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| The Dell 15 (2026) powered by Arrow Lake-H is in for a review |
Dell has quietly carved out a sweet spot in the laptop market with its daily productivity lineup—positioned perfectly between the premium XPS series and the budget-friendly Inspiron range. Today, the company is officially launching the Dell 15 D15260 (2026) in India, and we’ve already gotten our hands on a review unit. After spending some quality time with this Arrow Lake-H powered machine, here’s what stands out so far.
Built for the everyday grind, not the red carpet
First impressions matter, and the Dell 15 (2026) doesn’t try to fool anyone into thinking it’s a luxury ultrabook. The chassis is predominantly plastic, but that doesn’t translate to flimsy. In fact, the laptop feels reassuringly solid for its price point. Dell offers two colour options: Platinum Silver and Carbon Black—both subtle enough to fit right into an office cubicle or a home desk.
Open the lid (which, by the way, only tilts back to about 130 degrees), and you’ll notice the hinge does something clever—it lifts the rear of the keyboard slightly. That subtle angle makes typing surprisingly more comfortable over long stretches. The keyboard itself is full-sized, backlit, and includes a numpad. Yes, a numpad. Number crunchers and spreadsheet warriors, rejoice.
The precision touchpad responds well to gestures, though it’s not the largest we’ve seen. There’s no fingerprint reader or IR camera on our Indian review unit—Dell says some global configurations may include an optional biometric sensor, but don’t count on it for this price segment.
Portability meets a heavy lid
At just 1.66 kg, the Dell 15 is easy to slip into a backpack and carry around campus or between meeting rooms. That’s a very reasonable weight for a 15-inch daily driver. However, the lid feels disproportionately heavy. You won’t be opening this one with a single finger—the hinge resistance and lid weight demand a two-handed approach. It’s a minor annoyance, but worth noting if you’re constantly flipping the laptop open on crowded trains or coffee shop tables.
Connectivity: functional but dated
Dell has covered the basics here, though you won’t find any cutting-edge ports. The lineup includes:
- One USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A
- One USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C (supports DisplayPort-out and up to 65W power delivery)
- One USB 2.0 Type-A (fine for a mouse or keyboard)
- A 3.5 mm audio jack
- HDMI 1.4-out (limited to 1080p at 60Hz)
That HDMI 1.4 port is the biggest compromise—don’t expect to drive a 4K external monitor at high refresh rates. For most office work and media consumption, 1080p 60Hz is adequate, but creative professionals or multi-monitor power users will feel the pinch.
Wireless duties are handled by a Realtek Wi-Fi 6 card with Bluetooth 5.3. During initial setup, we did experience a few intermittent connection drops. We’ll be stress-testing the Wi-Fi performance thoroughly in our full review, so stay tuned for those results.
Display: 1080p and functional, but colors look flat
The Dell 15 sports a 15-inch 1080p (1920x1080) IPS-like panel with a standard 60Hz refresh rate. Subjectively, colors appear somewhat dull out of the box. This isn’t a display you’d want for photo editing or watching HDR content, but for spreadsheets, document editing, and YouTube, it gets the job done.
We’re currently running full colorimeter tests to measure sRGB and DCI-P3 coverage, as well as peak brightness and contrast ratios. Expect those detailed display benchmarks in our upcoming comprehensive review.
Under the hood: Arrow Lake-H arrives in a mid-ranger
Here’s where things get interesting. The Dell 15 D15260 is powered by Intel’s new Arrow Lake-H processors—specifically the Core Ultra 5 225H and Core Ultra 7 255H variants. Our review unit came with the Ultra 5 225H paired with 16 GB of DDR5-5600 RAM and a 512 GB NVMe SSD (note: US variants go up to 1 TB, but India gets 512 GB at this price point).
There’s a catch, though: the memory is configured in single-channel (one 16 GB module). That’s a potential bottleneck, especially in GPU-integrated workloads where memory bandwidth matters immensely. We’re curious to see how the Arc graphics integrated into the Core Ultra 5 225H performs with only a single channel feeding it. Gaming and creative tasks may take a noticeable hit compared to dual-channel setups.
If you’re in the market for the higher-specced version, you can buy the Dell 15 D15260 with Core Ultra 7 255H on Amazon right now.
Pricing and availability in India
Dell India has priced the 2026 Dell 15 aggressively. The base model with the Core Ultra 5 225H, 8 GB RAM, and 512 GB SSD starts at ₹69,699 and is available exclusively via Dell.com at launch.
The company confirmed to us that the Dell 15 (2026) will roll out globally, but as of this writing, it hasn’t appeared on Dell’s US or German online stores. India appears to be one of the first markets to get this model—a sign of how important the sub-₹80,000 productivity segment has become for OEMs.
Early verdict: Promising, with a few red flags
So far, the Dell 15 D15260 (2026) looks like a solid mid-range contender. You get a well-built chassis, a comfortable keyboard with numpad, decent portability, and next-gen Arrow Lake-H silicon at a reasonable price. But the single-channel memory, dull display, and older HDMI 1.4 port raise questions about long-term value.
Will the Core Ultra 5 225H’s integrated GPU be hamstrung by that memory bottleneck? Can the Wi-Fi 6 card hold a stable connection under load? And just how accurate is that display, really?
We’ll answer all of that and more in our full review coming very soon. For now, if you’re hunting for a no-nonsense daily driver and don’t mind making a few compromises, the Dell 15 (2026) deserves a spot on your shortlist.
Source: Notebookcheck’s first impressions of the Dell 15 D15260 (2026)
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