Dell's latest: skinny XPS13, beefy Power Companion laptop battery

There's a saying in laptop land: you can never be too skinny or have too much battery life.

And Dell's clearly been listening to such wise words, as well as to the business travellers and corporate road warriors who make up a large chunk of the PC maker's market.

Exhibit A is the revamped Dell XPS 13, which turned heads and won hearts upon its debut at the January 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

How to make this stunningly sleek but surprisingly powerful Windows ultrabook even more desirable?

An October refresh sees the XPS 13 upgraded to the latest Intel 6th Gen Core processor along with options for more storage and memory (up to a 1TB solid state drive and 16GB of RAM, respectively), an SD Card slot and versatile USB Type-C / Thunderbolt 3 port.

The 13 inch screen now sports a barely-there frame, in what Dell calls "a virtually borderless InfinityEdge display" with a standard  Full HD 1080p panel and optional 3200x1800 touchscreen.

Battery life is rated at up to 18 hours – yes, that's no typo – meaning that even with less aggressive power conservation measures the XPS 13 truly gets you into 'all day battery, leave the charger at home' territory.

Starting price on the new Dell XPS 13 is $1,799.

Dell's also cooked up another piece of travel-friendly kit in its $169 Power Companion battery.

It's a laptop version of those compact smartphone battery packs, designed to keep you working even when your laptop's fuel gauge finally hits 'Empty'.

The compact Power Companion contains a 12,000mAh battery sufficient to give your Dell laptop up to an extra 7 hours of juice. It'll also top up smartphones, tablets or other USB devices through a pair of USB ports.

Follow Australian Business Traveller on Twitter: we're @AusBT

David Flynn

David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.