Dell vs. HP: Which laptop brand is better?

Dell and HP are two of the biggest laptop brands for good reason. They both make plenty of great PCs, and whether you’re buying a laptop for school, work, gaming, everyday productivity, or all of the above, you’ll find lots of good machines from both brands.

Seriously, no brand is best in all situations! That’s what we’ve seen throughout our laptop reviews. The best brand for you depends on what you’re looking for, the type of laptop you’re buying, and the prices you can afford — and the right laptop sale could change the whole calculus.

You’ll find a mix of both Dell and HP laptops, plus laptops from many other manufacturers, on our best laptop list here at PCWorld. But there’s a lot to be said for comparing these brands. So, let’s take a closer look.

Both Dell and HP offer a wide range of different laptops for different needs, from budget picks to premium stunners.

Dell offers a variety of laptop lineups. Until recently, it was broken down as XPS laptops for the premium line, with Latitude and Inspiron laptops for business and consumer use, respectively. Starting in 2025, however, Dell scrapped that naming convention ostensibly to be more simplified, but you be the judge. Still, the same range of performance and prices remains.

HP rebranded its laptop lineup in May 2024. Now, it offers OmniBook laptops for consumers and ProBook and EliteBook laptops for business use. You’ll still find older HP laptops with names like Spectre, Dragonfly, and Envy, but HP’s forward naming scheme is greatly simplified.

For gaming laptops, Dell has consolidated all of its offering under the Alienware brand. HP offers gaming laptops under the more premium Omen line as well as the more value-priced Victus branding.

Dell laptops tend to be more configurable than HP laptops at the point of sale — at least if you’re buying on Dell’s online store. You’ll often find a much wider variety of options and upgrades, including CPU, RAM, GPU, storage, and other hardware components.

This doesn’t matter if you’re buying a prebuilt laptop, of course, nor does it matter if you’d rather grab sales on Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, etc. But if you’re buying straight from the manufacturer, there’s no doubt that Dell’s store is more flexible than HP’s online store.

If you’re shopping for a consumer or business productivity laptop for work, school, or personal use, then rest assured that both Dell and HP offer a wide range of great options.

Whether you’re looking for a Copilot+ PC with special AI features, or a thin-and-light laptop that gets excellent battery life, or a value workstation that provides great performance, both Dell and HP deliver. Both manufacturers offer machines fitted with Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm chips — you’re spoiled for choice here.

As mentioned, Dell’s productivity laptops prior to 2025 were found under the XPS, Inspiron, and Latitude names. Now they are known as Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max models, corresponding to a consumer, business, and workstation focus, respectively. You will also find Plus and Premium models within the Dell consumer category, such as the Dell 14 Premium, which would have previously been the XPS 14.

HP, on the other hand, has simplified its offerings into the OmniBook line for consumers and EliteBook and ProBook lines for businesses. You’ll still see older Spectre, Envy, and Dragonfly machines floating around, too.

Each manufacturer offers a wide range of laptops under these names, making it difficult to compare. For example, if you want a 2-in-1 laptop with a 360-degree hinge, check out the HP OmniBook X Flip 14 (at HP) and the Dell Plus 14 2-in-1 (at Dell).

For a classic clamshell laptop experience, we like the Dell 16 Plus (at Amazon) and give it a high score. But I was also impressed with the HP EliteBook 8 G1a (at Amazon) when I went hands-on with it.

For business users, Dell offers a wide range of laptops, now under the Dell Pro line (previously Inspiron and Latitude). while HP offers a large number of ProBook and EliteBook laptops as well. With a wide variety of prices and hardware configurations, it’s hard to pass judgement on either laptop manufacturer as a whole in this area.

However, it’s worth noting that neither Dell nor HP are considered as premium in the business laptop space as Lenovo’s range of high-end ThinkPad business laptops, which tend to offer better keyboards and other high-end touches — at a higher-end price, of course.

When shopping, be sure to compare laptop to laptop. Neither laptop manufacturer has the best entry in every category, and the winner may vary from year to year and model to model.

For premium gaming laptops, Dell offers Alienware-branded laptops while HP offers Omen-branded laptops.

I’ve used both Alienware and Omen laptops. Both tend to have premium build quality with lots of metal in their laptop chassis. Some people may even say that Alienware laptops have better build quality than Omen laptops on the whole, but I’m not sure that’s true these days. Based on my hands-on experience, Alienware and Omen laptops with similar hardware at similar price points are pretty comparable.

That said, Alienware does tend to offer more expensive and higher-end options that Omen laptops usually can’t match. For example, you can get a massive 18-incher like the Alienware 18 Area-51 while Omen tops out at 17.3 inches.

High-end Alienware machines like the Alienware 16 Area-51 (at Dell) offer premium features like a mechanical keyboard and lots of high-end touches. And keeping with Dell’s configurability, it’s easier to find an Alienware machine with Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics or upgrade a laptop to an Intel Core i9 CPU if you want to go all-out.

HP’s Omen line has more compact and portability-focused options, with a few 14-inch models. Alienware doesn’t currently offer a 14-inch gaming laptop.

Overall, Alienware is focused on larger and higher-end gaming machines. If money was no object and I was looking at both Alienware and Omen machines, I’d lean towards high-end Alienware machines. But at the “mid-range premium” price point for gaming laptops, both HP Omen and Dell Alienware offer many competitive options.

No laptop is perfect, of course, and every machine has its downsides. When comparing gaming laptops, it’s more important to compare laptop to laptop, looking for reviews of the specific machines you’re interested in. That’s what it will come down to.

For more budget-focused gaming laptops, HP has the edge with its Victus line of laptops, since Dell no longer offers its comparable G series of budget gaming laptops.

Expect more plastic and less metal from Victus. The designs also aren’t as “gamer-focused,” with fewer LEDs and less RGB bling. They may have other trade-offs like shorter-than-usual battery life and a mediocre keyboard, too.

Still, we’ve given machines like the HP Victus 15 (at HP) solid ratings here at PCWorld. It delivered strong gaming performance at a good price in our hands-on tests — and that’s exactly what you’d want from budget gaming laptops like these.

Again, it will come down to the difference between each individual laptop. And sales may muddle things further, possibly making a more premium Alienware or Omen laptop a better deal to snatch.

When it comes to Chromebooks, HP offers a wider range of options as of this writing. HP offers the mid-range HP Chromebook Plus (at Amazon) with an Intel Core i3 processor, which provides a higher-quality experience if you plan on using your Chromebook as your main laptop.

Dell only has a single Chromebook model currently, focused on providing a low-cost option for education.

Both Dell and HP are solid laptop manufacturers that make a variety of good laptops, and both are good choices for your next laptop. Neither manufacturer consistently bests the other in our laptop reviews.

Each has lots of different products though, so take care when shopping. Look at reviews and comparisons for specific laptop models rather than particular brands or product lines. We’ve given high scores and low scores to both, so neither brand is a sure-fire winner.

Still feel like you need some guidance? Dive straight into our recommendations for the best Chromebooks, best laptops under $500, best gaming laptops, and today’s best laptop deals!