The end of an era: Dell will no longer make XPS computers
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Hope it works out for them. I was a big fan of the XPS line and they were my default PCs and laptops before I transitioned to Macs.
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So, when I buy a workstation, should I go for a Pro Max Base or for a Pro Plus?
I am actually slightly worried about their high-end workstations. They already reduced their rackable offerings quite a lot, and the latest desktops leave a lot to be desired (hard to get good 2-CPU desktops, for example; I would love a dual-Epyc desktop or rack with some room for 3 or 4 GPUs). Surprisingly, a Mac Pro is quite competitive in terms of flops/€. It would be a no brainer if it could take discrete GPUs.
I am actually slightly worried about their high-end workstations. They already reduced their rackable offerings quite a lot, and the latest desktops leave a lot to be desired (hard to get good 2-CPU desktops, for example; I would love a dual-Epyc desktop or rack with some room for 3 or 4 GPUs). Surprisingly, a Mac Pro is quite competitive in terms of flops/€. It would be a no brainer if it could take discrete GPUs.
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So there's:
- Standard
- Standard Plus
- Standard Premium
- Pro
- Pro… Plus?
- Pro… Premium?
- Pro Max
- Pro Max Plus?
- Pro Max Premium?
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StarturnCaproc
Ars Centurion
What's in a name huh?
It's always better to have an easily distinguished line up instead of pulling an Xbox and confusing everybody.
As much as I personally dislike their usage in general, they're lowkey genius branding. But seriously everything is Pro nowadays, we truly live in the 'bar getting lower' era.
It's always better to have an easily distinguished line up instead of pulling an Xbox and confusing everybody.
As much as I personally dislike their usage in general, they're lowkey genius branding. But seriously everything is Pro nowadays, we truly live in the 'bar getting lower' era.
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Ugh, so the base line is just called "Dell"? I hate that. Hey, what's your PC? It's a Dell. Dell what? Dell Dell.
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I have no particular love for Dell but their boxes tend to deliver as expected without surprises, and their product naming scheme has been consistent for quite a while. I hope it’s just a one-off and that they won’t change it every year. Actually, they can change it if they remove some tiers.
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Lets be honest. Technical users will muddle through the options to purchase what they want. The rest on the non-technical world will just buy whats in their price range and the vast majority of them couldnt tell you what they bought a month after they started using it.
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Don't forget the laptop vs. tower options for a subset of those tiers. That appears to be what they're showing in the blue graphic and brings us to 14 options before we've even gotten to the hardware specs.
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No, the base line is a Dell Base, with Dell Pluses being slightly better. Yeah, it’s awkward. Not quite as much as Intel core ultra core cores i18 cores, but still…
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They'll eventually F this up too and you'll end up with Pro Max Plus 5790X. Which will have lower specs than the Pro Premium 9730Я
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Will the "enterprise-grade" equipment still be built to minimum viable product standards and break constantly if not constantly babied (though they are pretty easily repaired by relatively low level techs)? Because that's the reputation Dell would be trying to maintain at my institution at least.
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Strong bid by Dell to score "stupidest branding move of the year" this early in January. Respect.
Seriously - entire generations of IT shops know and understand the current branding and how to pick the right systems for the right need. Now we get some vaguely-differentiated good/better/best/xxtreme business? Idiocy.
Seriously - entire generations of IT shops know and understand the current branding and how to pick the right systems for the right need. Now we get some vaguely-differentiated good/better/best/xxtreme business? Idiocy.
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Because a similar naming "standard" worked out so well for letting users know what that USB port/cable/device could do?
Did Dell hire that former Bud Light marketing lady?
Did Dell hire that former Bud Light marketing lady?
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I'm actually still using a XPS 13 from early 2017. Its saving grace is supporting USB-C charging and docking, since the normal charger port finally went wonky. <2 hours battery life left, but otherwise perfectly functional.
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At my org we are in a constant slow-motion fight to simplify product lines into something a human can digest without a sales conversation. I’m not saying this branding isn’t silly (Pro Max was stupid on the iPhone and it’s stupid here), but they are at least trying. Have to give them that.
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PC laptop lines are notoriously fragmented and absurd. How can you possibly need multiple completely independent lines of products, all with significant overlap? It makes shopping for one difficult, even when you know what you're doing.
Contrast to Apple...it is difficult to NOT immediately find a laptop suitable for you. How big do you want it? Okay for that size you have 1 or 2 options at most (not including customization). The product line is unambiguous. There is no paradox of choice because they don't have many overlapping products. The "worst" was having a 13" Air and a 13" MBP but even then, the Air's whole thing was battery life which is something average consumers understand. Want more battery? Air. Wanna run more shit? Pro. That's it. That's your decision making process.
It's astonishing to me how PC laptop makers aren't just following Apple's model. They've been showing everyone for YEARS exactly how to have a product lineup but everyone else keeps having stupidly fragmented product lines that are difficult to navigate. My god the last time I went to buy a laptop I was just incredibly confused by all the options on the Asus and Dell websites.
And we aren't even talking about how their sites have insane ads for the other products of theirs, while you are already looking at their products...
It's just another example of how incredibly stupid industries can be. PC manufacturers don't have fragmented product lines because they crunched the numbers and ran market experiments. It's because of lack of corporate vision, company infighting, and just plain incompetence.
Seems like they tried to copy Apple but then ended up with 9 fucking product names anyway, so good jorb you guys
Contrast to Apple...it is difficult to NOT immediately find a laptop suitable for you. How big do you want it? Okay for that size you have 1 or 2 options at most (not including customization). The product line is unambiguous. There is no paradox of choice because they don't have many overlapping products. The "worst" was having a 13" Air and a 13" MBP but even then, the Air's whole thing was battery life which is something average consumers understand. Want more battery? Air. Wanna run more shit? Pro. That's it. That's your decision making process.
It's astonishing to me how PC laptop makers aren't just following Apple's model. They've been showing everyone for YEARS exactly how to have a product lineup but everyone else keeps having stupidly fragmented product lines that are difficult to navigate. My god the last time I went to buy a laptop I was just incredibly confused by all the options on the Asus and Dell websites.
And we aren't even talking about how their sites have insane ads for the other products of theirs, while you are already looking at their products...
It's just another example of how incredibly stupid industries can be. PC manufacturers don't have fragmented product lines because they crunched the numbers and ran market experiments. It's because of lack of corporate vision, company infighting, and just plain incompetence.
Seems like they tried to copy Apple but then ended up with 9 fucking product names anyway, so good jorb you guys
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Super Pro Turbo Gold Base Ultra Deluxe HD Remix AI Tournament Platinum Edition
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I'll tell you one thing that is NOT likely to change -- Dell's addiction to proprietary hardware. Let's say you forgot your charger. Well, it's USB C, or looks like it at least. You should be able to plug in anything USB and get some sort of charge from it. But if you do that with a Dell, a window will pop up scolding you for daring to use anything not from Dell and it will refuse to charge. The most recent example of this I discovered when my institution forced me to buy a Dell -- proprietary USB A to C adapters. In both of these cases, the peripheral is chipped and if the computer does not detect the chip, it will refuse to work. I bought 4 A to C adapters for $6 but they don't work. Only the Dell one that came with the computer does. Of course, it has no way to attach it to a keychain or anything else so it will eventually get lost. Never fear! Dell will sell you a brand new one for the low low price of $25.
Screw Dell. Just say no. And if anyone from Ars is listening, all of your reviews should contain information about these sorts of things. Had I known that, I never would have bought an XPS 13.
Screw Dell. Just say no. And if anyone from Ars is listening, all of your reviews should contain information about these sorts of things. Had I known that, I never would have bought an XPS 13.
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Ah, no, they're supposed to ape Apple's branding because that's what Mac using shareholders want them to do. Still the same old cost cutting and banged together crap underneath.
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This isn't for IT shops, it's for consumers.
And if you work in IT and cannot figure out a rebrand? I don't even know what to say.
Pro Max is a dumb name. You just KNOW someone said, "why not call it Max, just regular, pro, and max" and someone said "but then professionals will think max isn't for them!" Or some other stupid logic.
But having a product line reduced to just low/mid/high makes a ton of sense.
Edit: I just looked again and there's fragmentation even within those designations. Yeah it's dumb.
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++
My work Dell actually took USB-C just fine with minor complaint (windows taskbar popup) until a software update, at which point it wouldn't even talk to another USB-C adapter. Worked fine the entire time (as well as any Dell at least, inexplicably hot and slow doing nothing) for years.
They are anti-customer and unreliable.
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learned a good while ago that if you want a real laptop, you get whatever model they sold in bulk to enterprise, everything else is a losing gamble
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And copying them badly. Apples products still have names! You don’t buy an “Apple phone pro max” or an Apple Base laptop”. It’s hard to believe that Dell will actually roll it out that way. Ther must be more detail to come.
It’s crazy that after decades of selling computers Dell feels like none of these brands have enough value to hold on to. Can you imagine Apple tossing the “MacBook” brand? Or Toyota deciding tobstsrt selling the “Toyota Premium Car” instead of a Lexus?
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I mean, they tossed the iBook/Powerbook brand..And copying them badly. Apples products still have names! You don’t buy an “Apple phone pro max” or an Apple Base laptop”. It’s hard to believe that Dell will actually roll it out that way. Ther must be more detail to come.
It’s crazy that after decades of selling computers Dell feels like none of these brands have enough value to hold on to. Can you imagine Apple tossing the “MacBook” brand? Or Toyota deciding tobstsrt selling the “Toyota Premium Car” instead of a Lexus?
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I have the original 15" XPS (i7-6700). It was a revelation at the time. A perfect* example of what a non-mac laptop could be. Slick-looking with premium fit and finish, but still can take a drop. Powerful yet svelte. Comfortable to type on. It's even very repairable! It's the best windows laptop hardware I've owned. It's still fine today running Windows 11 incredibly well. 95% of PCs still don't have a screen that compares.
* Looking at you up-your-nose-webcam.
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When I was briefly flush, I treated myself to a more expensive laptop then usual, an XPS 15 9575
By a long margin, the worst laptop I've ever used, with innumerable hardware flaws including a nosecam under the screen, a battery which swelled after a year or so, keycaps which broke, and BSODs all over the shop.
Happy AMD Framework user now
By a long margin, the worst laptop I've ever used, with innumerable hardware flaws including a nosecam under the screen, a battery which swelled after a year or so, keycaps which broke, and BSODs all over the shop.
Happy AMD Framework user now
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