out, but if you ever move to another computer, you’ll also have to set up Python and those dependencies on that computer as well. Fortunately, AI is great at solving this problem. Just ask and it’ll provide you with instructions on how to install a new programming language and any related libraries on your computer. This will typically involve a handful of command-line prompts. I also recommend ending every vibe coding session by asking the AI to create documentation that teaches new users how to use the generated program. And when you use AI to modify existing scripts or programs, it’s a good idea to ask for a changelog of everything it does. Documentation will help you remember how your program works and help you get it working when you switch computers. Pick up Arduino and/or Raspberry Pi Python scripts and web pages can be useful, but they lack pizzazz… and that can be discouraging for any new vibe coder. If you want to try programming something that feels more tangible and exciting, then I recommend picking up an Arduino and/or Raspberry Pi. Going this route is likely to increase your starting costs and will make your vibe coding journey more complicated. You’ll need to buy some hardware and most likely a soldering iron. You’re also going to need to pick up some skills that AI can’t help with, like soldering. A Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W hooked up and ready to tinker with.Raspberry Pi While you can use AI to suggest Arduino and/or Raspberry Pi projects, I recommend picking a tutorial that already exists, like this Raspberry Pi Pico W weather station by ExplainingComputers. The tutorial explains the basics, of course, but the AI chatbot can further explain concepts that you don’t quite understand and handle edge cases. For example, I had a different temperature sensor than the one in the tutorial, so I had to wire it differently than how it was shown and make changes to the code to identify my sensor. With the help of AI, I was able to make the required changes in just 15 minutes. Further reading: Practical Raspberry Pi projects anyone can do PROMOTIONLaunch in minutes by vibe coding Turn your ideas into reality with Hostinger Horizons. Build web apps, websites, and custom tools by chatting with the AI – no coding required. 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