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My late-aughts XPS is a gem - milled aluminum, edge-to-edge glass, and the best laptop keyboard ever since Ye Olde Thinkpads. The glory days of chasing Apple with a Windows box and almost getting there. *pours 40*
That said, their QE went to shit, they pulled that bullshit RTO to soft-layoff everyone, laid off everyone else directly, and spent a ton to hire non-US replacements who aren’t up to speed so they can leverage the exciting benefits of AI (lol).
I’ll never understand why they didn’t put huge effort into backing linux when micro$oft started making hardware. Well - I know why they didn’t. Because they make poor managerial decisions. C’est ça.
I still remember when XPS was the premiere gaming brand Dell released to compete with the likes of Alienware, only for them to buy Alienware and relegate XPS to a higher budget multimedia catalog.
The names outstayed their welcome, but I cannot applaud them copying Apple’s homework.
I was going to joke Dell killed XPS a long, long time ago already.
The newest generation of xps i shit anyways, good riddance.
i was really happy with my 2019ish xps. But the 2024 one is hot garbage. not just that it arrived with the keyboard not working and Dell taking 3 months to replace it. There’s a total of 2 usb-c ports on it. That’s all the connectors, yes. No, no headphone jack either. And one of those two is taken up with charging, so i’m left with one port if i dont use a dockingstation.
the whole function bar is touch now. you need to hit it 3 times for it to react, who needs Esc anyways. Unless you want to type in the number row, then the function row will pick up random key presses sometimes.
Copilot key no one asked for. Power button is just an unlabelled piece of plastic that looks like filler, not a button. Keyboard sucks in general, too little space between keys, you’re bound to mistype.
linux support is ok, though webcam doesn’t work in firefox, hibernate doesn’t work, every few weeks it’ll just freeze. But otherwise acceptable.
definitely my last dell, i really hate it.
I bought a Precision 5480. Looks like an xps but better. Was so good I bought the 5490 for work a few months later. Would recommend.
Would recommend to not recommend Dell to future buyers, it’s not Apple vs Samsung like in the smartphone options of US.
That’s a very weird take. I didn’t blanket recommend Dell, but a specific model.
I mean… Dell Pro Max ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Is the precision decent for gaming?
I have a precision 3571 and it’s pretty solid, I’ve been using it as my main gaming computer because it’s better than my old PC, it does have a few drawbacks tho.
Pros:- dedicated Ethernet, HDMI, headphone, and 2 USB ports as well as a second USB-c port besides the charging one that can be converted to other things with a dongle - I usually run it with external keyboard, mouse and monitor
- decent battery, can do a few hours of light gaming on just the battery or a full day of just browser
Cons:
- fan intake doesn’t have enough space when sitting on a flat surface and will overheat easily, so I have to elevate it with something to increase the gap of hang it over the side of my desk. This does solve most overheating problems though.
- for some reason helldivers runs way worse than it has any right to, my theory is that their game engine just really doesn’t work with the weird laptop GPU, an RTX A1000
RTX A1000 is a workstation Card, there’s desktop cards with that branding as well. Nvidia has laptop versions of the gaming card, but the Dell business focused ranges are more marketed for ‘mobile workstation’ type stuff, so they get the workstation cards.
Yea that sounds right. It works quite well for most things, just specifically helldivers and/or it’s anticheat absolutely hates it. On lowest settings I get like 30-40fps depending on how much I upscale with freezes every 10 seconds lasting .5-1 seconds. Simply unplayable, so I’ve gone back to using my 1080ti in my pc
Now kill Dell entirely.
Why the fuck did it even take them that long? Alienware acquisition was in 2006.
“Dell shoots itself in the foot and will only realise in 3 years”
I always found the build quality for Lenovo Thinkpads to be better than any of the top tier Dell laptops. Most of the laptops I had in circulation were Dells and the always gave me problems. The Thinkpads just worked.
I never got the allure of Lenovo. the Chinese spyware left a bad taste in my mouth.
I had an X1 years ago bit I’ll take my 9360 over that any day.
The prestige behind the thinkpad brand specifically predates lenovo. They bought it from IBM in '05. AFAIK they’ve always been seen as reliable, well built laptops, albeit a bit pricier.
As far as spyware, with win11 being what it is your options are install Linux or live with it no matter which manufacturer you go with.
I’m pretty sure IBM sold the branding to them since they were already doing the manufacturing. They still do the warranty/maintenance work, though based on the last two call outs I’ve had with their “techs” I might opt for depot repairs or taking it to the local Micro Center for warranty work.
I remember the XPS Was “Ubuntu Certified”
Prepared to be heartbroken ~
How prescient Orwell turned out to be.
Premium Pro Max Doubleplus Good.
When I was reading the article, my mind was high on memes~
At least it will be clear which one is high tier and which is the opposite. Precision and latitude are incomparable except one reads their specs. Also, I assume they aren’t touching G-series and that’s the only one that matters to me:) G15 is just an amazing product.
I mean… Dell Pro Max?
What would you’ve understood if it was Apple Pro Max; a laptop, a desktop, an iPhone or software if not a subscription package?
How though? Is “pro” better than “max”?
Also, how is there a Max Plus ? How about a Most Maxiest model ?
I guess it streamlines the naming a little bit, but it sounds like the mapping of the hardware to the names is still a mess. I’ve used XPS laptops for years, but had already decided my next would be a Framework. This just reinforces that decision.
replacing them with three main product lines: Dell (yes, just Dell), Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max.
PC/Android companies not trying to blatantly rip off Apple challenge: Impossible
Calling a product the same as your brand is like calling a movie “The”. Good luck finding it online.
Intensely dumb.
Not sure which is the dumbest, Jaguar letting go of its signature mark or HBO renaming themselves to just Max but would be funny if Apple abandoned the Max naming for Ultra.
simplified naming scheme with labels like ‘Pro’ and ‘Max.’
How is that “simplified”? Which one is better, Pro or Max?
Actual simplified naming would probably be names like “Basic”, “Business”, “Gaming”, or numbers like what Intel does with Core 3/5/7/9.
I suspect, at some level, that the confusing naming is kind of the point.
What’s the difference between Pro and Max? If the names were clearer, you probably wouldn’t check the website to clear up the confusion.
It nudges potential buyers into interaction with company marketing.
It would be more simple to call some things basic, but it’ll never happen for the same reason food and drinks places have started drifting away from calling things “small, medium, large” and towards the much more stupid “Regular, Large, Extra-Large”. Starbucks goes even more pretentious with it.
You’d be more likely to have something extremely dumb like Premium (shit-tier), Premium Pro (midrange), Premium Ultra (actually premium).
Yeah, sadly everything has to sound fancy. Imo this is partially to blame on consumers, but I do wonder how much of it is basic psychology vs induced demand that could be reversed if a company would stick with sensible product names for a while.
Instead of basic they could also go with something like “essential” or “home” that maybe have slightly less negative associations.
Not saying it’s any better but haven’t you heard of iPhones?
Idk I honestly don’t even know which iPhone is latest anymore, my gut says 8 but I know that there’s also iPhone X which was somehow the first one with an OLED screen and why I remember it.
Last one I owned was the 5S, great phone, but their branding and looks haven’t appealed to me since then.
2025 = iPhone 17 Air Plus Pro Max Ultra
Oh dear. Well thanks!
Neither my wife nor I own any Apple devices, but living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m surrounded by people that do. There’s no need for other companies to copy Apple’s questionable decisions.
Which one is better, Pro or Max?
Dell Pro Max Plus, obviously.
Promax feels like ED pills
You forgot Ultra
I’ll hold out for the Pro Max Ultra
Well that sucks. I haven’t bought an XPS since the Dell XPS 15z like over a decade ago, but still, the idea that I could buy an XPS Developer Edition laptop and have it be Linux compatible without having to think about it was nice. Now I’m limited to ThinkPads and System76 plus whatever other compatible Clevos there are or maybe a Framework, which I guess is fine since I do own multiple ThinkPads.
Still, really weird decision.
Asus ROG series to MSI seems interesting this CES, personally don’t see much problem with compatibility through Pop!_OS
They’re not actually getting rid of the XPS line, they’re just changing the naming convention.
Any of the new Dell models with ‘Premium’ in the name are going to be the same as the Dell XPS line.
